the mods have removed the ban on my account, so I'm going to continue the update. I already started posting Part 7, so I'll just go from there. StLukesLAG is one of the multiple accounts I created the last time I was having this antispam bot issues and I tried to use another account to post. I guess it made sense with the other story because that story was based in a school called StLukes so people would still know that I was the one posting. Anyway, it's still me, just ignore the part 7 I posted with that account. I posted that because my earlier post had been deleted. Now the mods have reposted that, so I'll just continue from there. Thanks for the patience everyone! Let me continue posting my super-long update Christmas gift for all of you

Part 7 continued....

 
My bear. When had the bear become mine? I shook my head.

It did not take long to see the samu. It sat as it had been, perched at the bottom of the cart, by the imp who’d yelled for me to stop. I pulled my dagger out of its sheath and threw it at the samu.

The imp heaved a sigh of relief. It placed its hands on the wooden rails of the cart and I watched as the form was taken away, reducing the cart to goo underneath the feet of the imps that had been imprisoned in it. The imp had pansophy then.

“Thank you sirga.” The imp said.

I flinched at the word ‘sirga’. That title brought back too many memories of a port I wanted to forget. Well, I at least wanted to forget most of it. Sirga? I frowned, from an imp. My focus shifted back to the imp. I could tell from the way that the others huddled closer to it, that it was their leader. I counted seven imps. Three of them had the appearance of imp young, two seemed much older than the imp they huddled around. Five out of the seven were naked. The leader held the hilt of my dagger in its hand. I watched as the imp opened its hand and a cyan box formed in it. Pansophy, I deduced. As soon as the imp began to use the magic, I saw the samu’s tail twitch.

“It is not dead.” I muttered.

“Samu cannot die.” The imp replied. “They are made from imps.”

I frowned at that. “How?” I wondered.

“By a clever maker. A pious named Animaton.”

Animaton. The name was familiar. It sounded like the name of the uspec whose eye I’d been tasked with taking. Yet, it was different. I expected the voice in my head to choose that moment to remind me of its decree that I retrieve the eye it wanted, but there was no voice. My head was quiet. I thought there was something portentous about the absence of the voice, but I could not name it.

The chill of the drifting fogs was starting to register on me.

The imp’s box formed around the samu, imprisoning the creature. It yanked my dagger out, before completely sealing the box.

“Your dagger sirga.” It said, handing the weapon back to me.

Blood stained the blade. I wiped that blood off on my torn cloak as I continued to regard the imp. “Why do you call me sirga?” I demanded.

“What would you prefer?”

“Domina is the common reference.” I stated drily. The pain in my thigh was becoming something that I could no longer ignore. I tried to shift, put too much weight on the bad leg, and found myself sliding in the sludge. I fell and the solid ground underneath the sludge pushed the dagger deeper into my leg.

I yelled out a howl of pain.

The earth shook as the furry beast ran towards me. The smoke bear I was starting to think of as my own appeared behind me. I turned my head enough to watch it sit. Heat emanated from the red creature, like warmth from an inferno…or from my heated jacket. My gaze darted to that black jacket, the one that I had wrapped around my imp.

Musa.

The imp leader appeared in front of me. It reached out its hands, stretching them towards me, immediately, I moved away.

The imp frowned, but it stayed back, watching as I clumsily maneuvered myself into a sitting position. I leaned heavily against the warm fur of my smoke bear.

“Let me look at your wounds sirga.”

“Why do you call me that?” I snapped. “You are an imp!”

The imp’s sockets stared levelly into my center eye. “I am no slave, I call no one domina.”

The words were so familiar to words Xavier had spoken in the pits that I found myself recoiling. “Who are you?”

A soft smile filled the imp’s face. “I was about to ask you that myself.”

I did not understand this imp’s smile, or the way its features softened as it stared at me. All I knew about the imp was that it had pansophy. “Why did you not take the form from the wood sooner?”

“The samu. It is like the jackals in its hunt for imp flesh. Except, unlike the jackal, it hunts for pansophy in imps. If I had used pansophy, the samu would have attacked me. Once an imp is bitten, there is no recovery.”

The imp’s words filled my heart with sorrow. Again, I felt the emotion, but it was stunted, blocked in a way that I thought had cleared when I felt fear for Musa’s survival.

“Are you alright sirga?”

“Why do you care?”

Frown lines formed on the imp’s forehead. “You are nothing like it.” It muttered.

“Like what?”

“Like Calami.”

I jumped, startled by this imp’s knowledge. “You used pansophy on me!” I reached for my dagger.

“No!” It shook its head.

I pulled out my dagger and pointed the tip at the imp. Suddenly I heard the baying howls of jackals that had grown silent with the arrival of the bears. The jackals growled and howled, with a rabid frenzy. It did not take me long to realize why. The group of imps had approached me from behind. Their presence must have awakened the appetites of the snow jackals, pushing their lust for imp flesh past their fear of the large bears.

My bear trumpeted.

“Please put the dagger away sirga, I can explain.”

“Then explain.” I kept my dagger where it was.

It sighed. “My name is Monica. Calami found me in the mines of Aboga and released me from that gruesome place. I owe my freedom to Calami. It brought me here, to this road, and gave me caches of growth worth a halcyon’s epic. It was kinder to me than most of my own kind have been. Your progenitor helped me find joy in this existence.”

Monica. My mind reached for memories of this imp, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not remember its name. But its story, its story appeared familiar. It was the story of my progenitor bringing this imp here, which had led me to seek this place out.

“What imps accompanied you?”

“Sirga?”

“What imps accompanied you?!” I yelled.

It frowned. “Chike.” It said. Then, “Aaliyah and Zane,” it added after moments of deliberation.

I exhaled. “How did you know Calami was my progenitor?” I asked, as I placed my dagger back into its sheath.

The imps approached non-threateningly now. They formed a circle, seating behind Monica. A smoke bear trumpeted, and the yapping of the snow jackals quieted.

Monica smiled. “You muttered ‘Musa’ in your sleep. When the bandits first brought you in, you were muttering ‘Musa’. I heard that, and I saw the feathers on your ailerons. In my entire lifetime, I have never seen uspecs with feathers as those of the uspecs of your line. Nothing in this existence compares to the beauty of the cyan. That was enough to confirm it. One would have been a coincidence, but two together…” it shook its head. “And if I needed anymore confirmation, it is there in the way the smoke bear is drawn to you. Calami had the same way around the creatures. Calami loved all animals, but there was no bond like that it shared with Jess, its smoke bear.”

“Where did they take Musa?” I demanded.

Its smiling lips inverted. “I do not understand?”

“I came here with Musa. That jacket had been wrapped around the imp.” I pointed at the jacket on the corpse of the uspec I’d killed. “Where is my imp?”

“But…” it shook its head. It turned to the imps behind it and spoke to them in a tongue that I had never heard before. I was forced to watch with mounting levels of dread as the imps conversed. Then Monica’s attention returned to me. “There was no imp with you. The bandits only brought you.”

“Musa.”

“What is wrong sirga?” Monica’s concerned voice prodded. “Please tell me that Musa is alright.”

“I…” my throat turned dry. I had to swallow. “It was bitten by a samu.”

“No!” Monica exclaimed. “Impossible! Musa would never let itself be bitten by a samu. Of all the imps with pansophy I’ve met, Musa is the most careful. It would never use pansophy in the presence of uspecs it did not trust. Musa knows that any uspec with the means to could purchase those creatures. It would not risk it. Why would it risk it?”

My head dropped as countless observations about the imp suddenly came into focus. Musa, the imp with pansophy, who never used the magic. It had not used it in Katsoaru when it could have saved itself from hurt. The only times the imp had used pansophy in the presence of others, was when I was in danger. “To save my life.” I replied.

“I have never seen an imp more loyal to a line.”

I shook my head, but I could not voice the words. It had saved my life without knowing who I was, without knowing that I was the heir it searched for. All of my secrets suddenly seemed foolish. I should have told the imp who I was. I should have told it the first time I knew I could trust it. I should have told it. And why didn’t I? Because I was not ready to be pressured into claiming a title I did not want. Was that worth my imp’s life?

Musa.

“I must find it.” I placed my hand on the sludge ground and tried to push myself up.

“Wait. Let me see to your wounds first.” Monica pleaded. “Musa would not want any harm to come to you.”

I fell back to the floor. My mind darted to Musa. It was still sapping, I knew that. Had it already been sapped past the point of revival? Monica stirred the imps into action. Some of them were sent out of the encampment, others gathered things within. A timid imp brought my cutlass to me, and set it on the floor by my side. While the imps worked, I leaned heavily against the soft fur of the smoke bear. I felt its trunk come down and curl around my neck. The tight hold reminded me of the embrace of the swan’s neck against mine. Bitter-sweet memories of that swan filled me. I stroked the soft trunk as I remembered Marcinus, another person who’d cared for me.

The sudden appearance of cold stones on my thigh, jarred me. I jumped, startled by the hail.

“Pansophy alone cannot heal you sirga. You need a healer. The bandit’s blade was impure. The impurities from that blade mixed with the venom from the snow jackals’ bites. Ordinarily either of those two would fade from your system with time, but the two together have infected you. A pious healer will be able to cure you, but you must go before the infection spreads and you lose the leg.”

“I have to find Musa.”

“You could lose your leg sirga.”

“I have to find Musa.”

It sighed. The imp pushed the hail stones into my skin, until the area around the blade was numb. Then it pulled the blade out, and immediately filled the gash with melted hail.

“The hail will numb the area and slow down the infection’s growth, but it is not a permanent solution. The sooner you see a healer, the higher the chances of your leg surviving.”

“I must find Musa.”

“There is no cure for the samu’s bite sirga. If Musa is bitten, it is already gone.”

“But permafrost…”

The imps muttered, speaking loudly amongst themselves.

“I do not care about your secret hideout. I just want to save my imp.”

“There is no cure for the samu’s bite. But, our elders are working on it. That is why I am here. We were sent to steal the samu from a group of bandits. This pair found us before we could reach our target. Perhaps, if our elders have the samu, they will find a cure. But there is no guarantee that the cure will be done in time to save Musa.”

“If there is a chance, I must try.”

“You are more like Calami than I thought.” It turned around and spoke in the strange tongue to the imps behind it. A small argument ensued, but this argument was silenced by the only other dressed imp. Monica gave the cyan box to that imp, before turning back to face me. “I will accompany you.” It said.

I shook my head.

“You will have two more eyes to aid in your search. Plus, I will be able to apply hail to your wounds. Let me do this for Musa, please sirga.”

I gave in, allowing myself to be swayed by the imp’s words. “Thank you.”

The imp smiled. I placed my hand on the smoke bear’s shoulder and used the bear as a support to push myself to my feet. Then I bent and picked up my cutlass. I’d just put the cutlass in my sheath when I heard the smoke bear’s trumpet.

I frowned at it.

“I think the smoke bear wants to help too.” Monica said. “I think it wants you to ride it.”

The bear bent then, leaning forward so that it was sprawled low enough that I could easily climb onto its back. I sat on the creature’s back. Monica climbed on behind me.

“Be careful Jasper!” Monica yelled as the bear began to move forward, making its way out of the encampment. “Take the marked roads back. No chances.”

The single dressed imp bowed and nodded.

Part 8
-------

The smoke bear’s warmth helped to stave off the chill of the hail, but even with this warmth, I could still hear the chatter of my shivering teeth. With each bounce, I felt a jerk on the wounds of my infected leg and tried not to wince. I would not allow myself to think of what would happen if I lost the leg.

Shun.

I shivered just at the thought of it. If I lost my leg, I would be cast out from society as all imperfect uspecs were, and sent to the isle of shuns. Perhaps, I deserved it. Images of Marcinus flashed in my mind. I’d stolen the uspec’s eye, maybe this was my punishment. Hard pellets fell with punishing thuds against my skin.

“Where are we?” I asked, barely getting the words out through my shivering.

“Close to the isle.” Monica replied. Although dressed in much less than I was, the imp did not seem to be as discomfited by the cold. I credited its strength to its years of experience with the horrid weather. Pleasant thoughts filled my mind of going for a swim in a heated okun.

I felt the imp’s breasts press against my back and immediately jerked forward. I did not care what relationship it had with my progenitor; I would not give it the chance to use its pansophy on me.

“We should be quiet.” It whispered. “This area is rife with bandits.”

“How many?” I whispered back.

“Hundreds.”

“What do they search for?”

“Imps, mostly. The pious do not pay much for us, but these bandits are grateful for every piece of value they can scrounge up. Some of them hunt the wilds, animals in Nefastu, and try to sell them. There is not much money in that, but it is better than nothing. The most lucrative form of business for them is kidnapping. They celebrate whenever an uspec that is not shun, stumbles into Nefastu. Most shunned uspecs are blind. Those uspecs would give their limbs to get an uspec eye.”

“You are well informed.”

“We need to be to survive here.”

It did not speak any further, and I thought it prudent not to push. The silence left me with nothing better to do than dwell on the lack of feeling in my thigh. It got to the point that I poked at my own flesh just to feel the pain of the blue pus running out of my wound. That pain told me that I still had a functioning limb.

“It is supposed to be numb. That is the purpose of the hail melt.”

The imp had used pansophy on me.

“You have no secrets I care about sirga, and even if you did, I would not betray them. I told you, I owe Calami.”

I glared at the back of the bear’s head, choosing to direct my anger at it, rather than the imp seating behind me. If I harmed this imp, I would lose my only lead to Permafrost.

“I do not see Musa.” I said. “Are you sure this is the right way?”

“We are retracing your steps sirga. This is the only route the bandits could have taken from where you were, to the alcove they brought you to.”

The ground was covered with hard rocks and uncouth hail. There was no sign of life. The area we travelled was filled with parasol trees. I saw many of them, just like the trees that the bandits had kept us under. It took us an entire day to map the route that we’d travelled. In that day, I found no trace of my imp.

It was late night when we reached the white hail tree I’d seen the day I stepped into Nefastu.

“We should stop for the night.” Monica offered. “It would give me a chance to put more melt on your wound. Besides, it’s too dark to see anything.”

“I tried sitting by this tree before, it did not work. Too cold.”

“It will be warmer with the bear.”

I did not want to stop, but the imp was right, the red hue of the clouds had deepened the color of the fog, making it impossible to see through. Instinctively, I pulled my thighs closer, tightening my hold on the bear. It seemed to understand my sign, because it stopped moving, sat, and then bent forward so that we could dismount.

The bear’s trunk wrapped around me as I sat with my back against the hail tree. I continued to shiver, but I had to admit that the bear’s warmth greatly increased my chances of surviving the cold. I reached into my belt and pulled out a grain cake Musa had made before we left Chiboga. I’d brought three of them with me, and a few strips of dried nama meat. I hadn’t thought that I would be on this road for more than a few hours, not to talk of a day.

I pulled out the cakes, and gave one to Monica. The other I fed to the smoke bear myself. It felt strange to feed a creature so much bigger than I was. I was just wondering if it could feed itself, when the trunk wrapped around what was left of the meal in my hand, and threw it into the bear’s open mouth.

I chuckled.

“You are close to freezing.” The imp said as it applied the hail melt to my wound. “The bear’s warmth is aiding you, but you cannot survive in these conditions for much longer. You should return sirga, leave the search for Musa to me. I will find it, I swear. Go back to Damejo.”

I shook my head, shivering as I forced bits of dried nama into my mouth. “I cannot.”

The imp sighed. It said nothing, choosing to finish the rest of its remediation in silence. When it was done, it maneuvered to a kneeling position. It bowed till its head touched the floor.

“Sada I exalt you.” It spoke the one umani tongue I understood, the one I had come to think of as most common amongst its kind. “I worship you. With praising lips I thank you for the gift of this day and humbly beseech the peaceful tide of the next.” It kissed the ground and then pulled itself back to a sitting position beside me.

“Praying.” It said, by way of explanation, when it noticed that I had been watching it.

I shivered. The bear inched closer towards me. I felt the grip of the trunk it wrapped around me tighten. “Gratitude bear.”

The imp’s sockets closed. “Perhaps you should name it.” It said through smiling lips.

I was contemplating those words as I fell asleep.

For a second, when I woke, I forgot where I was, and what had become of me. I did not remember the infection slowly eating away at my thigh, or think on Musa’s absence. An ignorant smile formed on my lips. Then a blast of chilled fog drifted past me, bringing me back to the reality of my situation.

I shivered.

I opened my eyes and found Monica kneeling in front of me. It had a worrying frown on its face. “This wound does not look good sirga.”

“Marc.”

“Sirga?”

“Marc. That is what I will name the bear.” The bear trumpeted its approval beside me. I ruffled its fur as I muttered, “if you are the last friend I have, at least you will be named after the best friend I had.” Again, the bear trumpeted. Then, it wrapped its trunk around me, an embrace which felt both odd and fitting.

“We should go.” I said. The bear, sensing my need to rise, bent itself by me. The bear’s sprawled position made it easier for me to climb on without having to worry about putting weight on my thigh. Marc, I corrected myself. No longer just ‘the bear’, but Marc.

I felt the brush of Monica’s tunic against my torn cloak.

Marc rose to all fours. “Forward.” I said, fully aware that the bear could not hear me. “We are going back to where we first met.”

“Musa could be gone sirga.”

I froze on Marc’s back.

“I do not mean to offend you sirga, but I am simply attempting to state a fact. Musa could be gone.”

“Do not say that!” I snapped at the imp. My head swiveled. “If you wish to abandon this search, then do so, but do not say that.”

Monica’s head bent. It nodded.

Chilled fogs continued to drift past us, and hard uncouth hail pellets continued to fall on us as we made our way through paths that looked familiar. We kept going straight, following the path that I had followed on that first long night. I looked around frantically, my desperate eyes scouring the hail ground. It did not matter how thoroughly I searched, I could not find any sign of the imp. Still we continued on. That parasol tree was my last chance. I put all of my hope into that tree. I’d now convinced myself that it had to be there. If it was not on the route that the bandits had travelled when they took me to their encampment, then it had to be back by that tree.

Perhaps the bandits overlooked it. Perhaps they saw the heated coat and reached for it and Musa had fallen out in the process. Musa was sapped, all that had been left of the imp had been its torso. There was nothing on it, save for the streaks on its skin, to hint at it been an imp. And even if they’d realized it was a sapping imp, why would they have taken it? Surely, they would leave a sapping imp be. What good would an imp of that nature do them?

“It would make good meat for their snow jackal hunters.”

Again, I froze. This time, blinded by rage, I turned and wrapped my hand around the imp’s neck. I squeezed. I squeezed so hard that if it was not immortal it would have died.

‘If this will help you accept the truth, then do it.’

The words in my head jarred me. I released the imp, pulling away from it as if stung. The thoughts it had put in my head with its pansophy were gone now, but the memory of it remained with me.

“Forgive me sirga.” Monica said. “But I am only trying to tell you the truth. If the bandits saw your imp, they would have known what it was, the snow jackals would have smelled it. The bandits have no use for an imp who’s been bitten by samu. They would have given its flesh to the snow jackals.”

“No.”

“Sirga…”

“No!” I yelled. Marc trumpeted, as if sensing my distress. I calmed myself, stroking the warm flesh of the bear as I tried to slow my heart. “It cannot be gone. It just cannot. I cannot…I cannot lose Musa like this. Imps are supposed to be immortal. It was supposed to outlive me.” The words stopped. I stared determinedly at the road ahead. “It lives.” I consoled myself. “It is by that parasol tree, waiting for me to find it.”

Monica remained silent.

Its silence lasted the entirety of our journey through empty chilled roads which showed no signs of streaked skin. My determination kept me from dwelling on the stiffness in my fingers, and the bites of pain I felt in my ears. My wounded thigh was numbed, but I could still feel the infection like it was a living thing threatening to take control of me. My body cried for heat, but my mind could not give it. I could not relent.

At long last, we reached the parasol tree. Marc’s loud trumpets heralded it. A smile formed on my face as we drew closer to that parasol tree. The entire scenery appeared familiar to me. I recalled marveling at the picturesque splendor of the vegetation. The mixing of colors, the twinning of wispy stems, but most of all the drooping fronds of the tree.

The bent fronds hanging from the tree provided covering from the hail. It was a covering that kept the ground around the stem free from hail. It was sludge, brown sludge ground.

Marc stopped in front of the area of sludge. I jumped off the bear’s back before it could bend. It was a terrible fall. I landed on my right leg, but the weight was too much to be supported by the leg, and so I fell. I was glad that my eagerness to search the area did not lead to me harming the one working leg that I still had. I hopped on that leg, leaning heavily on Marc, until I could pull myself up. I limped, shuffling on my one dominant leg, towards the sludge ground.

As soon as I was standing in front of the stem of the parasol tree, one thing became glaringly obvious.

Musa was not there.

I looked around the area more times than I could count. Monica spoke, it said words that were in the mejo tongue we’d been conversing in, but it did not matter that the words were familiar, I could not hear it.

“Where are you?” I asked. “Musa.” It did not matter how many times I searched, the imp was not there.

I fell dejectedly to my knees. The sudden jerking of my skin pulled at the wounds previously sealed with hail melt. Blood and puss flowed together in a gory mix of red and blue.

My mind filled with visions of the imp. I remembered Musa teaching me how to speak the tongues I had become so adept at. If it had not been for the imp, I would never have passed as a noble. It was Musa who taught me the cutlass, Musa who taught me to read and write. Before Musa I was just an illiterate de trop from Hakute.

“Musa.”

Pure sorrow filled me. The strength of the emotion was enough to force through the blocks that the cursed road had placed on me. For the moments while the grief took me, I felt as one with my pain. The pain confirmed what the imp had told me. The pain showed me that the infection in my thigh was dire enough to make me lose my leg, and that the chill was terrible enough to kill me. I ignored it.

Sirga!

I focused on my surroundings. The imp was standing in front of me, touching me. Pansophy. I frowned. It looked like Musa. This imp. Red light blinded my eyes. I saw two of Musa.

Sirga. Stop this. Please, sirga.

The imp, Musa, my imp. I was delirious. Heat rose in me like a tidal wave, burning my system with boiling blood, while the chill of my surroundings cooled me from the outside. Red stained my vision. Red light, pure light, like from the clouds.

Clouds.

The area under the tree was filled with clouds. That was why there was so much red light. I had created clouds from my sorrow. I’d turned Marc into an imp. Another pang of sorrow filled me, pure and stirring as the first. I knew I had to turn Marc back. That was the last thought that filled my head before I passed out.

“With praising lips I thank you for the gift of this day and humbly beseech the peaceful tide of the next.”

Those were the first words I heard as I awakened. Shivers racked my body. I felt as if I was convulsing. My teeth chattered, my body shook, and my limbs flailed. A warm trunk wrapped around me, holding me in place. I felt the flapping of my ailerons, lifting me off the ground. The trunk held still, forcing my body to stay on the ground.

Finally, the shaking stopped.

I breathed in ragged breaths.

“You must return to Damejo. You must! You will kill yourself if you go on like this. Musa is gone, but you live, you must continue to live sirga, if not what did Musa die for?”

I glared at the imp. Placing my hands on the floor, I pushed myself up. I realized, as I moved, that I was much weaker than I had been last time. I could barely register the feel of the sludge underneath my palm. My extremities had numbed.

“Imps are immortal.” I whispered. “Musa lives. Even if all that is left is a single bit, I will find it.” I swore. “I will give life back to it.”

“The samu’s bite is final. Once an imp is reduced to that last bit, there is no magic that exists which can give it back the life it knew. Please sirga, please, I beg you, care for yourself. Please.”

I shook my head. “I cannot. I cannot leave here without Musa.”

“Musa is gone!” it threw its hands up. “But you still live. Live, sirga.”

“I cannot. Musa lives. I know.”

“How do you know?”

“It must. Call it faith.”

The imp huffed.

“Is it not faith that keeps you praying to Sada? Musa told me of your Sada. You live in the spectral existence, yet you pray to a god that resides in the fourth existence. It makes no sense to me, but you take it on faith, do you not?”

Monica exhaled deeply. It sat beside me, resting its back against Marc’s warm fur. “It is partly faith, but not fully. I know that Sada can reach this existence.”

I scoffed. “That is no more possible than Chuspecip reaching the fourth. The standard existence is the only place where all beings can reside.”

“Once, but not anymore.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“I was a pious slave, one of many that the plenum used. We taught them how to speak our tongues, told them how to reach out to the beings of the fourth and supreme existences. The plenum made a deal with these existences to gain the knowledge of how to destroy Chuspecip. The plenum thought that they were only giving them our portals from the spectral to the standard. They did not realize how much they had truly given.”

I turned to stare at the imp. “What are you saying?”

“The plenum gave the fourth existence the means to break through the barrier the Kuwor placed to separate the supreme, the fourth and the spectral. Can’t you feel it here? Nefastu is just the start.”

“My emotions. Spectra. They are somehow broken here, somehow harder to reach.”

Monica nodded. “The fourth existence will invade this one. It has already started, and the plenum is to thank for that.”

“How?”

“I do not know. There is much the elders know that they do not share.”

“You are helping them. You are helping the other existences.”

“The uspecs who have helped us will retain control of this existence. When the invasion is complete, neither the plenum nor Chuspecip will own this existence. It will be owned by the fourth and the supreme and controlled by uspecs loyal to the Wrath of Sada.”

My mind filled with terrible repercussions. My head ached as I tried to make sense of all of this.

“How? Why?”

“Chuspecip is the only…” Monica stopped speaking. “Sirga?”

My head felt full. I was burning again. I tried to pull myself up, but my fingers would not work. I felt the chill in them, the cold of the frost. They were numb. Had I lost feeling in my extremities? Monica’s head doubled and then tripled in front of me. Its words played on a loop.

I slid forward and fell onto the sludge ground.

“I am sorry,” I heard Monica’s voice, although I could not be sure if it was the imp I heard, or if I was making up the voices. “I must save you from yourself.”

I felt the brush of skin against mine, and then I was gone, lost to the world.

Part 9
-------

Weakness.

Every muscle in my body screamed with it. Each pulse, each throb, each second that passed, ticked away on a tide of unbearable and unfathomably deep frailty. The feelings that had descended on me the moment I stepped onto Nefastu seemed to have increased, deepened somehow in their intensity. I knew that I was alive, I could feel the heat like an inferno surrounding me. I could feel the tickle of air against my skin, and the surety of solid ground underneath me. Even though I was yet to open my eyes, I felt my life, like a force within me. But the animation, the fire that burned with that force, was gone, somehow lost to me.

I felt this lack of animation in my emotions.

Under the equipoise my emotions were free from my magic. I found no power in them, nothing that could be harnessed, focused and then unleashed. In this hell, I felt that power. I felt the power in my emotions, and so was aware that the magic existed, that it was a distinct possibility, an actuality which I should be able to reach. But I could not. Something blocked my magic, something kept me separated from the power in my emotions. And it was this thing, this block which I had felt since I stepped foot in Nefastu, which removed the animation from my lifeforce. It made every breath I took the same, but somehow distressingly different and deficient.

It was with these thoughts running in my head, that I made my first attempt to move. I opened my eyes and shuffled my limbs, performing both actions simultaneously. The desired outcome was to push myself up using my arms and feet. What actually happened was that my arms twitched by my side and my legs did nothing more than flail in the sludge ground. While my limbs failed me, my eyes did not. They opened, revealing that I was in some sort of sealed containment. Glowing fog walls surrounded me. The fog walls were a shade of crimson which I had only seen in infernos created from the mejo magic.

I took a deep breath and tried again to force myself up. This time I managed to raise my arms up, and place my palms flat against the ground. I attempted to push myself up, using as much strength as I could muster, but my attempts proved too feeble to bear result. I stopped, choosing instead to take account of myself. What was my last memory?

Monica.

The anger that filled me was nowhere near as ferocious as it ought to be. The fire was like a dull ache in my stomach, not like the fire that should be raging throughout my entire body. This was another effect of the stunted emotions that this Nefastu wrought. I recalled the imp, Monica. I had trusted the imp. Musa had done this to me. Before Musa, I did not trust imps. I sighed. The imp Monica had used pansophy on me. But why? To what end?

I could faintly recall the conversation that we’d had before the imp had used its pansophy on me. I remembered it saying that Nefastu was a result of an invasion planned by the other existences. It was an invasion which the imps were helping to bring about, one that the plenum had unknowingly put into action. There were other uspecs, others that the imp mentioned were in league with the Wrath. Something about this thought made me feel strange. It was as if some connection should be made, as if the knowledge of uspecs in league with the wrath should remind me of something. Some action of import I had witnessed perhaps. Whatever it was, I could not recall.

Musa.

My imp. Again, my stunted emotions filled me. I felt pain and sorrow which were a mockery of what they were meant to be. I should have been in pain so forceful that the entire sludge ground filled with okun. My sorrow should have been enough to create clouds. But all I felt were pieces of it, like the pitiful remnants of a great feast, or the dying echoes of a loud bellow.

“Musa.” I said the imp’s name out loud, and was immediately surprised by the soft whispers which left my mouth. How many days had I been in this strange place? Did Musa live? It had to. I could not allow myself to contemplate alternatives, to imagine a life without my imp. No, Musa was stronger than the samu that bit it, it had to survive, it had to fight, to give me a chance to save its life just as it had done so many times for me. “Live.” My voice was hoarse. “LIVE!” I screamed as loudly as I could. “Please.”

“Sirga?”

The voice of the imp who had betrayed me trailed into the room. I still lay, only half sprawled, with my arms pushing parts of my body away from the sludge ground. I turned, just in time to see a section of the fog wall drift away. The beautiful shade of crimson disappeared, revealing nothing but white ice behind it. Chilled fogs swept in.

I shivered.

Monica walked in. The imp was well dressed. I could tell from the change in its tunic and the shade of its skin, that it had cleaned. Wherever we were, it was a place with okun.

I starred daggers at the imp as it approached me. It knelt in front of me, bending lower so that its face was closer to mine. If I’d had the strength, I would have wrapped my hand around the imp’s throat and squeezed until it stopped breathing. Of course its stun would only be temporary, but the knowledge of the pain I’d caused it would have done much to soothe my strange emotions.

A cool palmed pressed against my forehead as empty sockets peered into my eyes. I flinched as soon as the imp touched me. A gentle smile formed on its lips. “Kalug!” It called out. “Come and help me!”

I could not have been less prepared for the sight that greeted me. An uspec emerged, running into the space, to answer the imp’s demands. It was as if the imp was master and the uspec slave. The uspec that appeared was mejo. It had the slight bulk of one that was used to some form of fighting but did not have enough skill to be a great pugilist. This uspec had all of its outer eye sockets formed and four of them filled. It eyed me warily.

“Don’t just stand there, help me lift it up.” Monica prompted.

The uspec came over. It appeared to be about the same height as Musa. Just the thought of the imp, pained me. Survive, I thought. Just survive. The uspec grabbed onto my right arm, while Monica wrapped its hands around my left. Together they helped maneuver me to a sitting position. I sat with my back resting against the fog wall.

Then the uspec took a step back. “You should not stand so close, Monica, it does not mean you well.” The uspec stated, its eyes meeting mine. Pansophy. It had pansophy, it had to. How else would it know what I was thinking?

Monica laughed. “Yes sirga, Kalug has pansophy.”

I jerked my arm away from the imp’s pansophic hold. Monica released me. My eyes darted from the imp, to the uspec, and then back.

“You call it sirga!” the uspec accused.

Monica chuckled. “Go and fetch the okun fruit.” It ordered.

The uspec glared at me before walking away.

I was stunned.

“What…” I stopped to compose myself. “You treat that uspec like a slave.” I accused.

“We can be slaves, but you cannot?” it said with a smile. Then it shook its head, the smile falling from its lips. “There are no slaves here. I treat Kalug like an offspring because that is what it is to me. It was I who found the young uspec when it was shunned, and I who brought it here and made it one of the chosen few uspecs lucky enough to serve Sada.”

I scoffed. “We are in Permafrost then?”

Monica nodded.

The uspec returned with a glass bowl filled with black fruits. It bent so that Monica could easily pick one. “Thank you.” The imp said to the uspec.

The uspec bent and placed a kiss on the imp’s cheek, before walking away.

I gaped at the green skin and the ailerons that came into view once the uspec’s back was turned to me.

“Take this sirga.” Monica said. “It will give you strength.”

I remembered the okun fruit. It had been a long time since I needed the rejuvenating effects of the fruit, but I could not deny that I was in dire need of an energy boost. I took the fruit from the imp. For a moment I considered the possibility that it could mean to poison me with the fruit. I shook that thought off as ludicrous. If the imp wanted me dead, I would be dead already.

I put the fruit into my mouth and chewed slowly. As the fruit made its way down my throat, I stared contemplatively at the imp. Once the energy boost from the fruit took effect, I struck out with my arm, and wrapped my hand around the imp’s throat.

“Mama!” The uspec screamed. It ran into the space.

Monica lifted its arm in the air, stopping the uspec’s approach.

‘I thought you pulled away from my touch because you did not wish to subject yourself to my pansophy. Was I wrong?’

The imp’s words filled my head. Immediately, I released it. I frowned at it, disgusted with it, and myself, for my own reactions. Pansophy. Cursed magic. What genius uspec thought to gift imps with it? I thought of Musa and all the ways my imp’s pansophy had aided me.

I swallowed down my building desire to strike out at the imp. Instead, I concentrated on standing. I found then that while I was able to fully move one of my legs, I could not move the other. I turned to stare at my infected leg. My ripped cloak covered it. With rising degrees of impatience, I pushed the cloak off my leg, revealing the skin underneath. The leg that the jackal had bitten was white, porcelain, like the skin of the snow jackal that bit it.

“What is this?” I demanded.

“Hail melt.” Monica rushed to explain. “The infection was spreading. You were delirious before I took your consciousness away. I had to apply hail melt to the entire leg to keep the infection from spreading into the rest of you. The melt has slowed down the rate of the spread, but you are still infected. Only healers have the necessary means to remove the infection.”

I swallowed. “Remove it.” I ordered.

“Sirga…”

“Remove it!” I yelled. My voice sounded like mine again. I felt the power in it, just as I felt the surge of strength in the limbs that worked. “If you want to help me, like you claim, you will remove the melt so that I can continue my search for my imp. I must find Musa.”

“It is too late now, sirga. Whatever is left of Musa will be impossible for you to find. If anything is left.”

I glared at the imp. “Remove. It.” I snapped.

“You are stubborn.” It scolded.

On impulse, I reached for the dagger in my belt, ready to rip through the imp’s skin if it did not undo what it had done to my leg.

“Please.” Monica’s hand came over mine, stilling my hand on the hilt of my dagger, “don’t. You are in permafrost. As your kind does not take kindly to an imp attacking your own, mine does not take to an imp being attacked by an uspec. Enough of that happens elsewhere, it will never be allowed to happen here. If you draw imp blood in Permafrost, you will be killed.”

My eyes narrowed in disbelief. “How dare you…”

Monica shook its head. “This place is filled with escaped pious slaves. Hundreds of imps with pansophy. We also have several uspecs like Kalug, uspecs who are loyal to us, and who have pansophy as well as spectra. You may be a great fighter sirga, but you cannot win a fight against all of us. Please, do not try, I cannot see you hurt. I will not let you hurt yourself.”

I had reason to be grateful for the stunted emotions then. If my emotions had not been stunted, I could not imagine what I would have done to the imp for daring to speak to me as it had. It threatened me! For that alone I wanted to hurt it. I found myself filled with familiar urges which I hadn’t felt for a long time. I was suddenly driven by an inexplicable urge to make this imp suffer the way that I had done to the imp in my slum, and the imp in the pits.

Monica sighed. It pulled its hand away from me. “Sometimes you are so much like Calami it is as if I have a piece of my friend back with me. But other times you become a stranger, the kind of uspec Permafrost was built to destroy. When you speak to the elders, I would advice you to keep your murderous intentions to yourself. Too many of them have known suffering at the hands of uspecs. It will not matter to them who you are, they will kill you if they feel the urge.”

“When I speak to the elders?” I chose to cling to that, and not everything else the imp said. There would be time to dwell on all that I had learnt here, there would be time after I saved Musa.

“I brought you here because I know how much you want to find Musa. I could have taken you to Damejo, but if I did, you would have lost any chance of finding your imp. Here, you can ask the elders to search for Musa. We have snow jackals which we’ve bred to hunt imps, under the control of our hunters. If Musa is in a form which can be saved, our hunters will find it. They are your only chance.”

Hope surged in me. “Take me to these hunters at once!” I demanded.

Monica shook its head. “It does not work like that sirga. Only the elders can command the hunters to search for an imp. You must petition the elders.”

“Then take me to them.”

Monica nodded. “Kalug will support you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Remove the melt from my leg. I will walk on my own feet.” I did not like the idea of resting on an uspec with pansophy.

“Your infected leg cannot take the weight. Kalug will not use pansophy on you. You have my word. Kalug.” The uspec nodded.

“Fine.” I conceded.

The uspec appeared beside me. It reached down towards me, pulling me up with a strength that I had not expected from it. With the uspec supporting my weight, I was able to hop on my one working leg. It was an awkward movement, but it was enough to see us out of the sludge space and into a room which appeared to be made out of hail. No, I shook my head, looking around at the sparse furnishings, it appeared that the room was carved into the hail. We went through a set of curtains. These curtains led to a hallway carved from hail, just as the room had been. It was obvious that some infernos existed somewhere, because the hallway was far warmer than it had been outside. Just the thought of the cold made me shiver.

Several imps walked by us on the hallway. Each one waved a greeting at Monica and Kalug. I could not help but notice the way the uspec spoke. The imps that passed did not speak the mejo tongue that Monica and Kalug had spoken to me in. They spoke another tongue, an umani tongue, I guessed. The imps that passed stared at me. There were no emotions that I could easily read off their faces, and if they spoke about me, I could not tell.

At long last, we exited the curving hallway, emerging into the biting cold of Nefastu. Hard pellets drummed against my scalp.

“Would you like to clean before we meet the elders?” Monica asked.

I found the idea of cleaning for a meeting with imps, particularly repulsing. As much as the thought of an okun appealed to me, I was not willing to delay the search for Musa. Musa first, okun later.

I shook my head.

Cruel chilled fogs drifted around us, accompanying us as we moved. I shivered as the cold seeped in through what was left of my cloak. I tried to hop faster, but there was no escaping the foul weather. I was relieved when at long last we walked into a covered building, obviously heated with infernos.

Two of the tallest imps I had ever seen stood in front of a set of thick curtains. They smiled at my escorts.

“I will tell them it is ready.” One of them said with a smile, before walking in through the curtains.

We did not have to wait too long before the imp returned. It nodded and pulled the curtains apart.

I hopped into the room, leaning heavily on the uspec.

The room we entered was a great hall. I turned my head around just enough to catch glimpses of the seats carved out of hail. The ground was white, a well levelled, and thoroughly polished, hail ground. Although it was obviously hail, I felt no cold as my feet moved on it. We made our way to the center of the space, an alcove surrounded by drifting red fog. As soon as we walked through that fog, it hardened, forming into solid walls around us.

Three imps sat on high backed chairs. This was the first time that I had seen backed chairs. Uspecs did not sit on backed chairs as the backs would be an uncomfortable restriction for our ailerons.

There was nothing particularly unique about these imps. One of them appeared to have ended its umani life when it was much older than the other two. I could tell this from its wrinkled skin and white hair. None of the imps appeared to be imp young. They all wore robes.

Monica walked over and dropped to her knees in front of the imp seated in the middle. The imp extended its hand and Monica kissed a ring on one of the imp’s fingers.

“Rise my daughter.” The imp’s voice was high pitched. It was one of the younger ones.

“Thank you, mother.” Monica said, rising to its feet.

The imp that had spoken turned to stare at me then. If there was hatred in its gaze, it did not show. All I saw was mild curiosity.

“Who do you bring to us?”

“Nebud.” Monica said, “a banneret.”

“What is its desire?”

“To find its imp, Musa.”

All three of the seated imps turned to Monica. “Musa?” the older one said, repeating the name. “Of Lahooni?”

Monica nodded.

“It belongs to this uspec now?” I clenched my jaw refusing to take insult at the way the imp had referred to me.

Again, Monica nodded.

The imp seated in the middle rose. It walked towards me. Standing I could tell that it was not nearly as tall as Musa. “Nebud, are you willing to join the ranks of Sada?”

“No.” I snapped. My response came out as a reflex, prompted by the way that this imp had casually called my name. As if I had given it leave! I had to fight to hold onto my temper.

“Then what do you have to offer us? Why should we perform this favor for you?”

“I will pay.” I spat out through clenched teeth. These imps were plotting to hand over my existence to another, and here I was, offering them money to aid their cause. I stood, supported by an uspec who acted as slave to imps, only one of my legs working. I had been distanced from my emotions, a distancing which seemed much more potent here in Permafrost than it had been on Nefastu. I had no magic that I could easily reach, and no legs to stand on to support me while I fought. I had nothing but money to offer.

“We do not need money.”

I scoffed. “Everyone needs money.”

The imp smiled. “Not us.”

I frowned. “What do you want? Tell me and I will give it to you.”

“You will give anything to get your imp back?”

“If you find Musa and restore it to its health, I will give you anything you ask for.”

“Restore it?”

“Samu bite.” Monica piped in.

The imp nodded gravelly. “I can promise that we will try to find your imp, and that if we find it, we will try to restore it. That is all I can do. I can make no guarantees.”

“That is enough for me. When do we start?”

“We?”

“Yes, we. When do we start the search?”

“You are mistaken Nebud, you will not be joining in the search. Our hunters work best in their teams, you will only be a hindrance. Now you have brought this matter to us, we will handle it.”

“No.”

“It is the only way Nebud. Either we handle it on our own, or we do not attempt to help at all. It is your choice.”

I gritted my teeth. They had snow jackals trained to hunt for imp flesh in any form, I had nothing, not even two legs to walk on.

The imp continued speaking. “Besides, you have somewhere else to be.”

I frowned. “What?”

“You will pay us in kind. We will search for your imp and restore it, and you will search for our imp, and return it to us.”

I frowned. “What imp?”

“Several weeks ago, one of our imps went on a mission to the Cormeum. The imp has not returned. The payment we demand from you, in exchange for our service, is the rescue of our imp, from Cormeum.” The imp reached into a pocket in its robe and pulled out a hard parchment. “This is the imp’s likeness.”

I took the offered parchment. “Xavier.” I said the imp’s name as if it was a curse.

“You know it then.” The imp said, “good. Find Xavier and return it. That is your payment for our services.”

“I will find Xavier after you find Musa and heal it.”

The imp shook its head. “We will both commence on our missions at the same time. We do not know how much longer Xavier has before it is captured. If it has already been captured, then it won’t be long before it is sapped. You must go now.”

“I cannot leave without Musa.”

“If you do not leave, we will not search for your imp, and if we do not start searching for it soon, we may never find it. The rate of sapping from the samu’s bite is very unpredictable.”

I glared at the imp. Every fiber in my being wanted to lash out at it. I wanted to bend it to my will, to force it to give me the help I needed. But even I was not rash enough to do something that stupid. I could not help but remember Monica’s warnings.

“Fine.” I spat out.

The imp nodded. “Then our bargain is struck. Shadra.”

The hard fog walls of the room turned to drifting fog. An uspec with all of its outer eyes filled walked in through that fog. It bowed to the imp who had summoned it.

“Yes mother.” The uspec said.

The imp spoke to the uspec in another tongue. Moments later, quicksand formed underneath me. I was sucked into that quicksand and teleported outside. As soon as I was outdoors, my ailerons began to flap. I could not imagine why I had not thought of this sooner. Surely, I did not need my legs when I could fly.

I’d barely risen a foot into the sky, when the combination of pelting hail and swirling fogs picked me up and spun me in a vortex. It was as if the hail and fogs acted together to swat me from one end to the other. I could not see past the smog of red. I could not stabilize myself in the air long enough to dart in any particular direction.

Hard hands clamped onto my arm and pulled me back with it, to the ground.

“It is no easier to fly with one leg, than it is to walk with one. It is doable, but it must be learnt. If I were you, I would see to my leg so that I did not have to learn that lesson. You do not have the disposition to be shun.” It paused, eyeing me emotionlessly. “Besides, it is difficult to fly within the pelting of hail, but it is impossible to do so here, in permafrost, where the swirling fogs are just as those in Nefastu.”

It took some time for me to see after the spinning in the fogs, but once my sight cleared, I could make out the uspec that the imp had called into the room. It was this uspec’s quicksand that had teleported me out of that room with the imps.

A trunk wrapped around me, disrupting my thoughts.

“Marc!” I turned around. The uspec released its hold on me, as I transferred my weight to the smoke bear. In the bustle of being in this place I had forgot to ask about my newest friend. I ran my hand through the smoke bear’s fur, my spirits rising as it trumpeted. Suddenly, I was buoyed by Marc’s presence, and the imps’ solution. They will find Musa, I knew it.

“I will teleport you to the edge of Nefastu. You must cross to Damejo yourself.”

“How do you use spectra here?” I wondered. Did it not feel the limitations of this cursed place?

“Sada is generous.” The uspec said.

I thought of many things to say in reply, but I decided to save my breath. There would be time to deal with these Sada worshippers. Now was not that time.

“How will I find my way back once I have Xavier?”

“Xavier will guide you.”

Quicksand appeared underneath us. It sucked us in. Monica appeared just barely in my line of sight. I did not know what I thought of the imp and its tactics, and luckily, I did not have the time to contemplate this, before the imp, and all of Permafrost vanished. I was teleported to the boundary between Nefastu and Damejo.

Kudos ObehiD I hope musa is found and restored... This post is the longest ever you made it a Merry Christmas, loads of love.

[color=#000099][/color]Happy Xmas obehid thanks for the very long update it was so long that I had to be drinking water at intervals before I could finish reading it and when I finished I was finding it hard to catch my breath.

Thanks very much ObehiD. Merry Christmas too

Merry Christmas obehid.. Thanks for the long update.. At a point in the story though I kinda felt what fazemood was feeling whenever nebud was in one of his stubborn headed level but I passed that...

are the plenum in league with incosem in the standard existance or against them, or is it the ancestry that is using the wrath of sada to get back at uspec that are taking over thier territory in the standard existance(i dntknow oo just trying) .will the be a story about the fourth existance.?.....tnx Obehd... Merry xmas.

Christmas special......thanks obehid

Nice long update... thanks for the Christmas special obehiD...

Kudos

Nice update

Compliments of the season Obehid

This write up is seriously complex. Just got here now and i am so much in love with the story. Weldone

@phoenixchap Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the update. Hope you had a great christmas!

@ayshow6102 Merry Xmas to you too. Thank you for reading the very long update even in if you had to keep drinking water at intervals while reading

@HotB Thank you very much for reading!

@cassbeat Thank you for reading the long update Yeah, I understand that, Nebud can be very arrogant. Glad you were able to make it through though

@Madosky112 I really like the way you're thinking and the way that you're putting things together. This is actually not linked to InCoSeM though. This story is set way before that time, so before the marked were even created....actually, wait oh, it's like you're understanding the story more than me, lol. So, actually in a way the things happening here are eventually going to be linked to the battle between the Benin community and InCoSeM, but not directly. because, like I said, this is way way before the marked were created, so before the communities were formed. Yes, there will eventually be a story based in the fourth existence and another in the supreme existence (I don't know if those stories will be posted here though). I'm going to return to the human world (to finish the Reckoning) before I go back to writing in a different existence. But those are coming soon...

@Boludammie Thanks for reading the special

@Smooth278 Thanks for reading the special long update

@ifud thank you, also, welcome to the comments section, saw your Christmas comment but I didn't give you a special welcome then

@Fazemood!!! Thank you and compliments of the season to you too

@doctorexcel Yes, it is very complex, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far, I hope you keep enjoying it

Part 10
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Riding out of Nefastu was like being inserted into the light after eons spent in darkness. It was as if a heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulder. Fine hail fell. This hail was not hard like the pellets which had rained down on me in Nefastu. It was so smooth that I felt it like a gentle caress against my weathered skin. No chilled fogs drifted by me, there was no extra chill other than that from the pure white powder.

I took a deep breath and held it.

The purity of my emotions rushed in on me at once. I could feel my pain like a panting hound eager to hunt. I felt the power which I had harnessed from killing the pious ones in the room-vault. It all came back to me then, each emotion revealing itself to me with a purity which I had previously taken for granted. I was still cold, it was so cold that I shivered, but in this cold I felt some warmth, some comfort that I could not quite describe.

A landlocked canoe unlike any that I had seen before, steered by me. The fluid bottom of this canoe appeared to have some solidity to it. It was as if spikes had been erected into the sludge bottom. Those spikes dug through the hail ground, allowing the canoe to slide easily over it.

Marc trumpeted when the canoe passed us. It rose its front legs off the ground, waving them frantically as the steerer of the canoe turned to stare at us. I wrapped my arms around the bears neck, desperate to keep myself on its back.

“Calm down, Marc.” I whispered to the bear. “Do not be alarmed. It is only a canoe.” I imagined that this creature had not seen any contrivances like this. For a moment I wondered what it would be like to spend my entire life in Nefastu. I did not know how much time had passed, but even that time spent had been too much for me.

Musa.

The thought of my imp brought back memories of its sapped form. I knew that it would survive, it had to. The imps of Sada would find it, and they would heal it. Sada. That thought sent my mind reeling. A large migraine took hold of me. My vision blurred. I saw nothing, heard nothing. Suddenly, the world appeared void. My mind felt as if it had been hijacked, as though an alien army had invaded and was stomping all over it. I swore that I could feel their little feet marching on my brain.

So many different words drifted through my mind. They were words that I had never heard before. Out of the blue I was surrounded by people speaking a tongue that I could not understand. No, I shook my head, trying to come to grips with this strangeness. I could understand. I could almost hear it.

“Noble one?”

All of a sudden, my vision was clear. The pain that had filled my head was gone. The voices I’d heard disappeared. My opened eyes registered the guards standing around me. Six of them stood in a wide circle around us. They held their swords in both hands as their alarmed faces studied me. It took me a while to realize why they appeared so alarmed.

I remembered then that Marc was still standing on its hind paws.

“Calm.” I tightened my legs around the bear and pulled on the thick fur in my hands.

The smoke bear trumpeted, and then it dropped back to all fours. The rocking of the hail ground that followed, knocked a few of the guards down.

They jumped back to their feet. “Where did you come from?” one demanded.

“Nefastu.” I said, jerking my head backwards.

Gasps greeted my answer. “What were you doing there?”

I turned slightly to my right. Marc sensed the motion and turned too, so that I was facing the guard who’d asked the question. The guard looked at my bear, gulped, and then turned harried eyes back on me.

“Sightseeing. Is that a problem?”

The guard shook its head. “No, noble one.” They began to move away. Slowly, their swords still stretched out towards us, the guards took one step after the other, back in the direction that they’d come in.

“Wait.” I stopped their retreat with the command.

They stopped.

“I am bound for Cormeum. Which way is it?”

A guard jerked its head to my left. “Ride ahead until you see the road that veers off to the right. Go straight down that road and you will reach the gates to Cormeum.” After saying that, the guards warily turned their backs on us. I watched them leave. It was entertaining how many times they turned around to stare at the bear. I suppose I would have stared as they did, if I was in their shoes.

I gasped when a sharp biting pain tore through my infected leg. On an instinct, I jerked my leg, to my surprise, the leg moved. I focused on it then. The pain in my leg continued to grow as I pulled back the ends of the tattered cloak. Once the leg was revealed, I saw the cause of the pain. The hail melt which had numbed my leg was gone. With the melt gone, I could see the amount of damage that had been done, and how far the infection had spread. Blue puss covered most of my thigh, all the way down to my knee and slightly below. I tried to move my leg, raising it so that I could get a better view of the damage, but even that slight motion proved to be too much. My leg exploded with pain. I suddenly wished for the blissful numbing of the imp’s hail melt. And to think I had wanted the imp to remove its concoction.

I pulled at the bear’s fur, jerking so sharply I was surprised when the creature did not immediately foist me off its back. Instead, it turned to the left, in the direction I pulled in, and began trotting. Each step the bear made sent another spasm of pain down my leg. How could the infection have gotten so bad without my knowledge? I chose not to think of what would have happened if I had stayed in Nefastu for another day or two.

I clenched my jaw, swallowing the urge to cry out with the pain of my infections. I had to breathe through it. At least I had Marc. I jerked sharply, tugging on the bear’s fur when we reached the first right-turning road. Again, the bear obligingly followed my lead. It did not as much as trumpet annoyance at my rough handling. I stroked the warm fur, trying to convey the gratitude which I could not accurately express with words.

The further down the hail road we went, the harder it became to hold onto Marc. I felt my grasp on reality weakening. My vision blurred, my head felt full, and an inferno crept through my veins. Heat burned through me, warming me from the insides as the hail chilled my skin. I did not like these feelings. I could recall the last time that I had felt like this. It was in Nefastu, just before I passed out. I knew it was a result of the spread of the infection. I had to get myself to a healer, I thought, as my eyes drifted shut.

Something jolted underneath me.

The bump tossed my legs.

I howled out a cry so guttural it took me a long time to connect myself to the sound. There had been movement. I had been moving. But once the cry sounded, the movement stopped. I felt something warm wrap around my skin.

I opened my eyes.

Green skin swam in front of my gaze. I heard cries of panic, mingled with shouts of alarm. Shaking fingers pointed at me. Words were spoken in harsh mejo dialects. If I had enough of my wits, I would be able to concentrate on the words and filter through the inflections and varying strains that the different dialects placed on their words. But I could not. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I tried to focus on a single thing, a single face.

The warm thing released me, exposing that once covered strip of skin, to the harsh cool of the elements. There was a heat in me that seemed to riot against the cool of my surroundings.

Hail, I thought, as the loud sound of a trumpet broke through my thoughts.

My hold on the fur weakened, and then slipped. I had to catch myself to keep from falling on my head.

Musa. Visions filled my head of my sapped imp. I had almost forgotten. Musa. Nefastu. The cursed road, the pelting hail and blinding red chilled fogs. Snow jackals. An attack. A pack baying for the flesh of my imp. Marc. Marc saved my life. The smoke bear. I recalled it now, I remembered the feel of its trunk wrapped tightly around me, and the thawing heat that its proximity had provided. I remembered other things. I remembered bandits. A heated cloak, a cart of imps, fogs, death. The stab. My infections. I shook my head as my consciousness began to slip.

There was an imp Monica who had treated me. It had applied hail melt, hail melt. I shook my head, my teeth chattering as I tried to reconcile the cold with the heat. There was so much of both yet not enough of either. Too hot on the inside, too cold on the out. Monica. The infection was spreading too fast. We must have been riding for hours. I tried to move my leg, but I could not.

Suddenly, Marc jerked. It rose its front legs up in the air, kicking them high as it stood on its hind legs. Then it tossed its trunk around, trumpeting as it swiped its front legs. I tried to hold onto the creature, but it was swaying too fast and with too much force for me to maintain my fragile hold on its fur.

I fell.

The fall was hard.

The back of my ailerons slammed against a solid bed of fine hail. A cool wave crept into me. I heard my teeth chatter. It took some doing, but I managed to maneuver myself into a sitting position. My legs moved and the pain returned. This time I had enough of my wits to keep from screaming out my pain. But the pain was so much, too much.

The ground underneath me became wet.

I heard a voice scream. The scream was followed by the sound of a body falling on a wet floor. The voices increased. I could sense the anger in them.

I forced my eyes to focus then, past the haze of green outlines of bodies. My mind seemed determined to slip away. It wanted to rest, just as badly as my eyes wanted to close. I could not let them. I sensed danger around me. Marc’s trumpeting continued. It stood on hindlegs and swiped its front paws at green shapes.

My eyes focused enough to see that it was uspecs that my bear attacked.

Pandemonium. That’s what it was. Uspecs screamed. They ran as far away from us as they could. Their wide eyes registered their fear. I looked at the bodies around me. I was sitting in a bed of okun. Thankfully, it was not a lit okun, so there was a great chance that the bodies were still alive. I forced my mind to stay clear even as my lucidity slipped from my grasp. My vision blurred again. I shook my head.

I pulled the okun back.

“Over there! It’s a rabid smoke bear! Over there!”

No! I tried to stand, but I was too weak. Adrenaline raced through me, pushing me back to lucidity. The guards appeared. Ten, twenty, they just kept coming. They surrounded us, their swords pointed out as they formed a tight circle around us.

I do not know what strength I mustered, but I found a way to stand. Most of my weight was on the healthy leg which could support it, but there was still some on my infected leg. I felt the pain of trying to stand on that leg. It was overwhelming, but somehow how I managed to push past it. I hopped to my bear.

“Calm.” I said, stroking the bear’s fur. “Calm Marc.”

It took some time, but eventually, the trumpet sounds died down. The bear relaxed onto all fours.

“Give us the bear.” One of the guards said.

I shook my head. Words were too hard. I gritted my teeth. Why had the hail melt left so suddenly? I shook my head, forcing the distracting thoughts out. Where were we? Tall black gates appeared in front of us. The gates reminded me of those in Chiboga. Luckily, there was enough falling hail to assure me that I was not living that nightmare again.

“If you do not give it to us, we will kill it where it stands, and you with it, if you get in our way.”

Marc trumpeted.

“Banneret…” the words were a whisper.

“Give it to us!”

“Perhaps we should take the matter to the grand one. It is a noble after all.” A voice stated hesitantly.

Another scuffed. There were too many of them for me to see. Especially not when it took so much focus just to keep my attention on one uspec. I could feel the adrenaline that had rushed through me begin to fade. My grasp on lucidity was beginning to slip again.

“I have seen de trop that look cleaner than this noble.”

“Give us the bear,” the leader ordered, “or we will advance.” They took a step closer.

Marc trumpeted. I held on tight to the bear’s fur, trying my best to infuse it with calm which I did not feel. My free hand went to the hilt of my cutlass as the guards continued to draw closer. The hand on my cutlass shook. I knew that I would not last long in a fight. I blinked. The uspecs were starting to get blurry, green forms turned into wavy outlines. The outlines came closer. I could feel Marc’s angst by the shuffling of its feet and the trumpeting.

The bear jolted.

Clarity returned.

A line of uspecs had drawn close enough to attack the bear. Marc struck out its trunk in self-defense. It knocked three uspecs down with a single swing of its trunk. It was bringing its trunk back when an uspec’s sword, appeared in the air. That sword swiped my smoke bear’s trunk.

Blood trickled from its cut trunk.

Marc stuck its tusk into the side of the uspec who’d stabbed it.

“It has attacked an uspec! Kill it!” The soldiers ran towards us.

It was all happening too fast. I could not stand without leaning heavily on the bear, and even that brought me pain. Simple jerks of my leg hurt more than I imagined an infection could. But I could not allow them to kill this bear who’d saved me so many times in Nefastu. I pulled out my cutlass.

“Stop!” the voice that gave this order was new, different from that of the angry guards whose swords were so close to Marc’s flesh.

“I said stop. On the orders of the Kaiser of Chiboga, stop. That uspec belongs to the Kaiser, if you harm it, you will pay with your life.”

The guards stopped. My mind reeled. The Kaiser of Chiboga? Sophila? No, I shook my head, Sophila was dead. I killed it with the very cutlass I held. Sophi. Sophi was the only uspec of that line to remain. It was Kaiser now.

The guards retreated. They cleared a path.

Soldiers marched through that path. Silver earrings hung from their ears. The soldier in front of the line had a bar attached to its link. That rectangular bar showed that it was a chief, the same rank that I had been before I left the port.

“This uspec is a deserter of the Kaiser’s army. It must receive the Kaiser’s justice.”

“And the bear?” a guard questioned. “The bear attacked an uspec guard, surely it cannot live.”

The soldier shrugged. “My orders do not concern the bear, just the uspec.”

Hands reached for me.

No! I swung my cutlass in the air.

“Do you deny that you are a deserter of the Kaiser’s army and as such are subject to the Kaiser’s justice?”

I cleared my throat. It took a while for the words to come out. “The bear.” Two words. My head hurt. I wanted to sleep. My eyes begged for a break, for the bliss of oblivion.

“It is a fine bear. I suppose it will make a good gift for the mighty one.” The chief said. It stuck its hand into its belt and pulled out a piece of merit. It tossed the piece onto the ground by the foot of the guard who’d spoken last. “For the wounds of your injured comrade.”

“A piece of merit is not enough.”

“It is the piece or nothing. If your sovereign objects, tell it to bring its complaints to the Kaiser.” The soldier jerked its head at me, and then the bear. “Bring them both. Kill any guard that tries to stop you.”

This time I did not fight when the hands closed on my arms and led me away. I used my cutlass like a walking stick to support my injured leg. The pain did not stop, but I was just afraid enough to stay aware of my surroundings. What did Sophi want with me? How had it seen me? How had it known that I was here? The only reason that Sophi would go to so much pains to get me was if it knew what I’d done, if it knew that I was responsible for the death of its sire and its progenitor. No, Arexon killed Sophian, but it only did it to save my life.

What little I remembered of the young uspec was not flattering. I recalled it quoting Arexon. It had been a fan of the commander’s. Was it still?

We were led past the gates, onto a bed of hail on the other side.

“Bear!” I screamed, although the sound only came out as somewhat louder than a whisper. It was enough to get the chief’s attention.

“They are taking it to the den. It will be protected until the Kaiser decides what to do with it, and you.”

By the time we entered into a covered dwelling, I was too weak to walk. The soldiers were practically carrying me now, and I let them. I forced my eyes to fix on the silver links on the soldiers’ ears, and my mind to contemplate Sophi’s vengeance.

We stopped in front of hard fog doors which were manned by two gurus. The moment they saw the chief they saluted. Their salutes took me back to a time I had hoped never to revisit.

The solid fog drifted when the chief’s hand touched it. It marched into the room and saluted. “The banneret sirga.”

The room tilted. I tried to keep it straight, to keep my wits about me, but I could not. Danger lay on the other side of that door, but my mind could not comprehend it. The infection was spreading too fast, and my mind had been strained too much already.

I was led into the room. The soldiers released me, and I fell. The moment my body touched the ground, my mind went into the blissful ignorance of oblivion.

I am sure it is Arexon on the other side. Happy Belated Christmas, Obehid.

Wonderful update as ever. But if the imps with pansophy have siphon magic and since they are slaves of the pious, is it not right that atleast one of them should have knowledge about healing(from a pious)
Or is it an oversight by the imps or a conspiracy against nebud?
Or is it part of the intricacies of the story?

ALL IN ALL, WELDONE OBEHID

Obehid thanks for the update

Nice update ObehiD. I hope your Christmas experience is not like our dear Nebud's. His is a long and hard road. Thanks for the gift. We really appreciate you. Thanks a lot.

@tunjilomo hahaha, that's interesting...I guess we'll have to wait and see Happy belated Christmas to you too

@doctorexcel thank you for reading! So the issue with the healing is that there is no magic in the spectral existence for healing. What they usually do to heal themselves quickly is that they use pansophy to grow cut parts, so if they've been stabbed or cut or something like that, they can use growth. But with the infection that Nebud has, growth isn't going to be able to cure it, the skin can regrow, but the infection will still be there, and that's why it needs a healer. There will be medicine (and maybe even surgery) that it needs to fully fight it. So magic (neither pansophy or spectra...or really any of the spectral existence powers) can solve it. But, do the imps have the knowledge to do this? Pious slaves of healers would probably have the knowledge of the surgery, they may not have the medicine though. And honestly, even if they did, I doubt very much that they would waste it on an uspec, lol, but now I'm saying too much about these imps. We'll see more of their true nature later...

@ayshow6102 thanks for reading!

@decoderdgenius hahaha, no, not like Nebud's at all, too much suffering for the uspec. Thank you for reading!

Happy New Year, Obehid. May this new year be fruitful for us all.

Happy New Year Obehid and fans

Happy New Year Tunjilomo and Madosky112! Happy New Year everyone!!!

Part 11
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A light tune drifted into my ears. Rhythmic notes followed the tune. Then I heard whistling and words uttered in the strange tune. It did not take me long to realize that I was sharing a room with a singing uspec. I tried to remember the last time that I had heard uspecs sing. Katsoaru. I could very distinctly recall the uspecs who’d belted out the Uspecipyte song, not knowing that the song would be their last. Visions of a bloody room filled my mind. The song that I heard now was nothing like the song that the Uspecipytes sang. It reminded me more of a tune I’d heard Musa sing.

Musa.

Reality hit me with a jolt. My memories came flooding in. Sophi. I was still alive which had to mean that the Kaiser had other plans for me. It did not mean to grant me a quick death. Would it torture me first? I could not help the shiver that passed through me as my mind darted back to the scourging which I’d been subjected to at its progenitor’s behest. What little I knew of Sophi did not point at the uspec being particularly mean. Not like its progenitor had been. Still, what would an uspec do when faced with the opportunity to avenge its progenitor’s death. I knew what I would do if I was in the young uspec’s place.

Memories of Chiboga came back to me with a clarity I found frightening. I remembered what it had been like to serve in that port. The games that I’d played. I’d thought it prudent to mimic Arexon, playing the part of a dutiful and obedient soldier so that I could draw closer to the uspecs I planned to kill. My plan had not worked quite as I’d expected it to, but the end goal had been accomplished regardless. Sophian and Sophila were both dead.

There was no point in delaying the inevitable. I opened my eyes.

Whatever I was expecting, it was not the sight I was subjected to. I’d thought to wake up in a cold cellar. Well, I could feel my back sprawled on a soft surface, and my ailerons in a net underneath, so I knew that it could not have been a cellar. An infirmary then. A bare room, with several other beds packed together. That was the most I could have expected.

The room I woke to far surpassed my expectations.

Lying on my back, my gaze was set on the ceiling above my head. That ceiling was made of the most mesmerizing hard fog. The fog had been given light, and so it shone down soft rays of light gold. Cautiously, I pushed myself up so that I was sitting upright on the bed.

I did not have to wait till my ailerons were fully removed from the nets underneath the bed to see that it was a spacious bed. With my wealth I had gotten used to expensive and extravagant dwellings, but this room far surpassed any that money could buy. This was a room for a royal. The last time I had been in a room so fine was in Katsoaru, with Marcinus.

The bed I lay on was much larger than any I’d ever rented. My mouth hung open as I stared at what I’d only ever seen in tomes. A chilled table. It was a table made completely of hail. The top of the table was formed into a shallow rectangular bowl. The sides of that table were low enough that I could see to the bed of hail within it. Several large pitchers containing varying colored wines rested in the bed of hail on the chilled table. Next to the chilled table there was a stool, and on this stool several glass goblets. On the opposite side of the room, there was a heated table. This table had a similar bowl-like top as the first, but unlike the other, a crimson inferno burned underneath it, heating the contents in the bowl. There was food on that table. I could not tell what each morsel was, but they all looked ravishing. How long had it been since I’d had a real meal? The last food I’d eaten had been dried meat and grain cakes. I salivated just staring at the food.

It took much longer than it should take any self-respecting kute, to identify the pool of okun that surrounded the bed. In my defense though, it was a semi-circular pond, constructed closer to the back of the bed, and so I had to turn to notice it. Thoughts of the okun reminded me of my filth and how long it had been since I immersed myself in the pleasing liquid.

I looked down on myself.

My tattered cloak was gone. I wore nothing on me now, save for the banneret neckcloth. My skin had been cleaned. There was none of the sludge that had stained me from my sojourn in Nefastu. My leg. It was no longer covered with blue pus. A white cloth had been wrapped around my thigh, and I saw a spot of red on that cloth. I moved my leg and felt an answering twinge of pain.

I gasped when the pain hit me. It was not as bad as it had been before, but it was still present. I had been seen to by a healer. I could tell from the diminished ache in my leg and the clarity in my mind. The spread of the infection had stopped.

A gasp drew my attention to a set of curtains to the right of the chilled table. The curtains ruffled as some more squeaking sounds came from that direction. I was just about to call out when the curtains were drawn, and an imp walked out from them. This imp wore a rich lavender tunic. Its skin was streaked, and its eyes gone, but it was obvious from its dressing, that it was the valued slave of a wealthy uspec.

“Domina.” The imp greeted with a smile. There was a sense of familiarity in the way the imp smiled at me. I could not say that I had seen the imp before, but it looked at me as if it knew me. Still smiling, the imp drew closer. It walked around the end of the pond in the middle of the room, and came to a stop by my bed. The imp perched on my bed in a way that no imp but mine had ever dared to do. Its hand drifted to my injured leg. “How do you feel domina?” it asked.

I jerked my leg away from the imp’s touch. For all I knew, the imp had pansophy. “Do not touch me.” I spat out.

The imp pulled its hand back in shock. I noticed then that it wore earrings. I had never seen an imp wearing earrings. The earrings were tiny hanging cyan spheres. This was an osin, I decided. But whose?

“Who do you belong to?”

The imp frowned. “Don’t you remember me domina?” it asked.

I frowned back at it. Why would I remember it? I had never seen it before. But it just continued to stare patiently at me, the smile returning to its face. There was something eerily familiar about that smile. It bode of a kind nature. A kind imp. Why did that seem to strike a chord in me. The imp had long hair which had been styled around its head. Parts of the hair fell in long waves, the others were coiled and pinned by little gems. The gems were so well sewn into the hair that they were almost easy to miss. Which uspec would spoil an imp so? And an imp that I knew, had to mean an uspec I knew?

It dawned on me at once.

A slow, reluctant, smile crept onto my face. The imp’s smile widened. “Aaliyah.” I said.

It nodded. “Yes domina. It is good to see you well and recovered. Shall I fetch you something to eat or drink?”

I shook my head, pushing myself off the bed. “I will see to it myself.” I eyed the okun longingly.

“No. Please domina, you are not yet well enough to stand. If you put too much pressure on your leg, you could undo the progress that the healers have made. Tell me what you want, and I will bring it to you.”

I studied the imp. It did not stop smiling as it looked back at me. I could tell from its face that it was genuinely eager to serve me. The okun called to me, but it would have to wait. If my leg was healing, I would let it. The sooner it healed the sooner I would be back to fighting form. I had a mission to complete, an imp to trade for mine. I nodded at the imp.

It rose from the bed and began the process of preparing my meal. It walked over to the set of curtains and pulled a strange wooden tray from it. The tray had the same bowl-like top as the tables in the room.

“Did you clean me?” I asked.

“Yes domina.” The imp replied.

“What of my belt?”

“It is in the connecting chamber domina, under the master’s protection.”

Suddenly, it dawned on me that I had missed a very important piece of information. The last time I’d seen this slave, it had been in Yakubo’s arms. I had given Yakubo a fortune to start a new life with its imp. So why was the imp here? Unless Yakubo had been unable to leave. This imp was still serving the Kaiser, then what was left of Yakubo? I remembered the uspec’s face. It had been a good friend to me. If not for Yakubo, I would have died when I went on the spur of the moment trip to kill Sophila. It was Yakubo who had watched over me, protecting me from dangers which I had not seen.

Sadness welled in my heart as I thought of the uspec. What happened to an uspec who was caught after it had helped to kill the Kaiser? The same thing that was about to happen to me. My belt was with the Kaiser. I was without weapons. But I had spectra, and young Sophi was yet to form any of its outer eyes. Of course, it had soldiers whose eyes were formed. But if Sophi planned to have me killed, then why set me up in a room like this? I could have been seen to by healers in an infirmary, not in this luxurious suite so obviously designed to accommodate one of a Kaiser’s line.

Thick cyan curtains in the front of the room were suddenly pulled open. “Babe,” a voice said. An imp wearing clothes matching Aaliyah’s walked into the room. The imp was tall. It had a belt on its waist, and the jeweled hilt of a sword sticking out of that belt. My eyes widened. I had never seen an imp armed as such. This imp was easily recognizable. I remembered it as Aaliyah’s partner, the imp that it had kissed and shared a room with in Aurelion. Zane. But what was it doing here, in Damejo?

I frowned. This was starting to get too strange.

“It’s awake.” Zane said, stopping by the curtains. It turned around, “it’s awake!” it yelled into the room behind it.

“Aaliyah.” I called the imp’s name carefully. It was smiling when it turned to face me. “Who is your master?”

There was a short period of silence after I spoke. The imp Aaliyah’s smile widened and then its lips pulled apart as it prepared to answer. Before it could, another voice cut it off, beating the imp to providing the response I desired.

“I am.” The hard voice stated.

I could not believe it.

I stared with my mouth agape.

It all made sense now. The uspecs who had come to pick me up, the room that I had woken in, and even the presence of these two imps we’d met in Aurelion. I looked at the familiar cyan spikes on its chest, just before my eyes trailed to its ears. It still wore earrings. But unlike the last time I’d seen it, the earrings on its ears were golden, not silver. It had four stars, instead of bars, attached to the golden chains. My gaze moved to its arms. Those arms were covered with golden bands. Gone were the silver bands which had been there the last time we saw. Four golden bands replaced them.

“Sirga.” I tried to rise.

Arexon shook its head. “Don’t, you’ll disturb your leg. Sit.”

I let myself fall back on the bed.

Arexon turned to Zane. “Tell Yakubo that Nebud has woken.”

Zane nodded. “Yes master.” It walked out through the curtains.

Arexon walked into the room. I stared, watching as the uspec filled the space. Had it grown even bigger, or was it the gold that made it seem more imposing? The uspec walked over to the chilled table. It picked at pieces of fruit which I hadn’t known had been there, and fed itself, its lazy eyes crawling over my skin.

“What are you doing in Damejo?” it asked, after a long moment of silence.

I stared at the uspec. “I could ask you the same thing. The last time I saw you, you were in Chiboga, about to be invaded by the plenum. What happened? Are you travelling with the Kaiser?”

“The Kaiser?”

“The soldiers said that the Kaiser was here. I assumed they meant Sophi.”

Arexon chuckled. “They meant me.”

“What?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

Arexon walked away from the chilled table. It walked straight ahead, until it was standing by the okun, then its ailerons began to flap. Those ailerons lifted it just high enough that it appeared to float over the okun, then they deposited it on the other side. Arexon sat on the bed.

It smiled at me. “Sophila was a problem for the plenum.” It paused, as if contemplating its next words, before concluding with, “you can say that they did not mourn its death.”

“They let you take over? What of Sophi?”

“I am only the custodian of Chiboga. I made a deal with the plenum through the duke Auxa.”

I gaped at it. “That was why you had me deliver the message? So, the plenum never invaded? There was peace after I left?”

Arexon laughed. “Don’t look so perturbed, there is still danger in Chiboga. But yes, that was why I had you deliver the message to Auxa. It was for both our sakes. I knew that Auxa would have been the only one willing and able to help you pass through the barricade the plenum put around Chiboga.”

I scuffed. “And you could not simply tell me this?”

Arexon rose and eyebrow at me. It shook its head. “I could have told you. I chose not to.”

“Why?”

“Why? Maybe because you made me kill the one friend I’d had in Chiboga. Sophian may have been hard, but it had truly been a friend to me when I needed that friendship.”

A million denials swam in my head, but I fought down the urge to mention any of them. Instead, I swallowed and said, “Forgive me.”

“I already have. If I hadn’t, you would be dead.” Arexon eyed me steadily. “I was testing your loyalty Nebud, that is why I did not tell what you were delivering.”

I should have been more annoyed than I was. “And how did I do, sirga?”

“You are alive, aren’t you?”

I gritted my teeth. Even now, this uspec managed to push my buttons. I trusted it, I’d proven that in Chiboga, but sometimes I was not certain I liked it much. “Gratitude sirga, for this.” I gestured around the room.

“It is nothing. How did you come to be as you were? Why are you in Damejo? Where is your trusty imp Musa?”

So many questions. “It is a long story sirga.”

Arexon grinned. “We have nothing but time.”

“I do not have quite so much of that.”

“Tell me, and perhaps I’ll speed up the healing process.”

I clenched my jaw. The imp Aaliyah appeared then, carrying a tray filled with delicious looking morsels. It placed the tray on the bed, by me. “I brought a little of everything for you domina. What shall I get you to drink?”

I was just about to respond when Arexon cut me off. “Go to your husband. I will see to it.”

The imp curtsied and left.

Arexon stood from the bed.

“If you are Custodian, why did the soldiers call you Kaiser? And you still have not told me what happened to Sophi? Is it dead?” Did Arexon kill a young uspec to claim this power? How else could it become custodian?

Arexon took its time responding. It flew over the pond, walked to the chilled table, and poured two goblets filled with purple wine. Then it brought the goblets back with it. It handed one of the goblets to me. I took it with a bow of gratitude.

“The soldiers call me Kaiser because they want me to be. It is nothing but wishful thinking on their part.”

“And what do you want?”

Arexon’s cold eyes froze on me. This was a look that I had received many times while the commander broke me to its will. I could not help remembering all that had happened in Chiboga, the punishments that I had been subjected to at Arexon’s command. I took a gulp of my drink.

“Sophi is alive, of course.” Arexon stated. “I would no more harm Sophi than I would my own offspring. I told the plenum that Sophila was dead. The plenum needs to appear fearsome. They must invoke the emotion in all uspecs in this existence, if they ever want to rule it. I knew that they would want more than just an acceptance of an uspec’s death. I told them that Sophila was dead and offered to kill Sophian, as a punishment for its lines disobedience. They accepted.” Arexon took a sip.

“But Sophian was already dead.”

Its cold smile chilled me. “They did not know that. They accepted my terms. Sophian was punished for Sophila’s folly, and Sophi got to live. They will raise Sophi themselves. That is where Auxa comes in. Auxa belongs to the plenum. It will be Sophi’s guardian. The plenum will raise Sophi to be the kind of sycophantic Kaiser that they like, and then they will return it. When Sophi returns, I will hand over Chiboga to it. As a payment for services rendered to the plenum, Aboga will be reinstated as an independent port, and I will reclaim it, as Kaiser.”

I took another big gulp of my drink. “Congratulations.”

Arexon’s eyes held mine for a few moments before looking away. “We are not out of danger yet. The plenum demands payment for Isthum’s death. The bulk of their army remains around Chiboga until that payment is made. That is why I am here.”

“What payment?”

“Is it true?” The thick cyan curtains were pushed open. Arexon had an indulgent smile on its face as it turned to stare at Yakubo. Arexon never looked at me that way. I frowned. Why would I care how Arexon looked at me? I turned to face Yakubo. The uspec was all cheer as it made its way over to the bed.

“Nebud!” It exclaimed. “My friend.” It sat by me on the bed and leaned down. Then, it picked my hand up, and held it in both of its. “Salutations my friend. How are you feeling? When you collapsed in front of us, I thought we’d lost you.”

“I’m starting to think it is invincible.” Arexon drawled.

Yakubo froze. It jumped off the bed, turned to the side and saluted Arexon. I had my first good look at the uspec then. It had three golden bands on its arms. Gold, instead of silver. Arexon must have given Yakubo a big promotion, not just that, but freedom. Yakubo still wore earrings, but they were gold, like Arexon’s. Yakubo’s promotion came with two new eyes. It had only one outer eye-socket empty. The golden bands on Yakubo’s arms, and the extra eyes on its face, showed that it was a sovereign now. I found myself smiling at this.

“In clover.” Arexon ordered. “Relax, speak with your friend. I will leave you two to it.”

“Gratitude sirga.” Yakubo’s hand came down from its chest.

Arexon gulped down the remainder of its drink, placed the empty goblet on my tray and walked to the curtain. “Oh,” it turned just in front of the curtains, “see that it does not move out of the bed. We want the leg to heal soon.”

“Yes sirga.”

Arexon left.

“You were supposed to escape.” I said to Yakubo once the commander, no, I corrected myself, custodian…I shook my head. Leave it to Arexon to take an impossible situation, like the one I had left it in, and turn it into such an advantage. Arexon was the Custodian of Chiboga now. And when Sophi returned to take back control of its port, Arexon would become Kaiser of Aboga. Meanwhile, I was here, in Damejo, still following the voice in my head.

Yakubo chuckled. “I was going to, but I could not leave without ensuring your safety. I went back to look for you and I found the commander…” Yakubo cut itself off, “the Custodian, I mean. The high one told me what had happened. Then it said I was free to leave if I wanted to. So, of course, I stayed.”

“Of course.”

We both laughed.

It seems things worked out well for Arexon and co.

Happy new year obehid and my fellow readers and commenters of this amazing novel...
I read this update with smiles on my face.. Thanks obehid

Obehid you should go check the winners list for Dec and get something to boost your works...Congratulations.....