₦airaland Forum

Part 3
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“You have to die.” Fajahromo said. “It cannot be helped. You were born for this, to die right here, to die for the new world that we will usher in. The plenum will be so pleased.” Fajahromo sounded satisfied. Its voice was laden with a completion that I had never heard from it before. It sounded as if, in killing me, it had satisfied every goal it had ever set for itself.

I shivered at that thought.

“Open your eye Nebud. I do not know if you must be awake for this, but I would rather you faced your death as the brave fighter you are.”

I shook my head, at least I tried to, but my head would not move, it no longer belonged to me. I felt the firm hold of fingers on my eyelids. The fingers tried to pull them apart, to force my eye open. For a moment they succeeded, my eye opened and I could make out an eerie green light. But then the fingers left and my eyelids fell back into place, shielding me from Fajahromo and the death it promised.

“It is not Fajahromo.” Fajahromo sounded disgusted. “How many times do I have to tell you that we have left the pits? It is me, it is Gerangi, now open your eye!”

“Liar.” I thought. Gerangi was my friend. Why would Gerangi speak of death and the plenum? What did Gerangi care about the plenum? No, it was Fajahromo, it had to be.

“It is me my friend. Listen to my voice.”

No. I did not believe it. I could almost see the gloating expression on Fajahromo’s face as it bent closer towards me with its cyan blade. I knew what it would do with that blade, I knew all the ways that it would cut me, all the pain that it would cause. All before it killed me. I saw myself bleeding to death just as my offspring had. My offspring? Had I really had an offspring? Could so much pain truly exist? But there was something refreshing in the pain I felt. It was in the torrent of heart wrenching grief-induced pain that descended over me, that I finally found myself. The pain pushed the fear aside for long enough that I could truly examine the voice that spoke to me.

It was Gerangi.

“Open your eye my friend.”

The fear raced back, shoving the pain aside, as if it were an insignificant nuisance. Just before it could get a hold of me, I forced my open.

A transparent green fog swirled around me. Within it, Gerangi crouched, lowering its head so that it was on a level with mine. Its face held a smile that was somehow as relaxing as it was threatening. Behind Gerangi, was a sight that if I had the energy to care, would have made my eye widen and stolen my breath away. It was an opaque cyan fog, but it was composed in a way which made it resemble a drawn curtain with embroidered pleats.

“Ah, my friend, finally you’ve opened your eye. It is much better this way.” It promised. Something in its tone sent a shiver up my spine. Gerangi bent before me, but I saw the shadow of Fajahromo’s face in its own.

“You know, when you exerted all the anger and pain you had, in freeing that imp Xavier, I was enraged. I began to wonder how I would accomplish this; how could I possibly bring you here as an invalid? And the fact that you did this to yourself…pitiful. But then I bought the wheel-stool and I realized with each meal you rejected, that you were actually doing me a favor. The old Nebud would not have come to its death so placidly. No, the fighter would have demanded to know where we were going. You would have fought me my friend, you would have fought with every iota of will you possess. Bless the founder’s grace, you were delivered to me in exactly the form I needed. Our trials sometimes turn into triumphs, don’t they my friend?” Gerangi concluded its little speech with a reserved laughter. I could feel its glee, I could feel the smug satisfaction permeating out of its skin. It looked like an uspec satisfied with a job well done.

And what did I feel.

Joy of my own.

It did not show. I did not smile as Gerangi did, neither did my eye fill up with the awestruck look of jubilation. All I could do was finally, internally, give up whatever fight I had done with the polluted emotions. I felt the sorrow sink even deeper into me, the fear rushing after it. I did not think that I could feel any worse than I had since we left the pits, but I realized then that I had not truly been feeling. There must have been some anger and pain left in me, some fire of emotions I kept burning to keep the sorrow and fear from completely devouring me. But now the fire was out and I felt the true terror of the polluted emotions which my offspring had gifted me.

I shook. I shook so violently Gerangi jumped backwards. It frowned down at me, but I did not care. I was beyond caring, beyond observing, beyond living.

“I tried my pansophy on the fog.” Gerangi’s voice sounded slightly alarmed. “It did not work. But you have the answer, don’t you? Is that why you shake as you do? Does the fog speak to you? So much power wasted on a de trop irira from the slums.”

Gerangi’s voice faded as the sorrow sucked me in. The sorrow forced me to close my eye to escape the harsh reality of the world. Each time I succumbed to the tiresome prodding of my sorrow, the fear forced me to re-evaluate. My eye opened and closed sporadically, as my body spasmed on the wooden stool. I could feel the stool shaking underneath me. A few more shivers and I would fall.

The stool was tipped forward, and I was sent flying into the opaque cyan fog. The only thought in my mind as my body entered into the fog, was the blissful joy of escape that I would feel. I would be free. Finally, I would be free.

Then I landed on my side on a sludge ground.

The tremors grew even more violent. Sometime, between the vigorous blinking of my eye, I watched Gerangi walk into the cyan fog which had turned translucent. As soon as it walked in, it began to shake. It convulsed with a ferocity that overshadowed mine. Trapped in my shaking body, I watched blood trail down Gerangi’s nose. Its mouth was parted, as if stuck in the process of speech. Crack lines grew in Gerangi’s center eye, and before my twitching eyelids, I watched its eye pop out of its socket. Gerangi’s neck snapped, and it dropped to the green ground with a thud.

I knew that it was dead.

The jealousy that filled me was almost enough to steal strength from the polluted emotions in flux within me. I was the one that death had been promised to, yet I lived. I had accepted the polluted sorrow to die, I had given up the fight to gain my final release. But even that Gerangi had stolen from me.

With my blinking eye, I caught glimpses of Gerangi’s body swelling. It filled as if pumped full of gas, and like a tight skin filled with too much liquid, it burst. Instead of liquid, green dust rose in the air. It filled everything, rising from the green sludge in the ground to float all around me.

The dust particles floated towards me. They filled me, travelling up my nostrils and into my system. As soon as the dust entered me, it was as if I had been given a strong dose of energy. My body stopped its incessant shaking, my eyelids stopped their fluttering and I simply lay on the sludge ground, exhausted.

Somehow, I found the energy to pull myself up. I placed my hands flat on the ground and pulled myself up to a sitting position. My ailerons met with a hard, coarse, surface. Before I could turn around to explore the thing I leaned on, I saw an image in the dust.

The green dust particles swirled in the air, and I saw the green sludge ground underneath undulate. For a moment, I was tempted to stop to consider this, the fact that the sludge was green, a thing I had never before seen, but then I saw a form in the swirling dust. It was as if the green sludge was pushing out a body, but the body had no sturdiness, it was just a shape that I could barely make out. It was as if it was the front half of a thing that lived. I could not tell though, if it was an imp, an uspec, or a type of uspec-like animal which I had never before seen.

The form moved with the dust closer towards me. I wondered then if I should fear this thing which had no bones, no structure to hold it up. Was it a ghost? Should such be feared then. It wasn’t till that moment when I questioned the fear, that I realized that the polluted emotions which had filled me were gone.

I gasped.

Slowly I rose my hands in the air, and to my surprise, my hands followed the movements. Streaks of green sludge were stuck to the palms which I lifted, and I moved those hands closer to my face. Then I bent my legs, and like my hands, they obeyed my command.

My paralysis was gone. There was no sorrow, no fear. In fact, the memory of such an overwhelming fear felt so distant, and so uncharacteristic that I began to believe that it had all been a dream. It must have been. Why else would I feel fear to the degree to which I believed I had. I was Nebud, what would I fear as such? But then I remembered the grief of my offspring dying, but even that was just a small pang, an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I disowned that uspec in that moment and swore never to think of it again. An uspec that tried to kill me, I spat onto the sludge ground, it was no offspring of mine.

The fog of dust drew even closer and with it, the form hidden within. I placed my hand on the cloth which covered my neck and ripped it off. Then I peeled off one of the smaller scales on the side of my neck and held it firmly in my hand. Whatever this form was, I would fight it.

I tried to push myself to my feet, and suddenly found that I was drowsy. I remembered then that I had not eaten. My stomach felt empty, my body drained. I fell back to a sitting position on the sludge ground.

Finally, the form reached me.

A wraith hand moved towards me.

I lifted my hand in return, raising the sharp scale which I had peeled from my neck. I swiped through the air, slashing at the hand which reached for me. But my scale simply moved through unobstructed.

I pulled my hand back, but before I could try for another attack, the wraith hand was on me. I saw the green ghost hand move to cup my cheek but felt nothing. The green dust moved even closer towards me. It swirled around me then as the form moved. It was now in front of me, so close that if it was a person, I would feel its nose brushing against mine. The head bent to the side, one side and then the other, as if observing me. Then another hand appeared and that one cupped the other side of my face.

The green dust was suddenly suffocating.

I pulled back, trying to get away from this ghost and the dust that choked me. But I was imprisoned by the solid object behind me. I tried to turn then to see what the object was and if I could move it away, but I could not move my head. It was as if the ghost hands which I could not feel, held my head fast.

The feeling of suffocation grew. I could no longer breathe. It was as if the dust had formed a blockage in my nose, preventing any air from coming in. My eyes teared as I struggled with what little strength I had left to breathe. All through my agonizing battle for life, the head of the ghost continued its tilting from side to side as though it still could not find the best angle from which to observe me.

I grew lightheaded. I could already feel myself begin to lose consciousness.

I opened my mouth in an attempt to breathe in what little air I could. Instead of the air I craved, the ghost filled my mouth. It happened so quickly, and it was so unexpected that I could do nothing but shake as the green form flowed into me. With the form, came all the dust which had filled the room.

Suddenly, the room was empty. There was just the opaque cyan fog barring entrance and the empty sludge ground.

Gerangi’s body was gone.

I felt another spike of energy.

Then my arms rose of their own accord. I watched, an observer in my skin, as my hands rose again, and settled on the sludge ground beside me. Those hands began to dig. I could not tell what they dug for, and I felt a sudden desire not to find whatever it was. I was possessed, I realized, possessed by whatever had lived in the green dust fog. Was it Gerangi? Had Gerangi’s ghost come back to complete the mission it had brought us here for?

I did not know, and in that moment I did not care. I wanted nothing more than my body back, and so I fought. With every fiber of strength I still possessed, I pushed back against whatever it was that now possessed me. In my mind, I had pushed as if with my hands, and made as much progress as an uspec pushing against a mountain. It would not budge.

But I kept pushing, and in an instant, the mountain moved, and then it slid, and I was back in control of my body. My hands were raised from the sludge ground and pushed against the air in front of me.

Before I could luxuriate in my victory, I felt the force regain control of my body. This time my head jerked backwards. The back of my head slammed against the hard, unforgiving, wall behind me, and that blow knocked me into oblivion.

@Ultimategeneral that's okay, glad you're enjoying it

@spixytinxy lol...well, let's see how it goes

@Peaceyw I was wondering where you were. Welcome back, hope you enjoy catching up

@cassbeat hmmmm...I understand the feeling, lol

@Fazemood Thank you! That's a good question, where is Gerangi taking Nebud...

@Tuhndhay That's the question what power is Gerangi talking about....

Our destination was a room just like the one we had left. My wheel stool lurched forward as I was moved towards another set of light blue curtains. A streaked hand reached over me to push the curtain aside as my wheel-stool was rolled out of the portal room.

The pulled back curtains revealed sludge ground. The sight of the sludge sent a shiver up my spine. It reminded me of the room Fajahromo had kept me in, and the shackles it had used to bind me. I dared not close my eye. My wheel-stool was steered towards the right and then pushed forward.

“Oh, forgive me domina, I should have mentioned that the ground here is sludge. But Mel’s servers will take care of you. They have scented liquid for cleaning domina, I’ve heard it’s the best in Kook.”

“The best?” Gerangi’s voice held more than a bit of doubt.

“Yes domina. Only the best in Mel’s.”

There was no response to the imp’s words as I was moved forward. I rocked in my stool as beneath me, the sludge ground gave way to a wooden plankway. A few steps in front of us, there was a thick, rich curtain, and two imps seated on stools in front of it.

“Amara!” The imp behind me yelled as we approached the ones seating in front of us. Those imps startled. They cut off their conversation and turned to face us. The imps wore lose tunics. After jumping to their feet, one of them rushed towards us with a bowl and the other pulled the curtains open.

The one with the bowl knelt beside me. I could hear the imp wringing a piece of cloth from the bowl.

“Greetings domina.” The imp standing by the curtains said. “Will it just be two sharing this fine meal?”

The imp kneeling beside me stood up and walked back to its stool in front of the curtains.

“Yes.” Gerangi’s voice was surprisingly curt.

“Very well domina.” The imp bowed. It turned to walk inside, but Gerangi’s voice stopped it.

“And I desire a word with the owner, the imp Mel.”

The imp frowned. “Mel does not…”

“If I were you, I would tell her that a pious one demands her presence and then wait for her response. I would not so callously put words into another’s mouth.”

The imp’s lips parted as if it prepared to speak. The imp sitting on the stool cleared its throat. That sound drew the other’s attention. The imp on the stool tipped its head to the side and the imp standing nodded.

“Of course, domina, it will be done as you wish. Please follow me.”

My stool rolled forward and I was led into a room with empty circular tables. Instantly, I was reminded of the warden’s meal room and the novice who had fetched me from it. That thought led me back to Fajahromo and how easily it had defeated me. I shivered a little, but I did not close my eye, I did not give the fear leave to take root in me.

The imp led the way to a table at the far end of the room. As we moved, my nostrils filled with the smell of pastries. But not even the pleasing aroma could enliven my stomach enough to demand food. During our journey on the canoe, Gerangi had occasionally tried to push food into my mouth. Without the will to chew or spit, the morsels had remained in my mouth until they dissolved and either trickled down my throat or escaped the corners of my mouth as saliva.

The imp stopped at a table. It pulled aside one short bench and my stool was rolled to take the place of that bench. Gerangi sat opposite me.

“If you’d excuse me domina, I will tell Mel that you wish to see her.” The imp that ushered us in said. Gerangi nodded, and the imp left.

After the imp disappeared from my line of sight, Gerangi asked, “who is this Mel that she will not see a guest?” there was the slight undercurrent of anger in Gerangi’s voice.

“The imps speak for her domina. She would not speak as such.” Promise reassured.

“Then who are these imps?”

“Freed imps who despise slavery and the uspec race who enslaved them.”

Gerangi’s voice held a note of censure. “Behavior like that could get this place closed down and all the imps returned to slavery. If the wrong uspec were to witness it, that is.”

“Uspecs rarely come here domina, and the ones who do despise slavery as much as the imps.”

Gerangi’s lips pursed. The frown lines did not leave its face, but it nodded at Promise before looking away. Its eye met mine. An avalanche of emotions marred Gerangi’s face in the moment that our eyes met. There were too many emotions for me to read, too many for me to care about. So, I simply stared back, lifeless behind the eye that observed so much. Gerangi shook its head and then looked away.

The silence that followed was interrupted by the sound of wood scraping against wood. Next, I heard feet shuffling against the floor and a voice from further behind me say, “go back outside Amara.”

Gerangi’s head snapped to the side, and its eye seemed to focus on something out of my line sight. It wasn’t long till the sound of feet shuffling against the hardwood ground grew closer. The streaked skin of the imp Promise, moved further away, taking the imp out of my line of sight. A bench was moved in to fill the spot where Promise had stood, and another imp sat on that bench. I could not make out the distinct features on the imp’s face as it sat where only my peripheral vision could pick up traces of it. But I could see enough to know that it was clothed, and that its skin was streak-less.

“Greetings domina.” The imp’s voice chimed as its head turned to face Gerangi.

Gerangi nodded. “You are Mel?”

“Yes domina. How may I be of service to you?”

Gerangi’s gaze flitted over the room behind me before moving back to rest on the imp Mel. Its voice lowered as it asked, “how long have you been in Kook?”

“For centuries domina. I am the oldest living thing here.” The imp chuckled as if its words had been a joke.

Gerangi’s responding laughter was dry. “Perhaps you can help me then, I am looking for a place. Promise says that it is no longer in Kook, but I know that once, it was.”

“What place is it you speak of domina?” Mel asked, its voice soft.

“The Isle of Brio.” Gerangi replied.

A moment of silence greeted Gerangi’s words.

Out of the side of my eye I could make out the jerks of Mel’s shaking head. “I have never heard of such a place. Perhaps your information is wrong domina.”

Gerangi shook its head. “It was here. A century ago, it was here.”

“Hmmm. If you don’t mind my asking domina, my server tells me that you are a pious one. Is this true?”

Gerangi’s face suddenly grew wary. “Yes.”

“Well then, maybe there is another way you can find this place you are certain once existed in Kook. You see, I am old, and I have been around for a very long time. It is possible that perhaps once, a long time ago, such a place existed here. But if it did, I have no recollection of it. However, since you are pious, you must have pansophy, yes domina?”

Gerangi’s confirming nod was hesitant.

“Well then, if you have pansophy, you can filter through my memories and find what you seek.” The imp paused. “For a price of course.”

Gerangi scuffed. “Of course. And how much would it cost?”

“Oh, nothing a pious one couldn’t afford. Just one piece of worth.”

Somewhere, buried deep down in my rotting mind, I felt a burst of shock. A piece of worth? It was more money than I had ever laid eyes on, much more money than I had known any trader imp to own. A piece of worth could buy a very good plot of land, it could buy an imp with magic. It could buy…the outrage receded, as the energy for such thoughts ebbed, stolen away by the polluted sorrow which told me that I was too sad to care about such things as money, and the polluted fear which told me that no amount of money would save me from Fajahromo’s wrath. I shivered at the thought of the name, and almost pulled my eyelid down, desperate for an escape from the tiresome world of people and talk.

Gerangi’s voice stopped me. Its voice was so cold and so dangerously low that it forced me to keep my eye open. Better to see that the voice belonged to Gerangi than to close my eye and convince myself that it was Fajahromo’s. “A piece of worth?”

“There is much in my head domina, too much to get too little from giving another permission to tinker with it.”

Gerangi’s jaw clenched. “Fifty pieces of merit.” It spat out.

“No domina, I’m afraid I will not barter over this. A piece of worth is the fee. You may either take it, or leave.”

Gerangi jumped to its feet with so much force that the bench it had been sitting on was pushed backwards, landing hard on the wooden floor. It stretched out its hand, but Mel was already on its feet too. “I have been around for too long domina, too long to be caught unawares by an uspec with pansophy.” Was that derision in its voice?

Gerangi’s arm fell back to its side. “And if I find nothing in your memories relating back to what I search for?”

“Then I will return half the value of the price you paid.”

“Fine.” Gerangi spat the words out. “But you may come to regret this bargain imp Mel. Truly you may.”

“That is a risk I can live with.”

Gerangi reached into the sachet bag it had brought with him from the pits and pulled out a white piece. It dropped it onto the table and I barely had a moment to see the golden embellishments on the white piece before it was scooped up by the imp Mel.

“We can go to my office.” It offered. “Perhaps we can have food brought for your friend?”

“No.” Gerangi replied curtly.

“If it’s the paralysis you worry about, then don’t. We have ways of getting food into the bodies of ones who cannot actively take it. Your friend looks like it needs the nourishment domina.”

“I said no.”

“As you wish. Please follow me.” The imp led the way, and they both disappeared, moving out of my line of sight.

The imp Promise moved back into view. It righted the bench Gerangi had been seated on and walked back to stand by the side of the table where Mel had sat.

I waited for Gerangi’s return in a state of thoughtlessness. A part of me was compelled to recall the words that Gerangi had shared with Mel and the actions which had accompanied them. But that part of me was faint. It was just a small voice in a mind already clouded with fear and sorrow. Even if I had the desire to listen to the voice, I had no energy to perform the actions it wanted. And so, I waited, staring at nothing but the wall which Gerangi’s body had covered.

I could not say how much time passed before Gerangi returned with imp Mel. I marked their return with the same level of interest as their departure. This time, I heard Gerangi’s voice coming from behind me, as Mel stood in front of me, behind the bench Gerangi had sat on.

“Will you not stay for the night at least. Our accommodations are very restful.”

“No.”

“Then for a meal. Your friend may not be tempted by our meals, but surely you are. We make the best meatpies in all of Kute, right here, at Mel’s place. It is like nothing you’ve ever tasted.”

“Save your words Mel, I have no hunger for food. But I should thank you, however reluctantly, for the information you shared. Now I crave nothing more than the joy of reaching my destination. I fear I will not stop for food or rest until my journey is complete. Still, I thank you for your generosity.” The last word sounded strained.

A puzzled expression appeared on Mel’s face. “As you please.” She said finally.

“For you Promise.” Gerangi said. The imp stretched out its hand and I saw a white piece fill that palm before the hand was covered quickly.

“Thank you domina.” Promise sounded surprised. “You are too kind to me.”

My wheel-stool rolled backwards and then I was maneuvered to the side, and then back around, facing the curtains we had come in through.

“I can help you domina, I can push the wheel-stool to wherever you need to go.” Promise’s words were filled with hope.

“No.” Gerangi replied. “This part of the journey we must face alone.”

Then my wheel-stool was moved forward to the curtains. The curtains were drawn open from the outside and Gerangi pushed me through. The orange hue of the day had gone, leaving the lighting of the red clouds to take its place. We moved back through the wooden plankway to the sludge ground.

When we were back on the sludge, Gerangi exhaled. “Finally, it whispered behind me, finally, we go to the Isle of Brio and the riches it hides. Finally, my oath to the plenum will be complete. Power, Nebud, power awaits me. Fajahromo will pay for the crimes it committed. It will pay dearly.”

I felt the brush of cool fingers against the back of my head. “But even you must not know the way to where we go. Only I can.” Gerangi said. “Only I must. Sleep now.” It commanded.

If I had any strength left, I would have screamed NO. Gerangi did not know the demons that awaited me when my eye closed. It did not know the monsters in my dreams. I could not sleep. I could not, but Gerangi’s command echoed through my mind, stealing away whatever mangled bit of consciousness I had left.

Darkness descended on me, and with it, the overwhelming fear of the death I knew was soon to come.

Part 2
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“Tiyoseriwosin?” The question was repeated. I heard the impatience in the voice, and wondered if perhaps the cyan axe would swing before the inquirer deigned to repeat its question. In a part of my mind a little spark ignited my subconscious and a very small part of me, the part that could summon up the energy to care, hoped that the question would remain unanswered and that the axe would swing. I would finally get the release I had been searching for. But then the spark died, and the indifference took complete control of me.

A throat cleared. Out of the corner of my impassive eyes, I saw green legs walk beside my wheel-stool. They stopped just in front of me and stood to the side.

“What is the meaning of this?” Gerangi’s voice rang imperial, with an air of authority which I had never heard before.

There was silence, for a moment or two, following Gerangi’s question. Then the cyan axe swung forward lightly, as if its bearer was getting a better hold on it.

“Tiyoseriwosin?” The question was repeated, with more emphasis put on each syllable.

The cyan axe swung a little closer towards me, and again that spark was ignited. I hoped then that Gerangi would give the wrong answer to the question and that we would be both die. Suddenly, I was filled with a certain urge to speak, to scream. I felt strength course through my body, stealing my vitality from the polluted sorrow which had robbed me of it. I felt I could stand then, that I could jump to my feet and take the axe from the uspec who held it. I thought, finally, I could give myself the release that I craved.

The polluted emotions within me made a liar out of me. The fire which had been lit in me burned out, as if doused, and I was suddenly back to the empty shell I had become. Not even a finger twitch. I had not even had enough strength to raise one of my fingers before the depression returned and I could do nothing but observe. There would be no more sparks, from me. I knew that. The polluted sorrow within me would ensure it.

“On whose authority do you dare question the pious?” Gerangi’s voice came out again, and again it was filled with that undeniable note of authority.

Silence followed Gerangi’s words for the second time. This silence was different. This silence felt like it was echoed throughout the dock, not just in the space that surrounded us.

The feet planted on the ground in front of me moved backwards slightly as if uncertain. Then someone scuffed. The scuff was followed by the sound of an uspec spitting onto the ground. “You are no pious.” A sneering voice said. “If you are pious then I am magistrate.”

That statement spurred a round of laughter. The sounds associated with the bustle of the docks resumed.

The green legs standing beside me moved forward slightly. I would not raise my eyes and so I did not see exactly what happened. But a moment later, the cyan axe dropped to the floor, followed quickly by an uspec dropping to its knees. It was now on a level where I could see its face. It had two eyes, one in the center of its face, the other to the side. Both of those eyes were glazed over. “It is pious.” The uspec muttered. It repeated the words hauntingly. “It is pious. It is pious. It is pious.” It intoned like a mantra.

There was more silence, then, “forgive us pious one.”

The green legs in front of me cleared and my stool was moving again. The wooden barrier which I had seen from afar, lifted before we approached it. We proceeded undisturbed into the Hamlet.

As we made our way across the soft road, my eye took note of the passersby. A few people shared the soft road with us. Some uspecs walked towards us, hurriedly approaching the market docks we had just left, others walked by us going deeper into the Hamlet.

“There are no houses.” Gerangi’s voice was dry. “Where are all the people?”

“Kookas don’t live close to the docks domina. The only dwellings you’ll find around here belong to the touts who manage the docks.”

“Touts indeed. When did the chasm reach this far south?”

It paused a moment before continuing. “They’ve been asking those questions for months now domina. They say Kook has to be kept pure.”

“On whose orders?”

“Who knows? Some say it’s on the order of the most prominent Kook line. Some say it came down from the duke of the Second metropolis. It’s the chasm domina, it spreads.”

A scuff. “How far is it to this Mel’s place?”

“Oh, we can’t walk it domina, it’ll take an hour at least, just to get to the Kooka dwellings. Mel’s place is a half a day walk from there.”

“You can’t walk for a day?”

“I can domina, I just didn’t think it would be fitting for a pious one.”

Laughter. “What other option is there then?”

“If you have a piece of value to part with, we can use the portals.”

There was more silence, and then finally, “the portals it is.”

We continued the rest of the journey in silence. Perhaps if I had full control of my mind, or at least a bit of the curiosity I had become used to in the pits, I would have looked around to see the dwellings we no doubt passed. But I could not summon the desire to care, and so I remained as I was, paralyzed by the polluted sorrow which filled me. My wheel-stool was rolled further down the road. I could tell from the sounds which lowered in intensity, that we were moving further away from the docks.

I closed my eye, eager to escape the orange hue of the day and the green legs which sporadically appeared in my line of sight.

The sound of loud voices broke into my mind, stealing away the little peace I had found in the darkness. I heard them all around me, they surrounded me, digging into me. My polluted fear spiked. I felt the sticky wetness of sweat trailing down my back, between my ailerons. My heart pounded within the confines of its cage and my traitorous mind chose that moment to remind me of the shackles Fajahromo had used to bind me and all the things it would do to me when it found me. I could hear its voice amongst the cacophony of sound pouring into my ear. I heard its laughter and I could feel myself shake.

It took several moments for me to realize that I was shaking, actually shaking. I heard the chatter of my teeth hammering against each other and felt the brush of my thighs against the stool. Fajahromo’s laughter grew louder, and louder. It wanted me to open my eye, it wanted me to see how it would kill me, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t open my eye, I couldn’t face my fears. Instead I cowered, praying for it to end quickly.

I felt hands on my shoulder. Those hands shook me, they shook me even harder than I shook myself from the fear. They shook me so hard that my ailerons collided forcefully against the handles of the wheel-stool. But I would not open my eye, I could not face Fajahromo. I knew it would kill me, I knew that I was nothing compared to it.

“Open your eye my friend.” A familiar voice stole into my mind. The voice was steady. It firmly forced its way through my worst fears, ensuring that I would hear it. “It is just me my friend. We are far from the pits, Fajahromo is not here. Open your eye.”

“Lie!” I wanted to scream it, but I could not. I could not move my lips, I could not make my teeth stop their chattering. My body was no longer my own.

“It is no lie.” The voice in my head said. “I speak no lie.”

I sensed something in that voice, a calm assurance which somehow had the power to chase the worst of the fear away. The sound of teeth chattering faded and I opened my eye.

My head was tilted upwards, forcing my gaze to lock with Gerangi’s face. It had a frown on its face, but then the severe frown lines gentled and it said, “No monsters here, my friend. Just me.” It spoke cajolingly, as if to a child.

Seconds passed when my head remained tilted up, until finally Gerangi released me and my head moved of its own accord to rest as it had since we left the pits.

“Is it sane?” a cautious voice asked. “Kook is no place for a crazy uspec.”

There were curtains in front of me. The curtains were a light shade of blue.

“It is no concern of yours.” Gerangi’s voice held a note of chastisement.

Gerangi’s words were followed by the distinct sound of a person grumbling and then the blue curtains were pulled open. My wheel-stool moved forward into an empty room floored with hardened quicksand. I was rolled to the center of the room. Moments passed before the ground underneath my stool softened and I was sucked into a portal.

Sorry everyone, i was really busy earlier, so I couldn't post this update on time, I'm really sorry for that. I'm just going to go through it again, and then I'll post it soon. Sorry again, and thanks for the patience

@spixytinxy Yes, I am okay... too short well, this one is longer

@Fazemood I'm happy that you're enjoying it. I'm okay. I've been really busy, but I'm doing my best to stay on top of the posts.

@Tuhndhay thank you! Well, I don't know if there's a twist coming up, but there is definitely something

@cassbeat I'm here, sorry, update coming soon

VOLUME THREE
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~~~

KUTE

(A Spectral existence word which represents one of the five spectrums in the spectral existence. This word refers to the people of this spectrum, that is the uspecs of the Kute spectrum who have a tail as their distinctive feature. The uspecs in the Kute spectrum are sometimes called okun people as they are so tightly bound to the okuns in the spectral existence. As such, kute eyes give an uspec the magic of the okuns, which allows them to use the okuns to harvest the power needed for spectra from any creature. The uspecs in the Kute spectrum are also bound to the pain emotion.)

~~~

Part 1
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Outside the pits. The third burg in the second metropolis of Hakute
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A half-naked imp, with streaked skin and empty eye-sockets, sat on a wooden platform a few paces in front of me. The imp’s arms moved in a somewhat circular motion as it moved the oar, using it to displace the liquid in the okun, and propel the open-top canoe forward.

My eye stared emotionlessly at the ripples in the pink liquid made from the moving paddle. Occasionally, another vessel would come into our path and the imp driving it would nod in a passing greeting at the imp driving ours. Then the vessel would move away, out of my field of view, and I would continue to stare at the pink liquid.

In a part of my mind, I registered that the world I now inhabited was so much different from the world that I had spent my first years in. That world, the world of my slum, was a world filled with sludge and hovels. This world, outside the pits, had okuns everywhere. I could not recall how many days had passed since we’d left the pits. I did not remember how we happened upon this canoe, and I did not know where I was being taken. All I knew was a depression that had stolen my ability to care.

I heard feet shuffling behind me and interpreted the sound as one coming from another uspec’s pacing. I knew who it was that shared the canoe with me, but even if I hadn’t, I would not turn around to find out who the uspec was.

Gone were the instincts that I had been forced to learn in the pits. Gone were the days when the sound of the unknown would have me leaping to my feet and preparing to face the coming threat. Now I was a fragmented mind trapped in a carcass. It seemed so long ago since I had last moved my feet, I could no longer recall how, and I had no desire to find out. My hands remained immobile, resting on the arms of the wheel-stool in which I sat. My head did not turn to take in the new sites in which I passed and the marvelous world of okuns and the burg built around them. The only part of my body I still controlled where my eyes. I knew I could shut them when I pleased, and that I could open them when the fear of the darkness pushed me to.

Fear, had there been a life before it? I could not remember. But it was the only stimulation I now knew, the only thing that made my heart race. Every glance from a strange uspec reminded me of Fajahromo’s cunning eyes, and every loud sound reminded me of its jarring laughter. I saw Fajahromo everywhere I went, and I remembered how easily it had manipulated me. I knew that it would find me, and I knew that it would kill me, it was only a matter of time.

But not even the fear could make me rise to my feet and take control of my fate. Because everywhere the fear went, the sorrow accompanied it. I remembered Fajanux as it died with its eye open, staring into mine as if demanding answers it deserved from the one who gave it life. I recalled the first day I had seen it as an uspec, the day that Fajahromo had brought it into my cell. It had done to me what I had done so carelessly to so many others. It had infested me with polluted emotions and then it had looked up for approval from Fajahromo.

I think I would cry if I had enough feeling to shed tears. I mourned an offspring who loathed me and was responsible for the state I was currently in, one where the sorrow in me was so deep and so overwhelming that I could not summon the will to move my own body. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I simply continued to stare ahead, not able to turn my own head around and meet the eye of the uspec behind who touched me. The uspec let out a deep sigh of sorrow and then its hand left my shoulder. I heard it move backwards, away from me, and all I could do was continue to stare ahead, at the wide end of the oar displacing the pink liquid.

As the canoe continued to rock in the vast okun, I shut my eye and simply waited in darkness for the fear to override my desire to escape the sights in front of me. It never happened instantly. Sometimes the fear was so slow to build that I could keep my eye shut for minutes, but then it would bear down on me, and become so imposing that I would have no choice but to open my eye and reassure myself that I was not back in the pits, hanging from shackles in the wall. I had not slept since I left the pits, but I knew, from the changing lighting in the environment I inhabited, that several days had passed. Although I had not slept, I had many moments of detachment, when my sorrow, the depression, overrode my fear to such a degree that just staying cognitive in my mind was too much of a burden. And so, with my eye open, all thoughts would cease and I would simply exist, if it could even be called that. That was the closest I got to resting. In those moments, I longed for the use of my limbs so that I could give myself the eternal release of death. If I had enough strength to move my limbs, I would have ended my life a long time ago, regardless of Gerangi’s presence.

It took me a while to realize that the canoe had stopped moving. Perhaps I had gone to that phase where my mind was too exhausted to keep thinking and had simply stopped. I do not know. But when the fear rose up, coursing through me like a violent wave, I opened my eye, and watched the imp jump down into the pink liquid of the okun. It bent, doing some work below the level of the canoe. When it rose, the canoe was secured to a wooden post.

The sound was slightly startling. I was still positioned with my eye staring into the okun, and although I could see the post which our canoe was secured to, I could not see anything else. But I knew there had to be a platform of sorts somewhere close, from the faint sounds I heard.

Suddenly, a green body appeared in my line of sight. The uspec cast a pitying glance my way, before turning to the imp still standing in the okun.

“How do we get to the island?” Gerangi asked.

“Where?” the imp asked. “Coulda been go Hamlet Kook?” the imp’s voice was scratchy, and it spoke a broken Kute tongue which I could barely decipher. It was obvious that this imp had not been in a Kute port for long. “Or coulda been go Hamlet Asha?”

“Kook.” Gerangi replied.

The imp nodded. Then it climbed to the top of the wooden post and balanced itself on one leg. Perhaps if I cared enough to be impressed, I would have been astonished at the imp’s expert ability to keep balance while standing in such a precarious position. But I did not care and so I simply stared emotionlessly at it all.

The imp placed both of its hands around its mouth, and when it spoke again, its voice sounded much louder. “Ahhh! Kooka-kooka-kooka!” it repeated its bellow a number of times before I heard a voice from further off reply,

“See me.”

“Come!” the imp yelled, before jumping down from the top of the post into the canoe.

Gerangi turned sideways and I could see that it was staring at something. Then the corner of its lip tipped upward in a smile of satisfaction before it turned its back on me. “How much?” it asked.

“Only three pieces of merit.” The imp replied.

“Only?” Gerangi scuffed. “One for your master, and two for yourself, eh? Do I look like a fool?”

What followed was pointless haggling that I quickly allowed my mind to escape. A part of me remembered our money. It had been so long since I’d seen the white square pieces. I knew that one piece of merit was a lot of money. And so, I imagined we must have been on this canoe for a long time if the cost was only payable with merit, as opposed to value, which was our lowest denomination. Worth was the highest, but a single piece of worth could buy a tract of land. I doubted I would ever see that much money.

“Greetings!” A cheerful voice called out. The voice came from my side, and since I would not crane my neck to see the owner, I could not tell what it was.

“Greetings domina.” The voice spoke again. This time, Gerangi turned. It grumbled at been ripped off, but then it pulled out two white pieces from the sachet bag it had carried out of the pits and gave them to the imp who’d driven the canoe. The imp was all smiles and gratitude as it accepted it.

“Help me canoe boy.” The new voice called out. The imp who’d driven the canoe, quickly hid its money in its trouser pockets and then it walked over to me. The imp walked out of my line of sight and a few moments later, I was lifted out of the crater in the canoe where my wheel-stool had been placed to keep me from rolling around in the canoe, and was carried off our canoe, onto a wooden platform. Then I was carried up a slight ramp by the two struggling imps and left to rest on another platform.

I stared ahead as I heard more feet climbing unto the platform. The sound of the feet was followed by the bang of wood against wood. Then more feet shuffling. I felt my stool move a little, and after a while it stopped moving. It was held faster than it had been in the canoe.

“What is this?” Gerangi asked.

“A mobile domina. It is a platform that moves. It’s used all around Hamlet Kook domina.”

Both voices came from behind me.

Suddenly, the platform lurched, and we were moving. Gerangi let out a low sound of shock. As we moved, we got closer to the source of the sound that I had heard. I could faintly make out an end to the okun, and solid ground with people milling about.

“Fascinating. Where are these mobiles from?” Gerangi asked.

“They are made in Lahooni domina.”

“What are you?”

“Me domina?”

“Yes, you. Who owns you?”

“Oh!” the imp chuckled. Although I was still yet to see it, as it had not once entered my line of sight, I could tell from the way it spoke to Gerangi that it was an imp. “I belong to the Hamlet domina. I am a runner.”

“Do you have a name?” Gerangi’s voice sounded amused.

“You may call me whatever you please domina.”

Gerangi’s laughter was dry. “What were you called in your umani life?” it asked.

Silence followed the question.

“I don’t mean to pry.” Gerangi’s voice was cautious.

“Oh no, it’s nothing domina. It has just been so long since my umani life ended that I must think to recall the name. It may have been Promise.”

“Have you been in Kook the whole time?”

The imp laughed. “No domina, I cannot stay in any one place for so long. I have been in Kook for ten years though.”

“Who owns you Promise?” Gerangi asked again.

The imp laughed. “You are very perceptive domina.”

“No slave can come and go as they please.”

“I was owned once. I was a slave for my first fifty years in the spectral existence, but then my master died, and I could not serve its offspring. So, I ran away.”

“How much do you charge for your services then?”

The imp gasped in shock. “You will pay me even knowing that I am a runaway?”

“Slavery is such a terrible institution. There is more than enough wealth in the spectral existence for all imps to be employed and paid for their time. But for a twist of luck, I could have been born umani and you uspec.” Gerangi sighed. “I will pay you Promise, and I will pay you well.”

“Thank you domina. I will take whatever you give me.” The imp’s voice was filled with awe.

A few moments passed in silence before Gerangi spoke up again. “Tell me Promise, have you ever heard of ‘The Isle of Brio’?”

“No domina. It cannot be in Kook, I know everywhere in Kook.”

“Perhaps not in Kook, but very close to it. Are there any imps in Kook who’ve been here for centuries?”

“Only one I know of domina. Her name is Mel and she owns the border motel Last Chance. It will cost you to speak to her though.”

“The imp is free?”

“She served the most prominent Kook line for over a century and in return they gave her freedom, a home, and a source of income.”

“All she had to do was remain a slave for over a century.” Gerangi’s voice was thick with sarcasm.

The imp laughed.

The platform stopped moving and moments later, I felt my stool move underneath me.

It was as if we had docked at a market. I heard a cacophony of voices, none of which held any particular meaning to me. The platform had stopped by a plankway which extended from the land I had seen. I was rolled onto the plankway and then to the land, where I saw uspecs and imps brushing past each other, running from one spot to the other. I watched emotionlessly as other canoes and some platforms docked by different plankways, and their inhabitants walked off their modes of transportations and came to a stop, where I was stopped at.

It was only then that I noticed that there were barriers cordoning off the section I was in, where the arriving platforms and canoes had docked, from the rest of the hamlet. As we got closer to those barriers, we were formed into lines.

I was only a few people away from the front of the line when I heard a familiar question.

“Tiyoseriwosin?”

I could not hear the answer, but it was followed by a large uspec picking up an axe with a cyan blade and swiping it in the air. I watched detachedly as four uspec heads were cut off from their bodies and the heads rolled on the soft ground. One of those heads stopped in front of me.

I got my first view of the imp Promise, when it walked around and stopped in front of me, bent, picked up the head, and then tossed it aside, as if it was trash. Then the imp walked back behind me and my stool rolled forward.

My gaze remained ahead, and I was suddenly staring at wispy green legs, and blood-stained cyan axes. We were next in line, and an uspec asked, “Tiyoseriwosin?”

@cassbeat thank you! I have more so come and eat

@spixytinxy lol, thank you! I don't know if this is very long, but it's what I had time to write. Hope you enjoy it

Part 19
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I followed Xavier to Gerangi’s cell and watched with mixed feelings at it pushed its hand into the fog. The fog cleared and Xavier stuck its head into the cell. “Gerangi.” It called out, its voice slightly raised but not so loud that it would attract unwanted attention.

Gerangi who had been lying on its bed, rolled around so that it was facing us. It took one look at Xavier and me, and it smiled. As Gerangi climbed off its bed, I remembered Fajahromo’s deranged screaming. I remembered doubting Gerangi. Even now I didn’t know who I could trust. I believed Fajahromo’s plan, that is, I believed that it wanted to make a port for iriras like me, and I understood that there was no place for Gerangi and pious ones like it in the port Fajahromo planned to make. Was that why Gerangi would lie to me? But Fajahromo’s motives couldn’t have been pure. If so, why would it have me birth an offspring and then have the offspring taken away from me, and raised as its ward? I wasn’t sure I believed Gerangi’s views on the subject anymore, I wasn’t sure that Fajahromo had wanted to have me and my offspring killed in the hatch to create a kun of four emotions. If that was Fajahromo’s plan, it would have said it when it had been yelling. Instead it said it would have me killed and create another kun like me, one of only anger and pain, which meant it had no intention of creating a kun of four from me and my offspring. So why had Gerangi lied? Or had Gerangi lied? Perhaps it had only said what it believed to be true.

A wave of fear and sorrow coursed through me, and I had to lean against the walls to keep myself from slumping desolately to the ground. I heard my teeth chatter as they drummed against each other forming a chaotic rhythm. Then the pain came over me and I remembered how it felt to see my own offspring calling Fajahromo pater. That forced the fear down and anger rose unbidden pushing the sorrow back.

Gerangi frowned at me. “What is wrong with you?” it asked, its voice sounding irritated.

I eyed Gerangi casually as I forced myself away from the wall. I noticed that it had a small brown sachet bag in its right hand. “Nothing.” I spat out through gritted teeth as another wave of sorrow filled me. I took a deep breath and waited for the anger to push back.

Gerangi turned to Xavier and lifted its eyebrow in question.

“Fajahromo had Fajanux pollute Nebud’s fear and sorrow. Now the only thing keeping it sane is its anger and pain.” Xavier summarized accurately. I clenched my jaw, ignoring the odd feeling I got when Gerangi’s eye rolled over me. For a second, I wondered if it would go back on its word and leave me there. It looked at me as if I had become a liability.

Then Gerangi sighed. “Just hold on to the anger and pain.” It said to me, then it turned to Xavier and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Gerangi led the way, and Xavier and I followed behind it.

We walked by a number of wardens who didn’t even give us a second glance. I would like to say that it was the sight of me that had these wardens choosing to ignore the troubling sight of a freed prisoner, a supposed warden, and an imp walking together. But it wasn’t. It was Xavier. They frowned when they saw Gerangi, and their expressions remained neutral when they glanced at me, but when the saw Xavier they looked away.

Xavier glanced furtively at me, checking up on me every so often. On some of those glances it would move closer and a part of its hand would brush against me for a moment. And in that touch, I felt nothing happen, nothing odd, or strange, but I could tell from the look on Xavier’s face that it was troubled.

We got to the wall of fog which led to the pious ones’ quarters and I saw the pain cloud Gerangi’s features. I quested out with my pain towards Gerangi’s and found the depths of pain it felt at being back again, standing in front of the quarters it had spent so much time in. Then fear rose in me, breaking the connection my pain had built with Gerangi’s. But when my pain tried to push back, I noticed that it was weaker. It was able to force the fear back, but only barely. I came to the conclusion that questing out with my pain to Gerangi’s had somehow weakened the reserves of pain which I had in me. I could not do that again if I wanted the pain to remain strong enough to help me keep my sanity.

Xavier touched the fog and it went away. We walked into the pious ones’ quarters. The imps positioned by the entrance gasped in shock. Then they saw Xavier with us, and they looked to it for instructions. Xavier said a few words in the foreign tongue which I could not understand, and the imps returned to their posts and made a studious effort of looking down at the buckets of pink liquid in front of them. Again, I was left with the impression that this imp Xavier was more than it said it was.

Gerangi made to move towards the large wall of fog that took up most of the wall space in this room. It was the only fog-door which I had never been allowed to pass through.

“No.” I called out, stopping it. “I want my offspring. I will not leave without it.”

Gerangi let out an angry sound. “Are you a fool? The offspring has already turned against you. Fajahromo used it to pollute your emotions. Your offspring would kill you the first chance it got if you took it away from the only place it calls home.”

I stared Gerangi in the eye as I made certain to pronounce each word clearly. “I will not leave without my offspring.”

“I will not take it with me.” Gerangi replied. “You may have a death wish, but I do not.”

I took a step towards Gerangi, and before I knew I was running towards it. Xavier appeared in front of me, blocking my path. It puts its hand on my chest and I felt a shocking amount of strength in its arms as it used force to hold me off.

“I will fetch your offspring.” Said Xavier.

I nodded and it left, pulled into the ground underneath it. I glared at Gerangi and all of my suspicions came back. What did I really know about Gerangi? Gerangi held my gaze for a few seconds and I saw anger and a bit of disdain in its gaze. I thought about how easy it would be to quest out with my anger for Gerangi’s, but then I thought better of it. I did not want to lose any of the strength in my anger. I had an offspring to think about, an offspring to stay sane for. Then Gerangi sighed and it shook its head.

“You are a fool.” It said, but its words were filled with pity. Then it turned away from me and stared at the large wall of opaque red fog.

Xavier remerged. It had its hand around my offspring, and it took all of my will power to keep from going to it and snatching it away from the imp.

The young had a sleepy look in its eye. It blinked languidly and then it closed its eye and rubbed its eyelid with the back of its hand. It yawned and then it looked at Xavier again.

“Where is my pater Xavi?” it asked. I heard the name that my offspring called the imp and I felt my anger rise to the front. From the relaxed way in which my offspring stood beside Xavier, and the nickname it had called it, I could tell that they knew each other. In the few days that my offspring had been alive, it had been befriended by Fajahromo, an uspec I detested, and Xavier, an imp I was beginning to distrust.

None of that mattered though. I just had to get the both of us out of the pits. Once we left, I would take my offspring and I would leave Gerangi and Xavier to their own devices.

Xavier smiled kindly at my offspring. “Trust me Jaja.” It said and again I felt anger at the obvious bond the two shared.

Xavier said something in the foreign tongue and one of the imps standing behind us responded in the same tongue. Xavier nodded, then it turned to us and said, “we should be fine, the pious ones have retired for the night.”

Gerangi exhaled in relief, but all I could think of was the way that my offspring clung to Xavier’s hand. Xavier put its free hand into the wall of opaque red fog and the fog fell away. Gerangi walked in first, followed by Xavier and my offspring and then I brought up the rear.

The room hidden behind the fog was round and large. Further down in the room, there was a circle of reclining beds, like the one I had seen in Fajahromo’s house. All of these beds were empty. There were also several small fog doors around different areas of the walls which surrounded the large room.

Gerangi led us to one of those doors.

Xavier put its hand into the fog and the fog dissipated. I turned to Gerangi and was somewhat surprised when it inclined its head towards the fog door in a gesture which I read as it telling me to precede it. I shrugged and walked into the room.

This was another portal room. Unlike the one in the fighters’ quarters, the quicksand in this room was not hard, only softening when a fighter needed to go to the arena. The quicksand remained a visibly soft ground in the middle of the room. I walked towards it and stopped, then I turned back.

It had been so brief I wasn’t sure I could trust my own eyes, but in the moment right when I turned around, I saw that Xavier had been separated from my offspring, and that Gerangi had been close to my offspring. Close enough that its hand had rested against my offspring’s back as if to push it forward into the room, but my offspring did not move. Instead Gerangi walked into the room and my offspring followed after it. Something troubled me about that touch, but I could not say exactly what it was. I knew it had to be a harmless exchange, an older uspec trying to direct a young, but I could not help feeling that there was something amiss.

After they walked in, all that happened was that my offspring stared at Gerangi. Gerangi did not return the look, its eye was instead fixed on the quicksand in the room. But my offspring would not look away. Then suddenly, it turned to face me, and I had to take a step back from the force of the hatred I saw in its eye. It lunged towards me, and it wasn’t till it knocked me down on my back that I realized that it had a small dagger in its hand.

It screamed out like a banshee as it straddled me, then it pushed down, bringing the sharp point of the dagger close to my face.

I rose my hand and tried to grab the dagger out of its little hands, but as I did that, I felt a new surge of fear flow into me. I stared up, shocked at my offspring as I felt it put more fear into me, even as it brought the dagger closer to my face.

“You will die irira!” it swore as it came even closer towards me. “You will die for what you’ve done!” it screeched.

Then I felt the tip of the dagger pressing against my neck and I knew that this young uspec could never love me. It would never feel the bond which I felt with it, it would never call me pater and look up at me the way it had at Fajahromo. I knew that Gerangi was right and that I had been a fool to care so deeply for one which could not return my feelings. But I was its progenitor and so I could not do anything to hurt it. The sorrow and fear rose in me and I suddenly felt alone. Sadness enveloped me and it became too much of a hassle to lift my hand to stop my own offspring from killing me. Whatever joy I had found in life was gone. I saw the hatred in my offspring’s gaze and decided that if it needed to kill me for it to be happy, then it could. I had no desire to fight it. I simply exhaled and waited for the deed to be done.

Xavier swore in a foreign tongue. It pushed the imp off me and placed its hand on my neck, above the slight wound which had formed from the prick of the sharp point of my offspring’s dagger. I was too desolate to pay much attention to Xavier. I lay still on the ground and turned instead to the uspec I had created, the one which existed because of me. I saw the uspec rise from the ground and begin to run towards me. Gerangi stepped in front of it. I knew I had been false to doubt Gerangi even as it stood there, trying desperately to stop my own offspring from killing me.

My offspring seemed enraged. It was so small, about half Gerangi’s height, but it poked out with its dagger towards Gerangi’s leg and Gerangi raised its leg to avoid the dagger. My offspring kept trying to attack Gerangi, but Gerangi would not budge and it would not step out of the way to let it attack me.

Then I saw Gerangi fall to its knees and howl out in pain. Then my offspring took its dagger towards Gerangi’s neck and Gerangi fought back. They both fought each other, pushing at their hands, one trying to hold onto the dagger, the other trying to wrest it. Then I heard a loud cry escape from my offspring’s lips. Gerangi moved back, and I saw the uspec’s dagger in its own neck.

My offspring fell to the ground and Gerangi crawled desperately towards it. I saw it pull out the dagger and place its hand over the wound on the young’s neck, but it could not stop the bleeding. My offspring’s face turned towards me, and it died with its eye staring into mine.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Gerangi crawled towards me. “I am so sorry my friend.” It begged. Its hands were stained with blood, my offspring’s blood. “I did not mean to. It would not stop. I don’t know what happened, but it would not stop.”

Xavier knelt by my offspring and I watched it pull its eyelid down, closing its eye. Then it turned to Gerangi and it frowned. I could not tell why it frowned, and in that moment, I wished it had eyes so that I could see through them what it’s frown meant. Then a single tear dropped from its eyeless socket and I was made aware through its tear how much it really cared for my offspring. It was the first time in my life that I did not fault another creature for crying.

“We must go.” Xavier’s voice shook, and I realized, as it came towards me, that my feelings towards it had changed. Was it because I had seen how much it cared for my offspring? Or was it because it had saved me from Fajahromo’s wrath? I did not know.

It stopped in front of me and held out its hand. I put mine in its, as my offspring had, and was again shocked by its strength when it helped to pull me up. I looked at my offspring’s corpse on the ground and the sorrow I felt was overwhelming. I wanted to run to it, to hold it in my arms as I’d never had the opportunity to. But instead I allowed Xavier to lead me to the quicksand, knowing that the sorrow would lessen. It would have killed me, I knew that, it would have killed me if Gerangi hadn’t killed it, and so my anger would not let me go to it. But I was still its progenitor, I still felt grief for what had become of it. And I knew that the blame for all of this belonged to only one person.

Fajahromo.

But I was too weak and the polluted emotions in me too strong to allow me to do anything other than fear and grieve.

I walked into the portal with Xavier and found myself standing on a wooden surface, in a hue of natural red light. The clouds were out, covering the orange dots that illuminated the sky during the day, and I was outside. I was outside, in the open, for the first time in nine years, but the grief I felt gave me no room to enjoy it.

Gerangi appeared behind us.

“They could be following us.” It said, its voice shaky as it stared first at its bloodstained hands and then at me. I could see the apology in its eye and a part of me knew that there was nothing to forgive. Gerangi had killed my offspring to protect me. But there was another part of me that could never forgive Gerangi for killing my only offspring, no matter the circumstances. I would have gladly died if that was what it took for my offspring to live.

I looked away from Gerangi.

“Do not move!” A voice ordered. I turned around and found the novice that had delivered Fajahromo’s letter to me. “Do not move!” it said again.

Gerangi turned around and the novice stumbled backwards in shock. “Elder,” it called out the tittle with a breathy voice.

“Go back.” Gerangi said. “In the name of the founder I implore you.”

I saw the novice shake its head as I turned to Xavier. Its face was solemn, and turned away from the exchange going on between Gerangi and the novice. Instead its head was tilted up to the skies and it face was contorted with grief. In its pain, the tight control it placed on itself, was gone and so its polluted anger and pain were revealed.

I remembered then the deal I had made with this imp.

I knew the repercussions, and a part of me felt relieved really. I didn’t want the anger and pain to rival my sorrow anymore. I didn’t want an escape from the grief. I wanted to feel it, I wanted to feel the polluted emotions. In a convoluted away, I was starting to luxuriate in them. The emotions were the only things I had of my offspring, the only things that it had given me.

And so I quested out with my anger and my pain and took a hold of Xavier’s polluted emotions.

“No!” it screamed before I could yank them away. “The anger and pain are the only things keeping you sane. If you use them to yank my emotions, they will lose their intensity and be dominated by the sorrow and fear. I do not expect you to keep your oath now, not now Nebud.” It said. “I did not expect it when I saved you, I did it because you were going to take Fajanux to safety.” It swallowed with grief as it said my offspring’s name. “No, keep your sanity.”

“I gave you my word.” Was all I said, and then I yanked forcefully at the emotions and used my anger and pain to direct them to the novice that was still standing behind us, arguing with Gerangi. As soon as the polluted emotions entered the novice it let out a loud wail and then it fell to its knees on the ground and began to scratch at its scalp. It banged its head against the hard, wooden ground underneath us, and I knew it would not last long before the polluted emotions drove it to kill itself.

But I was too far gone to care.

As soon as I transferred the emotions, a heavy depression took hold of me. I slumped to the ground, and curled into myself, unable to move or speak. I simply stared out, unseeing, into the night. My teeth chattered from the fears that crept through me. I could not name a single fear, or a reason behind the fear, all I could do was feel it. The fear combined with the sorrow and the sadness engulfed me. There was no thought to moving, or ever leaving the position I had taken. No thoughts existed in my head at all. There was only overwhelming amounts of sorrow and fear.

@Fazemood lol the chapters come in different lengths. Hope this dish is more satisfying

@spixytinxy Thank you! I don't know if it's very very long, but it is longer

Part 18
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When I regained consciousness, I was in a dark room. I felt the tight grip of hard shackles on my wrists and ankles. My arms had been spread apart and were locked above my head, while my feet were locked below. I was standing on a sludge ground, and the familiarity of the stickiness against the sole of my feet and between my toes, brought me some degree of comfort. At least I knew from this sludge that I was somewhere in the fighters’ quarters.

A stream of pink light permeated through the fog door to my cell. It lit the cell for the first time, and I could see the empty space. A novice walked in through the fog first. As soon as the novice walked into the room, the fog cleared, leaving only an empty space. The previously pink light became white as it streamed in without the dying effect of the red fog which had previously blocked its path.

Two naked imps walked in after the novice. Both imps looked terrified. They kept casting scared looks at each other and also at the walls of the room. Fajahromo followed after them. It was dressed as it had been the last time I saw it, in nothing more than the top garment it wore to hide its chest spikes. It stopped a few steps in front of the door frame and put both of its hands on its waist. It eyed me slowly, its eyes roaming over my body, going from the hands bound over my head, to my face, then my stretched body, then finally to my feet. It smiled as its eyes rose back again and came to rest on my face.

“My friend.” It teased. “I have a surprise for you Nebud. I hear you have been asking to see it.” After saying that, Fajahromo stepped deeper into the room, and then moved slightly to its left. Its voice rose slightly as it said, “Come my ward.”

I knew what was happening before the young uspec walked into the room. I guessed from Fajahromo’s words that the uspec coming in was my offspring. My jaw clenched when I heard Fajahromo call it ‘ward’ and I felt a sharp pain in my chest. Anger began to burn in the pit of my belly. I quested out with my anger and my pain, desperate to steal the emotions from any of the occupants in the room and give it to Fajahromo. It didn’t work. None of the people in the room had any of the emotions I sought.

The young uspec came to full view in the room, and my heart broke when I saw it. It stood squarely on its own two feet, with none of the awkwardness it had shown when it had first been born. Its face was completely smooth, devoid of any outer eyes, and the rest of its body was unblemished as it had not yet grown the features of the spectrums it belonged to. I stared in awe at the young creature, my hungry eyes devouring my first real view of my offspring. And when my eye rose to meet its, I saw only strength staring back at me. My lips parted and I swayed towards it, desperate to explain, to say something to it.

Fajahromo walked towards my offspring and put its arm around its shoulder. “This, my friend, is my ward, Fajanux. It’s really a sad story what happened to it. You see, Fajanux was abandoned by its progenitor. Its progenitor was ashamed to have an irira as its offspring and so it cast it off, as unwanted, de trop. But I prevented Fajanux from being sent to a slum. I adopted it.”

My jaw clenched as I gritted my teeth against each other. The rage I felt was almost overpowering. How dare Fajahromo tell such a lie to my offspring? How dare it take my offspring from me and make it its own? I could not believe it. After Fajahromo said the words, I watched my offspring lean into Fajahromo’s side, and I envied the bond they shared. The sorrow I had felt the day my offspring had been born returned. And with that sorrow a new type of pain, and even more anger at the unfairness of it.

“My face was the first that Fajanux saw when it opened its eye in the hatch.” Fajahromo stated triumphantly.

That was when I realized the full extent of Fajahromo’s plan. Not only had it made sure that I would feel the bond to my offspring, it ensured that my offspring would bond with it instead of me. Now my offspring’s loyalty would be solely Fajahromo’s. I could already see that loyalty in my offspring’s eye when it gazed up at Fajahromo with adoration. Its head reached just above Fajahromo’s waist, and Fajahromo looked down and smiled lovingly at it. The entire scene made me sick.

“Do you remember what I asked of you?” Fajahromo’s voice was soft as it spoke to my offspring.

It nodded enthusiastically. “Yes pater, and I am ready.” I heard my own offspring call Fajahromo pater, the formal name a young uspec called its parent, and the sorrow, pain and anger I felt spiked.

Fajahromo nodded and patted my offspring on its head. Then it squeezed its shoulder before letting go of it and moving off to the side.

My offspring turned to face me, and for the first time since it had entered, I was the sole focus of its attention. I swayed in my chains, swinging towards it, in an attempt to communicate with it. I wanted to tell it that it could not trust Fajahromo, that I was its pater, not Fajahromo. That I had fought to bring it to this world, that it was I standing in the hatch watching its birth, and that I had not abandoned it, that it had been stolen from me. There was so much I wished to say, but before I could say any of it, I felt a deep sadness come into me and take hold of me. The sorrow was unlike that which I had felt earlier. It was twisted, and foul, and it reached into every part of me and made me question my own reasons for being alive.

The sorrow assured me that I was worthless. The sorrow drove me to the furthest edges of my mind and trapped me in dark corners where all I could feel was despondence. If the sorrow had been less, if it had allowed room for feeling, for thinking, I was sure I would have cried. I would have wept from the force of it. So engrossing was it that all I could feel was sadness. And in that sadness, a fear came alive in me. I began to fear that I would never be able to defeat Fajahromo.

Suddenly, my fear was heightened too. The fear that now possessed me was all encompassing. It was fear that made me shake, and made my teeth chatter noisily against each other. The fear told me that I would never defeat Fajahromo, the fear told me that the fate ahead of me was one that would leave me begging for death. The fear chased and within myself I ran.

The combination of the fear and sorrow was dizzying. I could only escape one to become engulfed by the other. I turned my eye to my offspring as I sought again to beg it, to tell it that I was its progenitor, its pater. But then it smiled a smile of triumph as it turned to Fajahromo. “It is done.” My offspring said.

Fajahromo nodded and clapped, and I suddenly realized what had happened. I realized then that my sorrow and fear had been polluted, by my own offspring. I knew that the fear and sorrow which I felt where not solely mine, but had been given to me by my offspring, like I had done to so many others in the arena. It had polluted my emotions and that was why I felt as I did. I realized that this was Fajahromo’s punishment, what it had promised to do to me. I saw the victorious smirk on Fajahromo’s face, and the answering smile of pride and satisfaction on my offspring’s, and the anger and pain which I had felt before rose violently in me.

Suddenly all the emotions were warring within me for precedence. I was a mess, the onslaught of emotions I felt threatened to drive me insane, but the anger and pain somehow kept me anchored. They reminded me who the enemy was, and they kept me conscious. I felt hollow, as another wave of polluted sorrow rolled through me.

Fajahromo gestured to the novice and the novice led my offspring away. I saw the way my offspring clung to Fajahromo’s hand as if it did not want to leave it, and the sorrow returned, but so did the pain. Those two dueled then. I felt a pain which I owned, one which told me not to give into the sorrow, but the sorrow was much more violent than the pain. When the sorrow rolled through me all I could do was give into the despair.

The novice left with my offspring and Fajahromo turned around to gloat. It faced me and it smiled as it gloried in my sufferings. And as it stood there enjoying my pains, I could do no more than survive the tidal wave of emotions flowing through me. I was starting to crave the anger and pain because when I felt them, the sorrow and fear were pushed back. I could still feel both emotions, but they were sent to the background and I could focus on how much I loathed Fajahromo.

I heard a voice speak in another tongue. I vaguely recognized the voice, but I could not place it, not with all the emotions coursing through me.

Fajahromo’s smile faded. It turned to the right just in time to see the two imps put down the light sources they had carried in, and run out of the room.

Fajahromo’s face grew into a mask of confusion. It walked towards the empty doorway which the imps had run out through, and poked its head out, moving it from left to right. Then it pulled its head back into the room and turned back to face me. The frown on its face remained, as it puzzled over the source of the voice and why that voice would send the imps running.

As Fajahromo’s gaze remained locked on me, I saw a hand rise out of the ground, by Fajahromo’s feet. The hand touched Fajahromo’s leg and Fajahromo collapsed onto the ground. Its head turned sharply to the left when it reached the ground and I could see all of its eyes were closed. The hand disappeared back into the ground.

Hair emerged from the ground, foreshadowing the emergence of the imp. I saw the expensive coat and the face which had now become familiar, and I knew it was Xavier. I stared confused from Fajahromo’s body lying on the ground, to the imp who I’d thought had tricked me into trusting it, but I was too exhausted to try to understand.

Xavier walked towards me and stopped in front of me. It placed its hands on the hard shackles which had locked my wrists, and the shackles disappeared. It bent and did the same to the shackles around my ankles and those two fell away.

I turned back and stared in shock at the wall behind me. There was no sign of the shackles that had once chained me. “How?” I asked, unable to say more than that.

Xavier stood. Its face turned to me and it said. “Pansophy. I took away its form.”

The words were even more confusing. “Why?”

“We made a deal.” It responded. Then it put its hand into the right pocket of its coat and pulled out a black fruit. “This is from one of the weeds that grow in the okun. Eat it. It will help restore some of your strength.”

I took the fruit warily from Xavier. I wasn’t sure if I could trust it. I felt another wave of fear rise in me, accompanied by sorrow, and I suddenly believed that escape was futile. What was the point when I couldn’t defeat Fajahromo? But then the anger pushed back, and my resolve strengthened. I put the black fruit in my mouth, chewed and swallowed. As soon as the fruit went past my throat, I felt a surge of energy in me. It was as if the strength the okun had stolen from me had returned. But with my increased strength came a heightening of the emotions I felt.

“We must hurry.” Xavier prompted. “We cannot be here when Fajahromo wakes.”

It was still alive? I shook my head and headed directly for Fajahromo. Even with my emotions battling I knew I had enough strength to kill it.

Xavier stopped me. “No.” it said. “I cannot allow you to kill it.”

I froze and the frown that came upon my face must have been ominous.

Xavier just shook its eyeless head. “I lied before when I said I wasn’t bound to it. I am, in some ways. I can release your friend as I said I would, but I cannot allow Fajahromo to die. You must decide which means more to you. If it is killing Fajahromo, then I will have to put you back in your shackles and return Fajahromo’s consciousness to it. If you would rather escape, then you must forget about Fajahromo and take this opportunity to leave. You cannot have both.”

It irritated me to be told by an imp what I could and could not have. But then this imp had returned to save me, to defy one it considered itself bound to, for me. Why? It wasn’t as if I was a great friend to imps. Why would this imp do so much for me? Still it irked me that the imp had the power to do as it had threatened if I tried to kill Fajahromo. But I turned to Xavier and nodded.

“Good.” Xavier smiled. “Let us go and release Gerangi then.” It said, leading the way out of the cell.

I grudgingly followed, casting one more look over my shoulder at Fajahromo lying unconscious on the sludge ground.

@Fazemood Thank you ! So this book is focused on the uspecs. There will be an imp coming up that plays a big role, but it's mainly the story of uspecs. I don't know yet when I will return to the Reckoning. It's hard for me to work on two different stories at a time, and I want to finish this one, so, I won't be going back to Osezele them, until I'm done with this

@spixytinxy I know, that's the question Nebud is asking itself. Who can it trust? lol. So, the timing of this story is far before the timing of St. Luke's, so the St. Luke's students don't come in here at all. This story, i.e Nebud's memories which it is writing, are from before the mark came into the standard existence (AKA the world of humans)

Part 17
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I had been led back to the area of the pious one’s quarters where the plenum had met earlier in the day. An uspec stood in front of the middle curtains. The uspec was dressed similarly to the ones that had trailed behind the Kaisers in the plenum. It wore a small coat which was cut off at the shoulders, exposing its arms. Those arms had four golden bands on each one. The uspec also wore the cyan ring which I had seen on the Kaisers in the plenum.

Its head cocked to the side when we stopped in front of it. The uspec turned its head towards us. All its outer eyes where formed and filled. It was tall, taller than me by about an inch, but it had none of the bulk that I did. In that aspect it resembled the pious one that had brought me there. The uspec’s eyes glazed haughtily over me, before resting on the pious one. Its head was tipped upwards so that it gave the impression of looking down its long nose at us.

“Is this it?” the uspec asked drily, its tone bored.

“Yes, high one.” The pious one replied. Then it rushed forward to pull the curtains open and hold them apart for the uspec to walk through. I could tell from the title that the pious one had given to it, that this uspec was the custodian of a port. Only custodians were referred to as ‘high’. Custodians were of the line of dukes, uspecs who were raised to the position of ruler of a port, when no one of the line of Kaisers existed in that port.

I walked in after the pious one and was shocked when I found Fajahromo standing in the middle of the room. It stood almost in the same location as the Kaiser had earlier in the day, when I had knelt at its feet and confessed Fajahromo’s crimes. Fajahromo’s lips tilted up when it saw me. I knew from the smile it gave me, that it could not know that I meant to kill it. I imagined that it did not know I had failed its mission of killing a Kaiser in the plenum and had instead turned against it at said Kaiser’s behest.

Unlike the previous times when I had walked into a room and Fajahromo had instantly declared itself my friend and called out to me in greeting, this time it simply smiled at me for a moment before turning its attention to the Custodian. It bowed to the custodian, and the custodian nodded.

The pious one cleared its throat. “High one,” it began, “with your permission?” it asked. I frowned wondering what it asked permission for, but the custodian simply nodded imperiously, as if it already knew what the pious one meant. “This is the grand, Fajahromo, sovereign of the first burg in the second metropolis of Hakute, and first majestic in the line of the Dukes of the second metropolis of Hakute.”

After it said that, Fajahromo smiled slightly at the custodian and bowed again. “Salutations high one.” It greeted. “With your permission?”

Again, the pious one nodded. Now, Fajahromo turned to the pious one and nodded too.

“Grand one, you are before the high undead, Salin, custodian of Lahooni.”

“Salutations grand one.” Salin greeted.

And it wasn’t till that moment, as both uspecs stood there regarding themselves, that it occurred to me who Salin was, and why it was there. I remembered then that the Kaiser from the plenum had said it would send someone to divert Fajahromo’s spectra so that it couldn’t use the magic of its eyes to kill me before I could kill it. This uspec Salin, the custodian of Lahooni, had to be the one that the Kaiser sent.

I watched Fajahromo as it continued to peer at Salin, and as I watched it, I imagined what it must have thought of me when it gave the order to make me progenitor of an offspring it planned to have kill me. I wondered how insignificant it had assumed I was, and how callously it had planned to dispose of me. I also thought of the others, other iriras like myself who had trusted Fajahromo and had been led to their deaths. I was suddenly pulled back nine years before, to the room of iriras I had been led to. I remembered the uspec who’d been crying. I remembered the smell of the uspec who had died. According to Gerangi, Fajahromo had delivered some of those iriras to the pits.

Sudden visions of Fajahromo’s neck in my hands filled my head. I imagined it bleeding to death as I punched it repeatedly. I imagined the pain it would feel, and I gloried in it.

“It is not your friend. It will turn on you just as it turned on its own line. When you are no longer useful you will find yourself where I am, begging an enemy for death.”

I felt the familiar rush of fear from hearing Maxad’s words rise unbidden in my head, but this time, the fears were easy to allay. Maxad had been wrong about Fajahromo, so had Gerangi. They had all been wrong. Fajahromo was not nearly as cunning as they assumed it was. If it was, it would not be moments away from its grave and smiling oddly at Salin. If it was as cunning as they thought, it would be on its knees, begging me for the release of a quick death.

“I heard about the loss of your siblings. Please accept my condolences.” Salin spoke first.

I had to stop myself from laughing. Suddenly, I felt the urge to laugh hysterically. Condolences, I thought as the ghost of a smile teased my lips, condolences to the murderer? Fajahromo was the one who’d killed its siblings.

But Fajahromo had on such a convincing look of grief when it responded that I almost wondered if it had been lying when it had confessed to me that it was responsible for its siblings’ death.

“Gratitude high one.” Fajahromo replied.

Salin nodded impatiently, then its eyes turned to me. Those eyes were so cold when it looked at me that I almost felt as if I was in the wrong. “Well.” It snapped. “There’s no need to drag this on. Get to it.” It commanded, its voice rising as anger came alive in it. I was just about to quest out to the anger, when I felt it leave. It did not go away as quickly as Xavier’s emotions had when it hid them with pansophy. It went at a more natural pace, as if Salin had naturally exhausted its anger.

There was something troubling about the custodian’s attitude. I did not know what I expected, but I definitely did not expect it to snap at me. A voice in the back of my head cautioned me to go back. To forget the promise that I had made to the Kaiser in the plenum, and instead beg Fajahromo’s forgiveness for failing in the task it had asked me to perform. That voice was the voice of the seventeen-year-old weakling which had considered Fajahromo a friend. It was a voice which was given more credence by Maxad’s last words which were now repeating on a loop in my head, inducing fears that I had not felt in a long time.

But I ignored them both.

I nodded curtly at the custodian and walked towards Fajahromo. With each step I took towards it, its smile broadened. It looked confident, its eyes never filling with fear. It remained as it was, smiling as though it had nothing to be afraid of. I took a picture of the calm face in my head, and waited, with a perverse sort of anticipation, for the distortion which I knew would come over those tranquil features once I had my hands on it.

I stopped only a few steps away from Fajahromo and I smiled.

Fajahromo frowned then, taken aback by the smirk on my face, and the malicious glint I imagined would be in my eye. I wanted it to know fear, I wanted it to know that I would kill it.

Slowly, I rose my hand to my neck, and casually removed one of my larger scales. As my hand came down from my neck and I took another step towards Fajahromo, its eyes widened, and I was finally happy to see the fear I had dreamt of. It stumbled back.

Then it stretched out its hands towards me. I imagined it had tried to use spectra to stop me, but when that failed it pulled its hands back, and stared at them in shock. Then it stumbled backwards some more. Its lips parted as I continued to move towards it, stalking it, and delighting in each new fear it released.

Then it reached the walls and it was forced to a halt by the solid barrier behind it.

“Please my friend.” Its voice was soft, and shaky with fear as it begged. “Please.” It sounded breathless.

The murderous grin on my face widened. I was finally in front of it. I reached out for it with my hands, feeling even deeper gratification when I saw the moisture in its eyes. I could not imagine a more fulfilling kill as the one I was about to perform. Fajahromo’s fear was only heightening my anticipation. My heart was pounding now, excitement coursing through my body as I thought, finally, finally, the problem of Fajahromo would be over and my offspring and I would be free.

I almost had it, I was just a few inches away, when I heard Fajahromo laugh.

I froze in shock.

Fajahromo laughed. It laughed so hard that I knew that something was wrong. But I would not listen to the sane part of my head that told me I had lost. I would not listen to that voice of a weakling. I moved my wrist, preparing to flick with the scale at Fajahromo’s neck. But before I could, a red fog surrounded me. It seemed to appear out of nowhere. The fog was all around me, a barrier which stopped me from killing Fajahromo. I moved towards the fog, desperate to go through it if I had to, to get to Fajahromo.

As soon as I entered the fog, I felt as if I was being choked, as if life was being pulled from me. I moved back hastily, out of the fog. And I heard Fajahromo laughing. I watched through the translucent fog as Fajahromo dropped to its knees and it put its hands on its belly and laughed. It laughed for so long, letting out loud guffaws which eroded my thoughts, making it impossible for me to think of anything but the laughter.

The laughter was Fajahromo’s triumph and the red fog cage it had created around me, my failure. But then the laughter ended, and I could think again. Once my thoughts returned, I wished for the laughter, anything to make me forget how foolish I had been. I should have known it could not be so easy. I should have known that Fajahromo, the uspec who had killed its own siblings to gain power, would not be killed by a de trop irira from a nameless slum. I should have known that the uspec cunning enough to make me create my own vulnerability, would not be so easily undone.

Fajahromo sighed, the smile on its lips wider now than I had ever seen it before. “Gratitude Salin, my old friend, I appreciate the charade.”

I heard the custodian grunt behind me, but I was too ashamed to turn around and face it. “What about this one?” I turned then, my curiosity getting the best of me. I noticed that Salin was looking at the pious one.

The pious one gulped nervously. “But high one, it was the mighty one’s request. I was only obeying the Kaiser, I thought…”

“Kill it.” Fajahromo stated coldly. “It has played its part.”

Salin nodded. Suddenly, a fog like the one surrounding me surrounded the pious one. The fog moved inwards, filling it. The pious one convulsed once the fog permeated into it, white foam coming out of its mouth. Then the pious one dropped to the ground with a loud thud and I knew it was dead.

Salin turned its indifferent gaze to me and then back to Fajahromo. It smiled slightly when it looked at Fajahromo. “I trust that you will not let it survive. The mighty one must never know that I disobeyed it.”

“Of course.” Fajahromo stated.

Salin grunted again, and then it left, storming out of the room, and leaving me alone with Fajahromo.

The silence that followed was heavy.

Then Fajahromo chuckled. I turned to face it and the smile on its face was awful. It was the same smile it had had on after I’d killed Maxad. This was its true smile.

“I warned you my friend, I warned you not to oppose me.” Fajarhomo scolded. “I told you that the pits belonged to me. Did you really think that I would not know about your visits to that fool Gerangi? That I would not hear of the plans you made with it? How do you think you got access to that cell? You fool! I gave it to you! I was testing you and you failed. You chose to believe Gerangi over me. Over ME!” it shook its head at me. “It pains me that you have done this, truly it does.” And for a second its face distorted into a mask of pain so realistic that I almost believed it. But of course, when I quested out with my pain I found no pain in Fajahromo. This face was like all the others, just a façade, hiding the real monster within.

Fajahromo shook its head. “But that I could forgive you for. Truly I could. You are a fool, an illiterate who cannot even read. Of course, you became a pawn in the games of greater uspecs, of course you let Gerangi use you. That was to be expected. Even the lying, even pretending that you are not kun, that you do not have emotions, even that was to be expected.”

My eye widened in shock. It knew?

“Of course I knew you idiot. Only foolish, illiterate, commoners would see a de trop irira fighting and winning in the pits and not know that it is kun. As soon as the lie slipped from your lips, I forgave you. And even when Xavier told me of your trips to visit Gerangi and everything you said to it, I forgave you.” I gasped when I heard Xavier’s name. Fajahromo was right, I had been a fool. I had been a fool to trust an imp, I had been a fool to discuss all that I had with Gerangi so openly. But Fajahromo was too obsessed with speaking to catch my gasp of shock. “What I cannot and will not forgive is how you’ve set me back in the plenum. I gave you this task to redeem yourself, to prove to me that you were as worthy of my patronage as I believed you were. Instead what do I get? What do I get for my benevolence, for my mercy, what do I get? Years of work to ingratiate myself in the plenum thrown away, because one foolish irira could not hold its tongue. Now I will have to work even harder to regain the Kaisers’ trust. And I cannot forgive you for that.”

Its eyes all held my single central eye, and I almost cringed at the hatred I saw in its eyes. “We could have been great Nebud. I was going to build a port for iriras and I was going to make you duke. Why didn’t you just trust me? Why didn’t you come to me instead of letting Gerangi fill your head with nonsense? You thought you could trust it because it came to you when you were sick? I tried to come to you! I made my sibling Takabat vow to protect you! I did! Gerangi is not your friend, I am!” It sounded deranged as it screamed, but then it suddenly sobered. “It doesn’t matter now.” Fajahromo stated calmly. “Gerangi will die for what it’s done. Just like its foolish friend Maxad, I will have its feathers plucked out of its ailerons and have horns drilled into its head. Then I will send it into the pits where a great fighter will kill it. It will die tomorrow.”

“But it will not be so easy for you.” It promised. “You think you know pain because you have it. You think you know pain because you can find it in others and control it. But you do not know pain, my friend. I will teach it to you. I will reduce you to nothing, and then I will have you killed in the hatch. Perhaps the kun which is born from your corpse will be a more loyal friend to me.”

I heard the sorrow in its voice and in that moment, I feared that I may have misjudged it. Had Gerangi been lying? Had Fajahromo truly meant me no harm? I was so confused that when I saw the pink liquid of an okun forming underneath my feet, I took my attention to it, and away from the questions flooding my mind. I would never truly know who had been lying and who had been telling the truth. The okun pulled at me, there was something in the okun, a force like the one in the fog, which I had never felt before. That force drew at something within me and I suddenly found myself growing weak. It kept pulling and it took all my energy just to remain standing.

The fog which had surrounded me went away then, so did the okun.

I could hear Fajahromo’s voice in the background, giving instructions to someone else, then I watched it walk away. But I could not follow the conversation or the direction in which it had walked, because I was too weak. The okun, my old friend, had stolen something from me that I had not even known I had.

My vision was blurry, but I was able to make out an imp walking towards me. The imp was tall, but I was too fatigued to make out any distinct features on its face. It stopped in front of me and my gaze dropped to the ground. I saw the bottom fringe of its expensive coat just before I felt a light touch on my arm.

The last thought that crossed my mind before I lost consciousness was of the coat I’d seen. Only one imp wore a coat like that. It was Xavier.

@Fazemood It's not short, lol, it's your hunger ...what question was that again?

@popeshemoo lol! That is very flattering! I'm glad to see that this story has taken root

Part 16
---------

Xavier stood with its hands behind its back. I took a threatening step towards it, but the imp did not move. Its eyelids did not flutter with fear, its lips did not part to let out a shaky breath. It simply remained as it had been, standing with its hands behind it, as its empty sockets stayed riveted on me. I came to the conclusion that it did not fear me. I wasn’t sure yet if that was a sign of wisdom on the imp’s part, or stupidity.

“Irira,” the imp called out, “I hear you have been looking for me.”

My jaw clenched. “You do not call me irira.” I spat out.

“Then give me a name you prefer,” it stated calmly.

I glared at this imp. I took another step towards it, and the imp remained as it was. It was either unaware of the threat I posed, or it was simply indifferent to it. I could not fathom an imp foolish enough to not fear me.

“You know what name.” I snapped.

Xavier smiled. “If you expect me to call you domina, then you will be sorely disappointed. I am not a slave, I call no one master.”

My response was involuntary. I swiped out with my right hand, but the imp simply dodged the blow, moving in the graceful manner the imps’ who’d killed the wardens had. I reached out with both hands for the imp’s neck, but before my hands could grab it, the sludge ground underneath the imp turned to quicksand and it disappeared, sucked into the ground.

I stared at the ground which had returned to sludge. My mouth hung open as I watched it, and as the moments passed, I feared that it would not return. There was a part of me that loathed the imp even more for the power it bore and the desperate need I had for that power. It sickened me that I would have to wait on an imp’s pleasure. It sickened and enraged me. Then I decided to find another way to open the cells. Maybe I could intimidate a pious one, or better still, one of the novices. Then I remembered their outer eyes. They all had spectra. I was beginning to despise the hampering effect of that form of spectral magic.

“If I leave again, I will not return. Think on that before you decide to make any more threats to me. I have done you no harm, but that can very easily change.” I heard the imp’s words coming from behind me, and the rage that filled me was instant. I could not control it. I turned around and lunged towards it.

The imp sidestepped, moving so quickly to the side, that my attempts to grab it appeared ludicrous. I turned and tried to reach it again, but this time the imp bent, moving underneath my outstretched arm. As it passed underneath me, I felt its hand brush against my skin, and as soon as it touched me, I froze. I became completely immobile, as if I had been paralyzed.

The imp walked over and stood in front of me. My rage burned now till it was brimming, but without being able to move, there was nothing I could do, but keep the anger alive. The imp pulled out a blade from its coat pocket and held it in the air between us. As a fighter, my instincts to seeing a weapon was to avoid it. But I could not move. The realization that I was completely at this imp’s mercy left a foul taste in my mouth. The imp’s blade came closer to my neck. The imp moved towards me with a blank expression on its face. There was no gloating, no mocking tilt of its lips. Its mouth remained straight, and its face appeared stoic. There was something about the calm, matter-of-fact, way in which it approached taking my life that had me seeing this imp as a warrior and not a slave. The thought of a warrior bringing a blade to my neck shot fear up my spine, and the fear washed the anger away.

Then the imp pulled the blade back, as if it had acted in the manner it had, specifically to evoke the change of emotions in me. I was suddenly stunned by this imp.

“Imagine spending your life as a slave, Irira. I was a slave in my umani life, a warrior like you, but a slave. I was born a slave and raised a slave, with no will but that which belonged to my master. One lifetime of slavery was one too many. When I woke and found myself in the spectral existence, I swore that I would serve no other. I call no one master.” It paused, then it spoke softly. “I can kill you Irira, or I can simply leave you as you were.” Its head moved slightly to the left, so that its empty sockets were directly in my line of view, giving the impression that it was staring me in the eye. “Or I can find out why you were looking for me. Think on it, and if you decide that you can speak with an imp that is not a slave, look down.”

Without my anger I could think clearly. And in that clearness of mind, one thing was plain, I hated this imp. But it was powerful, that much was clear. This imp had more power than I had ever seen an uspec wield. I did not know how an imp could possess so much of our magic without being a slave. An imp’s magic was supposed to be siphoned, which meant that an imp could not have magic unless it siphoned it from its master. How had this imp become an exception? I thought of Gerangi in its cell and my offspring in its, and my choice was obvious. I looked down.

The imp did not smile. It simply put its hand on my outstretched arm. When its hand left me, my mobility returned. I stood to my full height and then I stared at the imp. It stared back at me, and we both waited.

“What are you?” I spat the words out through clenched teeth, not making any attempts to hide my disdain for it.

“Xavier.” It stated simply.

“How did you paralyze me?”

The imp’s lips pursed as if it was in thought, and then it relaxed its lips. “Pansophy. The magic of all things except some.” It smiled then, and I realized belatedly that its tone had been a humorous one. “I took your motion and sent it somewhere else.”

“How?” I demanded. I could hear alarm bells going off in my head. There was something not adding up, but I could not quite figure out exactly what it was. I just had a feeling that this imp saying it had pansophy seemed somehow significant.

The imp’s lips parted, and its mouth opened. Then it closed its mouth and its brows furrowed. “Is this why you asked of me then?” It asked. “For a lesson in pansophy?”

I had to exhale deeply to keep the anger from taking root in me again. I shook my head. “I need you to release a friend.”

“Gerangi?” it asked, tipping its head towards the fog cell.

My jaw clenched at the casual way in which it mentioned a pious one’s name. But I controlled the anger and simply nodded.

“If I do that, then I would be going against our patron’s wishes.”

I stared in shock at the imp. Surely it did not mean to imply that Fajahromo was its patron. An uspec taking an imp as a patron would be an act of legitimization, as if the uspec recognized the imp’s right to be free and act of its own accord.

“Yes, it said,” a soft smile teasing its lips, “Fajahromo is my patron too.” It put its hands back behind its back and said, “There are different types of uspecs. There are those such as yourself who have very little understanding of the true abilities of an imp, and so treat all imps the same, with very little regard. On the other hand, there are those who understand the true value of imps and treat us with respect. Then there are the ones who fall in the middle, the ones who see our value and choose to own it. Fajahromo falls into the latter category. I know you were present during the fighting, when the imps killed the wardens. All of those imps belonged to Fajahromo. It did not just buy imps who could fight. No, Fajahromo has too much foresight for that. It bought imps with connections, imps with loved ones, families that it could hold hostage, and then separated them. One set was trained to fight, and the other set was kept as housebound slaves. That way, every fighting imp has a relative that Fajahromo can hurt if the fighter disobeys.”

I heard the tactic Fajahromo had employed with the imps and realized that it had used a similar tactic on me. I wondered what that said of how highly it thought of me, if it had to own me the way it did imps, all the while it called me friend. But it would die, I thought with relish, it would die soon and at my hands.

“Lucky for you, I am not one of Fajahromo’s slaves. It could have bought an imp with the magic it needed from me, but those imps are tied to the pious ones’ whose magic they siphon. And so, it went in search of a free imp whose loyalty it could hold exclusively.”

My gaze fixed on the imp when it stopped speaking. Its eyelids fell down, covering the empty eye-sockets on its face, and it breathed in a controlled manner.

The polluted emotions hit me like a boulder. I had forgotten this about Xavier, I had forgotten that the first time I saw it, it was its polluted emotions which had made it stand out to me. I suddenly remembered thinking how remarkable it was that this imp could remain sane when it had so much polluted anger and pain.

“How do you keep your sanity with the emotions you bear?” the question slipped out of my lips, and as soon as they did, the emotions went away, and I could no longer feel them. “Where did they go?” I asked.

“Pansophy.” It said. “The first lesson you learn in pansophy, is how to internally manipulate your lifeforces. The emotions are not gone, I am simply hiding them from you. If you were better with emotions, you would be able to force them out.”

It was only after it said the words that I realized it knew I had emotions, which meant it knew that I was kun. I frowned at the imp. “How did you know?”

“That you are kun?” it asked rhetorically. “There were many clues. The first is that you survived nine years in the pits when you entered as an untrained irira. The second is that you are the reason I’m here. You are my price. Fajahromo found out about my polluted anger and pain and it told me that it had a kun who could rid me of the emotions. I suspected you were the kun, but I did not know for sure until a few moments again, when I allowed my emotions come out and you felt them.”

“I am your price.” I said the words slowly, as their impact became clear. It was either Fajahromo had no intention of keeping its promise to this imp, in which case it did not know what I was. Or Fajahromo did plan to keep the promise, which meant that it had already known I was kun before the day we met again after I killed Maxad. So, when it asked me if I was kun, that day, it was testing me. When I lied and said I didn’t know, did I fail the test?

The imp nodded. “In exchange for ridding me of my polluted emotions, I granted Fajahromo the role of my patron for a year.” It stopped speaking and I waited. “But I am not bound to Fajahromo.” It said finally. “Are you?”

I shook my head.

The imp grinned. “Good. Then, will you give me your word to rid me of the polluted emotions, in exchange for releasing whomever you please from the cells in the pits?”

I did not hesitate. “I give you my word.”

“Good, then…”

“Nebud!” The loud voice called out from behind me, filling the hallway with its power and intensity. I recognized the voice, but I had never heard it bellowed as it was then.

I turned to find a pious one approaching me. It was the same pious one which had been talking with the Kaiser earlier on, the same one who’d led me to the hatch. I remembered this pious one saying it never wished to see me after the first time we’d met, and I couldn’t help getting a rush of pleasure at its wishes being denied. It had now seen me twice since then.

“Come.” The pious one ordered. “It is time.”

It took me a moment to realize what the pious one’s cryptic words meant, but as soon as I did, I turned around to seek out Xavier. The imp was gone.

Resignedly, I nodded to the pious one and followed behind it as it led me to the final task I would perform in the pits: killing Fajahromo.

“Irira.” The voice was soft. I stopped and looked downward in the direction I had heard it come from. I saw an imp’s face sticking out of the sludge ground. “I will find you when I am ready.” Xavier promised. Then it was gone, and I was left to follow the pious one.

@tunjilomo you are definitely touching on something there. Lol, thank you, I'm happy you're finding this intriguing

@Fazemood hahaha! Yeah, Fajahromo is very cunning, but maybe the mighty Kaiser plenum is also cunning, lol!

@spixytinxy politics indeed...let's all wish Nebud the best!

Part 15
---------

The rest of the day passed without another sighting of Xavier. And so I continued my pacing, going back to the fog walls which led to the pious ones’ quarters. But I never went in. I stood by the fog and imagined my offspring standing in front of me, as it had in the hatch, and gazing up at me, with an eye filled with recognition. I allowed myself to be creative and gave my mind permission to run wild. But it did not matter how much I imagined, I could not give it a face. And even though in my mind it called me progenitor, I could not give it a voice.

When I wore myself out, and had become mentally fatigued by the image I tried without much success to create, I went back to my room. I collapsed onto the soft top layer of the bed, and for the first time since I’d been made a warden, I slept throughout the night. It was a dreamless sleep, one that left me feeling more exhausted when I woke, than I had been before I slept. Although it didn’t feel like it when I woke, I could tell from the hours of unconsciousness which had passed, that I had indeed slept. I must not have been in a very deep slumber though, because I woke to the call of my name.

I sat up on my bed and found a novice standing by the entry, with the curtain pulled aside. I recognized the novice as the one who had delivered Fajahromo’s note to me, the note which had set me on the course to creating an offspring that had been taken from me.

“It is time.” The novice said.

For a moment I dwelled in the bliss of ignorance. In those few seconds, I was completely oblivious to the novice’s meaning. My mind was blank, and nothing existed in my head but the thoughts of exhaustion. Then I remembered, and the glass wall covering up my memories shattered and came tumbling down. I stood up from my bed, put on my belt with the baton dangling from it, and followed the novice.

We walked together in silence. The novice’s shoulders were pulled up, and it walked stiffly, as if it was tense. I followed a few steps behind, my attention darting from the possible meanings behind the novice’s gait, to the task that Fajahromo had asked me to perform. It wanted me to kill a Kaiser in the plenum. I still wasn’t completely sure what the plenum was, but as far as I was concerned, killing one uspec was just the same as killing another. If I had to kill this uspec to buy myself more time to get myself and my offspring out of the pits, then the uspec was as good as dead.

The novice walked into the fogs which led to the pious ones’ quarters. As it walked into them, the fogs dissipated, moving away and revealing the open space which led in. I walked in after it, and we moved together to the smaller grey fogs. The novice walked into this one, and it cleared too. My head turned slightly to the left as we walked by the key room, the one that the pious one had brought me to, to have my baton turned into a fog-key. We turned to the right and the novice walked into yet another opaque fog. Like the others, this one drifted away as soon as the novice walked in.

It jutted its head out, inclining its chin towards the right. I turned to the right and saw a large set of thick embroidered dark blue curtains. The curtains had swirls of gold embroidered into the top and bottom fringes, as well as loops of silver in the middle. Form my spot by the open space which the fogs had once occupied, I counted about five distinct sets of curtains. They were all pulled down, so that they completely covered the room hidden behind them, but I could see a slight slit between the furthermost curtain and the end of the doorframe.

“Go to the furthest edge of the room and wait. They have been in there for a while so I suspect the meeting will end soon.” The novice whispered. Its voice shook a little, as if it was terrified of getting caught. I observed the novice briefly, noticing the furtive glances it kept making towards the set of curtains. Its body was inched away from the meeting room, but when it let its eyes dart over to the room, its gaze devoured the curtains as if it was starving for a morsel of the information being shared within.

I nodded to the novice and walked into the room. The novice sighed, and then it cast one last longing look at those curtains, before stepping out of the doorway. As soon as it took a step back, the fogs re-emerged.

I walked further into the hallway and kept going until I got all the way to the end of the room. There was a wall to the end. I stood by the corner, where the wall met the curtains, and waited.

I did not mean to eavesdrop, but once I was standing by the curtains, the voices drifted out towards me and I could do nothing but listen.

“Where is it?” a voice asked.

“In Behooni I hear.” Another replied.

A loud thud reverberated through the room. It sounded as if a fist had been slammed against a table. “Salin sent a dispatch from Lahooni to comb through Behooni. Chuspecip is not in that port. How does it evade us? How!”

“It should not be able to.” This voice sounded thoughtful.

“It has power. While the last brio remains, it will always have power. The only way to kill one of the Chu is to destroy all its lifeforms. The brio hides Chuspecip’s lifeforms. And so, we must find the brio and use it to guide us to the other lifeforms. Then we can destroy all of them and finally put an end to Chuspecip.”

“But how do we find the last brio?”

“That has already been taken care of.”

“Then we leave it in your hands my friend.”

The words were followed by the sounds of chairs been dragged against the floor, and then the shuffling of feet.

I stood as I was, leaning slightly against the wall, as I watched the rustle of curtains, before the middle set of curtains were finally pulled back.

Four identically dressed uspecs walked out. The uspecs were fully garbed. They wore long red coats with collars that began around their necks and ends that flowed all the way down to the ground. The bottom of the coats was thick and blown out, making it impossible to tell the size of the legs buried underneath. The sleeves of the coats extended all the way to the uspecs’ wrists, and they wore tall, bulky, hats, which completely covered their heads. The only parts of the uspecs’ bodies exposed were their faces and their hands. I caught a glimpse of five golden rings worn by each uspec on each of their fingers. But on one finger in each hand there were two rings. The second was cyan. It was the cyan rings which stood out. It formed an odd shape, one much more convoluted than the simple golden bands of the other rings.

Another set of uspecs followed behind the four heavily cloaked ones. These uspecs wore nothing but a fraise around their necks, showing that they were pious ones. They also had the cyan rings on their fingers. I could tell from the features on the pious ones’ bodies that they were all from different spectrums, and every single spectrum was represented. Then the procession of uspecs out of the room ended with three uspecs who wore lighter coats. These coats were cut at the elbow, exposing green arms, decorated with five golden bands on each arm. The bands reminded me of the ones that Fajahromo had had on the day we met. But Fajahromo had only had three bands on, these uspecs had five. The coats they wore were like smaller versions of the heavily dressed uspecs in the font. These coats were fitted enough to guess at the size of the uspecs who wore them.

I watched the curtain flap close after the last uspec walked out of the room, then I waited for the procession of uspecs to walk out through the fog walls which had led me into the hallway. It wasn’t till I was sure that they had all left that I pushed the curtain closest to me aside, and walked into the room.

My feet met with a cool, hard ground.

My mouth hung open in shock as I stared at the ground underneath my feet. I had never seen anything like it. The floor was tiled with a hard material which was clear on the surface, and seemed to have white flakes suspended within it. I stared at the ground, and it was as if I was staring at the hail which I had seen in the hatch. The ground was even cool, as if passing on the coldness of the white pellets. It was the most beautiful flooring that I had ever seen. Although, it did not have the comfort of the soft ground which formed like foam underneath my feet, it had a type of sturdy beauty which I could not fault.

I heard a throat clear.

My head snapped up and I found two uspecs standing and staring at me. One was dressed as the other uspecs who’d walked out first had been. This uspec had on large bulky clothing which hid the rest of its body from view, and made it impossible to guess at its size, but its face was exposed. It had all of its outer eyes filled, and each one of those eyes, stared at me. The other uspec was familiar. It was the pious one who had led me to the hatch.

I remembered Fajahromo’s words from the previous day and realized that the fully garbed uspec was the one it wanted me to kill. This uspec was the Kaiser in the plenum. I looked at its eyes, and a hard layer formed in the pit of my stomach. The uspec had all of its eyes filled, which meant that it had all of the understandings of the different spectrums. It had the full range of spectra.

The pious one spoke to the Kaiser in a different tongue and when the Kaiser nodded, the pious one left. It did not even look at me as it walked by.

I heard the curtains close behind me, and I was suddenly tempted to laugh. What game was Fajahromo playing? It had to know that I could not kill an uspec with spectra, so why would it send me to do that, unless it wanted me dead? But if Gerangi was right, then Fajahromo wanted me to die in the hatch, when my death could lead to the birth of another irira, one who was kun as I and my offspring were. I tried to think of Fajahromo’s motives and what it expected of me, but I could not come up with a single thing. I did not know what it wanted.

The Kaiser watched me with a straight face. In all my rambling thoughts, it took me a while to realize that I was in the presence of a Kaiser, a Kaiser, the ruler of a spectral port.

I bent to my knee, and bowed my head, saying, “I greet you mighty one.” And as the words left my mouth, I knew what I had to do.

The Kaiser walked towards me and stopped when it was close enough that I could see the end of its long robe in my field of view.

“Rise.” It commanded. “I hear you have a message for me?” it prompted.

I stayed on my knee. “I am not worthy, mighty one,” I began, remembering a story I had once been told by a passing trader. My lips twitched as I thought of how apt that story was for this scenario. “I fear, for I must trouble you with my words.”

“Do not fear.” The Kaiser said. “If your words are indeed troubling then I must be troubled, for I would rather be troubled by words than by deeds.” The Kaiser’s response was almost an exact replica of the ones I remembered from the story. Maybe the Kaiser had been told the story too?

I rose my head then, raising my gaze to meet the Kaiser’s. I smiled in my childlike excitement of enacting a story I had been told as a young. As my eye met the Kaiser’s face, I expected an answering smile to cross its lips, but I was disappointed when its face remained stoic. I recalled what I had to say, and the smile left my face too. “I have been sent to kill you.” I confessed.

The Kaiser studied me then. Its eyes took their time climbing from the top of my head to the knee which rested on the ground. Then its gaze swept back upwards, pausing for a breath to linger on the cloth I had on my neck. Before I could come to the conclusion that it suspected I was irira, its gaze rose back up.

“By whom?” it said finally.

“My patron, mighty one, the grand, Fajahromo, sovereign of the first burg in the second metropolis of Hakute.” I remembered that it had other titles, but I could not remember exactly what they were.

“The offspring of Fajahr?” it asked.

I nodded. “Yes, mighty one.”

It gestured with its hands for me to rise. I stood and found that we were both of the same height.

“And are you bound to your patron?” it asked.

“No mighty one.”

Its face remained stoic, but I could sense a softening in its eyes. “Perhaps you can perform a duty for me instead. I will pay you well for it, and see you rise out of the pits. And if you are willing, I will find a position for you in my guard. I am always looking for capable uspecs.”

I could not believe it. Just like that, in one move, all my worries had been solved. I would be out of the pits and away from Fajahromo. “It would be an honor to serve you mighty one.” I replied.

“Good. Kill your patron.”

I froze.

The Kaiser frowned. “Would that be a problem?”

I cleared my throat. “It has spectra mighty one.” I stated. “I do not.”

The Kaiser nodded quickly as if that wasn’t a problem at all. “I will send a representative, one with far more experience with spectra. It will use its own spectra to divert Fajahromo’s. Does that satisfy you?”

I was speechless. Was it possible? Could my problems with Fajahromo be so easily resolved? “Yes, mighty one.” I nodded excitedly, a slow, smile beginning to form on my lips. “Yes, it does. Very much so. I thank you mighty one.” I went on my knee again and bowed.

“I will have you sent for when it is time.” It said, then it walked out of the room.

For a while I just remained as I had been, kneeling on one knee and staring at the beautiful ground. I had never considered myself to be lucky. But in this one moment of my life, it was as if fortune had taken me into its arms. I wanted to jump to my feet and jubilate. I wanted to run around, sharing my good news with the world. Fajarhomo would be dead. With its spectra diverted, I knew it would stand no chance against me. With my skill and emotions, I would have the upper hand. I would kill it and I would finally be reunited with my offspring.

There was only one person I could think of sharing this great news with, and so I left the pious ones’ quarters, only hesitating a little when I walked by the fog wall I knew led to the hatch and the room my offspring lived in. Soon, I promised it in my head, soon I will come for you. I walked out of the quarters and headed straight for Gerangi’s cell.

When I got there, I put my baton into the fog which covered the entry, and walked in.

Gerangi was sitting on the bed. It had its hands gripping its knees and its head up. Its eye was closed, the eyelid pressed tightly shut, as if in serious concentration. There was something odd about the way it sat still with its eye closed. I had never seen anyone take this position before and so I simply stared at it, wondering what it was doing. I was so caught up in my perusal of it, that I almost missed its eye opening.

It saw me and froze, its face filled with shock. Then the corners of its lips tilted up, as it smiled. But it was a mocking smile. I did not know what caused it, but I could tell that my presence in the room had somehow annoyed Gerangi, even though it did not make its complaints known. It remained silent instead, and the silence grew into a tension that wore on my mind.

“I have good news.” I said, eager to ease the tension.

Gerangi’s eyebrow lifted, but it did not say any more. I was made even more aware of my blunder by its silent gestures. Was it entering the room? Had I offended it by standing there without making myself known? It had been a common thing for one uspec to enter another’s hovel unannounced in my slum. It was not as if uspecs required privacy.

“I have found a way to kill Fajahromo.” I stated dryly.

That caught Gerangi’s attention. “How?”

“Fajahromo wanted me to kill a Kaiser in the plenum…”

Gerangi jumped off its bed. “The plenum?” it asked. I frowned, nodding, as I wondered at its strange response. It covered the distance separating us in seconds. Then it stood so close to me, that I had to tilt my head down to see its face. It stared up at me, and its eye perused my face as if studying me for the first time. “You’ve met the plenum?” it asked.

I understood the strangeness of this conversation. I understood that there was something happening in Gerangi’s mind, something important which I just did not know enough to guess at. I understood this from the dazed way Gerangi stared at me. But since I could not decipher the meaning in its gestures, I had no recourse but to respond honestly. I shook my head. “I saw some of them, but I only met one.”

“You met one.” Gerangi mumbled the words to itself. “You met the plenum.” It stated and I could tell that it was no longer speaking to me. “You met the plenum and I am here.” It scoffed, and then its eyes met mine. It held my gaze for a long time, and then it looked away.

It squared its shoulders and then it muttered words underneath its breath. I frowned as my confusion only continued to grow. Why was Gerangi having such an extreme reaction to my meeting the plenum? What was I missing? The questions continued to plague me until Gerangi touched me.

The touch was brief. It only lasted the amount of time it took me to inhale, but something happened. I could not say exactly what had happened when Gerangi touched me, or why I was so certain that something had happened, but I knew. Suspicions began to cloud my mind as I doubted Gerangi’s purpose for the first time since I came to it after I was released from the cell. But I could not hold on to my suspicions for long, because as soon as Gerangi’s hand left me, it collapsed onto the sludge ground of its cell.

It was still conscious, its eye still open as it stared up at me. I bent and picked the uspec up. Then I carried it to its bed and lay it gently on the hard surface. I noticed that it could do very little but pull in shaky breaths and stare up at me. But then it smiled, a smile of pure joy, that had me answering with a smile of my own, even though I did not know the root of its smile. Then I watched the fingers in its right hand struggle to lift, but when they did rise, they flickered towards the fog in the entrance to the cell. Then Gerangi turned away from me, and I knew it wanted to be left alone. So, I backed away from it, and walked out of the cell.

“Irira.” A voice called out from behind me.

I swerved, turning around sharply.

I saw the coat first. My gaze rose from the bottom of the now familiar expensive coat, to the garments worn underneath and then slowly, to the imp’s face.

“Xavier.” I said in reply, and in that moment, I wasn’t sure if what I felt was relief masked as rage, or anger under the guise of joy. This imp had made me wait a long time to see it, too long, I thought as I stared coldly at it.

@lukfame thank you! Happy new month to you too!

@Rynne so, there's special magic that goes into the process when an imp's eyes are removed, and that's why the imps (even with their eyes gone) can see. You may or may not remember this, but the imp that Osezele fought at the end of in between also had its eyes out, but that didn't stop it from seeing her and fighting her. There's more implications of this no eye seeing thing which will permeate a little into the human world in the reckoning, but I'm not going to spoil it

@HotB thank you!!!

@tunjilomo yeah, I know Gerangi has a way of...framing things...I'll just leave it as that lol

@Fazemood ...well, I don't know if I'd go as far as saying it's becoming compassionate, more like the young imps bring something out of Nebud... but let me not spoil it for you

@correctguy101 thank you

Part 14
--------

Three days passed and there was no sign of the imp Xavier. I watched for it whenever I walked down the sludge hallways, and listened for it, when I stepped into dark corners, but it did not show up. I was beginning to wonder if it ever would, and the thoughts vexed me. It irritated me to have an imp take up so much of my thoughts. And with each delay, I found my mood towards the imp Xavier grow darker. At this point in time, as I stood in front of the heavily embroidered curtains, I wasn’t certain what I would do if Xavier ever appeared. Would I demand that it remove the fog locking Gerangi in its cell, or would I simply snap the imp’s neck? I knew snapping its neck would be futile since it could not die, but the thought of punishing the imp for its tardiness brought me comfort.

The curtains fluttered and I remembered where I was, and why I stood there. I took a deep breath and pushed the curtains aside. Then I walked into the same room I’d met Fajahromo in the last time we spoke.

Fajahromo sat on the opposite side of the long table. It had a plate filled with food in front of it. Beside the plate there was a saucer, and on that saucer a large yellow fruit and a small dagger. Its imp Kyrie stood to the right of its chair, pouring from the decanter in its hands, into the cup by Fajahromo’s plate. There were also two guards standing dutifully behind it.

Fajahromo smiled when it saw me. It leaned back, pushing away from the table and the food on it, and lifted its right arm. Bending its fingers, it gestured for me to come closer and pointed at the chair to its right.

As I walked towards it, I noticed that it was not dressed as formally as it had been the last time we spoke. It did not wear the robe with the jeweled fastenings. It only had on the upper garment which hid its chest spikes.

“Leave us.” Fajahromo ordered.

The guards left.

I stopped by the empty chair and my eye caught on the dagger in Fajahromo’s saucer. I stared at that dagger, unable to tear my eye away from it. The dagger had a black rubber grip and a long red stained cyan blade. The blade was died red along the cutting edge and had additional streams of red running across it, in a way that made it appear as if it was bloodstained. I looked at the simple dagger and imagined how easy it would be to pick it up and bury it in Fajahromo’s throat. In one single act, all of my troubles would be gone. My offspring would be safe, and I would be reunited with it. I would be able to care for it, to train it, to deepen my bond with it, and watch its with me grow. One act and Fajahromo would be dead.

“Fine blade is it not?” Fajahromo’s voice was calm. It broke my focus on the blade and I lifted my gaze to its. The corner of its lip was tipped up as it stared at me, all seven of its eyes taunting me. I was sure it knew what I was thinking then, and that it was daring me to do it.

I picked the dagger up and Kyrie gasped. The decanter fell noisily from its hands, filling the air with a loud thud as it made contact with the ground. The liquid spilled, and I felt drops of it fall against my skin, but I was too busy holding Fajahromo’s gaze to look away. Fajahromo’s face remained the same. It did not blink, did not look away, did not make even the slightest gesture to hint that it was afraid. It just continued to mock me with its teasing stare.

And so I bent towards it, the dagger held secure in my right hand as I approached the uspec’s neck.

“It is not your friend. It will turn on you just as it turned on its own line. When you are no longer useful you will find yourself where I am, begging an enemy for death.”

Maxad’s words rose again, unbidden in my mind. It was as if the words were haunting me. They never left my mind. And every time they came to the front of my thoughts, a fear rose in me. It was a fear that reminded me how cunning Fajahromo was. It was one which whispered of spectra, the magic in the eyes Fajahromo possessed. Then I remembered it had the fogs.

I straightened, clearing my throat as I did. Then I ran my fingers over the fine blade. I could tell from studying the texture of it that it had been made from hooni scales. I put the blade down, back onto the saucer it had rested on.

“Very fine.” I said, finally, meeting Fajahromo’s eyes. “Salutations grand one.”

Fajahromo laughed. It laughed for so long and so hard that it took all my self-control not to pick the dagger back up and shove it into its laughing mouth. With each guffaw released, I could tell that it was mocking me, showing me for a coward, teasing the fear which somehow made me weaker in this uspec’s presence. No other uspec could affect me like this.

Then Fajahromo sobered. Its eyes levelled on me as it blinked, clearing away the remnants of the taunting laugh. “Much changed but still the same, eh my friend?” it chuckled. “Sit Nebud.” It pointed to the empty chair, and this time I sat.

A few of Fajahromo’s eyes turned to regard Kyrie, while the rest remained fixed on me. “Clean that mess up.” It snapped at the imp.

Kyrie bowed and then it fell on its knees and crawled towards the spilled liquid.

I took my gaze back to Fajahromo, wondering if it would mention the blade again, or perhaps ask me what I had intended to do with it. Fajahromo didn’t. It simply picked up the blade and used it to cut into the large fruit on its saucer. Then it stabbed the pointed tip of the blade into the cut piece and offered it to me. I shook my head. Fajahromo shrugged and turned the blade away, using it to hold up the sliver of fruit as it bit into it. I sat still, watching in silence as Fajahromo ate the piece of fruit. It took slow measured bites, as it continued to study me with its eyes. Then it put the blade back on the saucer and smiled.

“You did well my friend, I am pleased with you.” It said.

I clenched my jaw and fought the urge to tell it what I thought of its pleasure. This uspec had forced me to birth an offspring and had then seen that the young was snatched away from me before it could know what I was to it. With each day, the grief I felt about that loss dampened, and I felt even more sorrow from that. It pained me to know that I could lose the bond I had with my offspring, that time and distance could steal it from me. But as much as I wanted to lash out at Fajahromo, I could not, not now, not when there was so much at stake if I failed.

“Have you heard of the plenum?” it asked.

I shook my head.

Fajahromo chuckled. “The mighty irira, but still de trop.” It teased, picking up its cup and taking a sip of the drink in it. It put the cup down before continuing to speak. “The plenum is the future. It is a body of five elected Kaisers that will one day rule over the spectral existence. Each spectrum is represented in the plenum, each spectrum gets one seat. Now, in its current state, the spectral existence is chaos. Every port is run by its own Kaiser, and every Kaiser makes up its own rules, and this was all done in the name of the founder, Chuspecip. You see my friend, Chuspecip let the uspecs believe that being a Kaiser was a gift of blood, and now anyone not of the line of Kaisers cannot rule. They must be Custodians, guarding the port until Chuspecip selects another noble line to exult to the line of Kaisers. Well no more. The founder is gone, and the plenum is rising to take its place. They will rule and I desire a vacancy in the plenum.” Fajahromo paused to take another sip of wine. “And you will get it for me.” It pronounced as it pinned me with its gaze.

I was speechless. What did Fajahromo want of me now? What it spoke of was a sacrilege. To say that Chuspecip was gone and that another could take its place was blasphemous. Chuspecip was the deity, the founder of the spectral existence. We uspecs survived by its benevolent rule. It was a kind founder, everyone knew that. But Fajahromo supported the plenum, transgressors trying to usurp the founder’s position, and it expected me to get it a vacancy. “How?” I asked.

Fajahromo looked at me as if I was an idiot, as if the question I asked was the single most stupid one it had ever heard. And then the look faded and Fajahromo smiled. “By killing one of them of course.” It said. “The plenum only meets in sacred places, and since the Kaiser of Hakute is such a big supporter, they will meet here, in the birthplace of Hakute, tomorrow. I have arranged for you to be given access to the suite where they will meet. A pious one will detain one of the Kaisers in the plenum. That will be the one I want you to kill. And you will kill it.” Fajahromo’s concluding words were not a question.

And so I did not bother pretending as if they were.

After that Fajahromo spent some more time talking about the plenum and the great plans it had to become Custodian of Hakute, and then after the plenum assumed full rule, to become Kaiser. I listened to Fajahromo’s babbling with one ear, and the words registered in a part of my mind. But the rest of my conscious thought was spared for puzzling over the escape. It was clear now that I couldn’t kill Fajahromo. It had spectra, and for some reason, I was afraid of it. Which left running. I had to get Gerangi out of its cell.

But how?

Xavier.

That was the only way. My entire plan hinged on an imp deciding that it wanted to see me. It was foolish, and precarious, and almost surely destined to fail. But it was all I had.

“Where is your mind?”

Fajahromo’s question pulled my attention back to the room. I shook my head. “Nowhere grand one.” I lied.

Fajahromo’s features chilled. It stared coldly at me, as if my answer had offended it, then it snapped its fingers. “You may leave my friend.” Its tone shocked me, freezing me for a few seconds, but then I did as it asked. I stood up from the chair and I walked out of the room.

I spent the next hour pacing. The first few times I went there, I told myself that I was looking for the imp young. I was convinced that I only went there to try to find the imp I had encountered and get it to send yet another message to Xavier, to impress upon the imp how urgent my business was. But the truth was I went for my offspring. I wondered how much it had learned and who taught it. Could it walk steadily without tripping as it had in the hatch? What did it look like underneath all that red? Did it smile? Was it troubled? Had it discovered its emotions already? Would the pious ones try to force the magic of emotions out of it? Had it met Fajahromo? Question after question swamped my mind, and it annoyed me that I had no response for myself.

But I kept going back. I took longer loops, taking the scenic route. It had gotten to the point that I was going from the wardens’ quarters to the pious ones’ through the fighters’ living space. It was even more ridiculous when you considered the fact that the fighters’ living space was out of the way. I would have to go back to the wardens’ space to get to the pious ones’, but I needed the physical exertion to quiet my mind, and so I didn’t question my feet.

I found myself walking along the edges of the empty space in the fighters’ quarters, where the paths to the other rooms diverted from. I only had to look down the walkway to my left to see the walls which were not really walls. The ones that had led me to the fighting on the day that Fajahromo took over the pits. Gerangi was locked in a fog cell behind that false wall.

I felt something foul.

I could only feel traces of it radiating from the cleaning room. I could not tell what it was, but I was drawn to it, and so like a beast following a scent, I hunted it. I walked down the path which led to the cleaning room, and the closer I got, the more intense the feeling grew. It wasn’t till I stopped in front of the drawn curtains that I recognized what it was. It was pain. It was pain like nothing I had ever felt before.

I felt myself growing angry just from the feeling.

I shoved the curtains aside and stomped into the room. The sight that greeted me was not particularly cruel. An uspec fighter stood in the middle of the okun pool and had an imp’s head held underneath the surface of the liquid. Normally, I would not care. I would turn around and leave the uspec to deal with the imp as it saw fit. But this was not a normal imp. It was an imp young. It had that pain that I was coming to associate with the imp young. It was a pain that, when unaroused, vibrated with a beautiful type of energy. Feeling the dormant energy of an imp young’s pain was like basking in the reveal of the greatest artist’s masterpiece. It was like experiencing a level of brilliance which mere words could not describe. But when that pain was aroused, as it was now, that beauty was molested. It was tarnished, and it felt foul.

“That’s enough!” I snapped at the uspec in the pool.

The uspec did not even look at me.

With a growl, I jumped into the pool and forced the uspec back with a blow to its head. The uspec let go of the imp and the young imp scrambled out of the pool. It knelt on the ground by the pool and it wept.

The uspec took a swing at me. I side stepped, and then grasped the uspec by the back of its neck and punched it enough times to break its nose. Then I pushed it back.

The uspec looked ready to fight back and then its hand froze in midair. “Irira.” It said my name with awe, as if I was a myth, one it couldn’t believe it was seeing. “Apologies.” It said. “I did not know it was you.”

I just shook my head at it. How could I explain that I did not even know why I stopped it? I had done much worse to insolent imps. It owed me no apologies.

I climbed out of the okun and walked towards the crying imp. Its tears did not stop and so the taint in its pain remained. I found myself dropping to my knee in front of this imp. And as I quested out with my pain to reach the imp’s, I marveled at my own actions. I was Nebud, why did I care so much for the pain of an imp young? I exhausted the imp’s pain. It screamed out, letting out a loud shrill cry, and then the weeping stopped, and the foulness was gone. The vibrant energy in the pain had returned, and it was untainted.

The imp looked up at me. “Thank you domina.” It said. And then it stood and left. I watched the imp go, trailing it with my eye. But when my eye got to the curtains, I froze. There was another imp standing there. The imp was tall and lean. It had none of its eyes and its exposed skin was streaked. I did not recognize the imp, but I recognized its coat.

It was Xavier’s.

It stood at the curtains observing me and I stayed as I was, on my knee, doubting my own luck. Had I really found Xavier?

Then the imp turned around. It turned and the bottom end of its expensive coat rubbed against the sludge ground as it made to walk away. I came back to my senses then and jumped to my feet. I ran towards the curtains, but by the time I got there the imp was gone.

Fazemood:
but your are Obehid, the creator of all things spectral. The maker of the marked and the ancestry. The curator and designer of the spectral realm, These uspecs worship you their maker the all powerful Obehid. The decider of Osazele's and her mates fates and that of Nebud's. How then can you say that you can't go for Nebud's omugwo? just say you wan do guy I will understand.

LOL!!! This is just too funny! hahaha.

@Tuhndhay Thanks for the feedback, I'm happy that it's understandable. And I never pass up an opportunity to talk about my writing lol just email me

@OluwabuqqyYOLO wow, thanks! I'm glad you like it. Honestly, it's been kind of hard to gauge how well I'm doing with getting the main points of this story across, just because of how different it is. It's good to know that I'm not doing too badly.

Thanks again for the feedback guys, I really appreciate it

Lol @Fazemood, but you're forgetting that I don't have ancestry blood, so even if I wanted to go for the omugwo, I wouldn't be able to enter the spectral existence (at least not in my umani lifetime )

I know that this is a pretty complex one, so I just want to get a feel on if anyone is with me so far, like does anyone understand this? Or is it all too crazy?

“There is really only one thing to know about the different forms of spectral magic and that is that they are all understandings of lifeforces. Everything which exists is possessed by lifeforces. Everything. In an uspec there are several, in other things not so much.” The pious one tapped the bed it sat on as it said the last part. “Emotions and spectra govern the understandings of five lifeforces each. Pansophy covers the rest. With spectra, the spectrum’s soul communicates with the lifeforces, the uspec need not work for the action it seeks, it need only think what it wants done. But with emotions a kun…I do not need to teach you about emotions.”

I looked at the pious one, wondering if it expected a reply, but it did not. It just continued talking.

“An irira is very different from an irirakun. An irira is simply that, an abomination. During the birth, the hatch takes all of the features left in it and produces a new uspec from the features of the one that died. If two uspecs fight, one dies, and the other leaves a piece or part of its feature on the floor of the hatch, then the hatch swallows that part and combines it with the features of the dead uspec and an irira is born. But a kun is a full irira, an irira which is produced from the death of both fighters. When two dead uspecs are absorbed, an irirakun is born. Perhaps kun are the hatch’s way of making reparation, of giving something back for the two lives lost.” Gerangi stopped talking. It frowned, shaking its head as if scolding itself. Then it smiled apologetically.

“There was a time when neither Maxad or I knew what Fajahromo wanted with the pits. Fajahromo found iriras and brought them here. When it began, it was praised for its piety and even befriended by begetters like Maxad who approved of Fajahromo’s actions. Then Takabat, Fajahromo’s sibling, rose in the ranks of begetters and it found out how Maxad decimated the iriras Fajahromo brought, starving them to death. When Fajahromo heard of this, it was livid. The fight that ensued caused the rift between Maxad and Fajahromo.

It was perplexing. Maxad did what it did, because it believed that Fajahromo had brought the iriras to the pits to die. It thought that Fajarhomo was doing its duty by the founder. And for years we were left wondering why. Why did Fajahromo bring these uspecs here? It wasn’t till the day I was arrested that I finally understood why.

Fajahromo was looking for kuns. He didn’t care about the iriras he brought here, he simply wanted to separate the kun from the rest. That was where Takabat came in. Takabat was doing secret research using the Order’s archives to learn ways that a kun could be told apart from an irira, because, Fajahromo’s grand plan is to procreate. But Fajahromo does not want just any type of offspring, it wants a kun of all five spectrums, one that will have the power to manipulate all emotions. But the hatch only accepts two deaths at a time. Any more, and no new life is born. Which means that for a kun of five to be born, a kun of three and a kun of two, or a kun of four and an uspec, must die in the hatch.”

Gerangi paused. My heart rate had increased as it said the last part, talking about what Fajahromo wanted and how it could get it. But I still did not see what role I had to play in this.

“You are a living offer my friend. It’s actually quite genius what Fajahromo has done.” Gerangi laughed dryly. “The easiest way to make a kun of five is from a kun of four. You take two kuns of two, make sure they die in the hatch, and from their deaths a kun of four is born. Then, before the kun of four can really learn how to use its emotions, you pit it against a trained fighter who will kill it, and then have the fighter killed when it’s done. The hatch would then swallow up the uspec and the kun of four, combining them to give a kun of five.”

The words were beginning to make sense to me, but the implications, the implications of what Gerangi said were too terrible. I couldn’t allow myself to accept them, to decipher its words and find the meanings for myself.

“Fajahromo made you a progenitor my friend. That is why you feel as you do. There are two bonds formed in the hatch. The progenitor’s bond is formed when it stands in the hatch and watches the young being born, as you did. The offspring’s bond forms when the progenitor wipes it clean, revealing the green skin underneath, and allowing for the uspec to open its eye. The progenitor should be the first the offspring sees, and the progenitor should be the first to see the offspring. Both bonds are required for an uspec to become undead, a real parent to the offspring. But you were denied the second bond, the bond of your offspring knowing you as its progenitor. That is why you feel such grief. Your offspring was taken from you. To the young, you are just another uspec, one it has no connection with. Fear not, the grief lessens. Keep your distance from the young and overtime the ache will go. Although I doubt your patron will allow that. Fajahromo is really so cunning…”

My mind reeled. I could hear Gerangi speak in more detail as to how cunning Fajahromo is, and how smart, and how dumb they had been to underestimate it, but I could not listen anymore. “Why?” the question came out of me, as if forced from the image of the young uspec in the back of my mind. My offspring. “Why?” I asked again.

“It is genius! That’s why. Fajahromo wants a kun of five, but to do that it must make a kun of four. It has now created a kun crossbreed of sorrow and fear, your offspring, and it has one already of anger and pain, you. Why? Because you are the greatest fighter in the pits. The only way that a young, untrained uspec can kill you, is if you cannot kill it. Fajahromo has in essence killed you already. In the coming weeks, before the bond wanes, you will find yourself in the hatch, facing your offspring. And the bond you feel will confine you, it will keep you from harming it, from fighting it. But the uspec does not share your bond and so it will kill you without blinking. And then Fajahromo will send in another fighter from the pits, one with training and no bond to the young. One without fear or sorrow for the kun to manipulate. That fighter will kill your offspring and become a progenitor of a kun of four, created from the dead corpses of you and your offspring. That my friend, is Fajahromo’s cunning.”

I became afraid. The fear took over me. I had to force myself to be still, to keep from shaking. How well Fajahromo had planned it all. The detail, the way it had manipulated me. And now, now I had an offspring to protect. A young innocent uspec who existed as a result of me, and one that I was bound to. I had to protect it. There was only one thing I needed to know. “How do I stop it?”

Gerangi shrugged as if the answer should be evident. “You have two options. The first and safest for you and your offspring, is to kill Fajahromo. While Fajahromo lives, you will never be free of it. But if you cannot find a way to kill it, then find a way to release me from this cell. I will take you out of the pits and we will get as far away from Fajahromo as we can.”

“With my offspring.” I added.

“Naturally.” Gerangi said. There was something about its tone that made me suspicious.

“I will not leave here without it.” I warned.

“Of course.” Gerangi replied, but the spec of insincerity remained in its tone. I couldn’t quite tell if it was doubt I heard in its voice, or placation, as if it only agreed with me to soothe me.

I rose, pushing myself off the floor. “Gratitude pious one.” I said, then I left, walking out of the cell with a new resolve. I could still feel the grief, the sense of loss, but it was buried by the new determination I felt. I would set my offspring free from the pits or I would die trying.

I walked through paths that had somehow become familiar, knowing when to turn left and exit the fighters’ quarters, moving towards the wardens’ space. As I walked by, I got nods that bore more resemblance to bows than greetings, from wardens passing by. These wardens were actually wardens, not like me. I was…how did Gerangi put it…a living offer, set to die in the hatch. I shook that thought out of my mind and kept walking, veering off the path that would have led to my rooms and going instead to the pious ones’ quarters. I did not even hesitate when I got to the large wall of fog. I knew my key would work here and so I inserted the key, putting the baton into the fog and walked through.

It wasn’t until I was standing in the empty space, staring at the imps who stood by the door and the other walls of fog, that I realized why I had come. I had come to see my offspring.

I turned to the fog barrier the one which blocked the entryway to the hatch, and I put my baton into it. I expected entrance into this as well, and so, I did not stop to contemplate before taking a step towards it.

But I was cut short by the pain.

I turned, my head snapping to the right, and a new imp had joined the four standing there. It was an imp young. Not just any, but the imp young who had begged me to release the other imp during the slaughter of the old wardens. The imp held a small bowl filled with pink liquid, and it poured the liquid into the buckets on the ground.

“Come.” I commanded, snapping my fingers at the young. The imp stopped. It took a step back, its eyes widening as it bent its head backward to look up at my face and then it shook its head. It looked as if it would run. I didn’t give it the chance. I walked towards it and grabbed it by the arms, keeping it from moving. The bowl it had held fell to the floor, and I saw tears well up in its eyes. The tears were enough to irritate me, but the pain I felt coming from it stopped me from acting on my irritation.

There was something about the pain it felt. It was beautiful, awing. The pain seemed to vibrate with an energy that was both mesmerizing and terrible to feel. There was an innocence to the pain, one that I was not immune to. I released the imp and was shocked at the softness of my voice when I spoke to it. “I mean you no harm.” I promised.

The imp’s bottom lip went into its mouth. It looked down at the ground, sniffed, and then it nodded. It seemed to square its shoulders before looking up at me. I knelt on one knee in front of it, lowering myself so that I could look it in the eye. That brought a smile from the imp young, and I found myself smiling a little too. The pain did not fully subside, but it remained in the way my lifeforce did. Like an innate presence, one that was not an indication of the imp being in pain.

“I am looking for Xavier.” I said to the imp, my voice still soft and gentle. I did not know that I could sound like this, or why this imp made me feel as I did. But I knew the pain it carried, and I knew it had an effect on me.

“I do not know who you mean.” The imp said, and then it looked away. Its small eyes caught mine, held them, and then it looked away, as if it was trying to send me a message.

“Nebud!” A voice snapped.

I rose to my feet and found the pious one who’d brought me to the hatch standing behind me.

“What is the meaning of this?” it demanded.

I frowned. “I came to see the uspec, the one Fajahromo asked me to take charge of.” I turned to the wall of fog then and noticed that it had not cleared. It was still opaque, a sign that I did not have access and that if I had entered, I would be dead. “What is the meaning of this?” I gestured to the fog. “You told me I have access.”

The pious one sighed. “The uspec is still too young for you to train. When it is ready to learn how to fight, I will summon you. Till then, do not come back here.”

I clenched my jaw and nodded curtly. As I walked out of the pious ones’ quarters, I wondered how much of what it had told me was true. Knowing all I did now, I doubted that Fajahromo ever wanted me to teach the young uspec how to fight. I was beginning to suspect that Fajahromo would not want me to have any interaction with my offspring at all. It wouldn’t want to risk the chance of a bond forming between us.

I stormed away, my mood so foul with anger that I almost walked over the little imp. It was the feeling of its pain that stopped me. I bent to my knee again and regarded it.

“I will tell Xavier you wish to see him. If he wants to see you, he will find you. That is the best I can do domina.” The imp whispered.

I nodded and the imp ran away.

Part 13
---------

It wasn’t sleep. I did not feel as one who’d just woken from a peaceful respite. I felt as though I had simply distanced myself from consciousness and had now returned to it. In Gerangi’s cell.

My eye blinked slowly as I became aware of my surroundings. I recognized the sludge ground on which I sat, and the familiarity of the wooden bed in front of me reminded me of the cell I had lived in not so long ago. I let my gaze rise till I got to the uspec lying calmly on its bed, observing me with a look of mild curiosity.

Gerangi’s eye widened when it noticed that I was staring back at it. It remained as it was, sprawled in a reclining position on the hard surface of the bed. I had my first chance to study it since the night it had been brought here. Its outer eye-sockets were empty. A few were pure green, the green of sockets which had never been filled, and the rest had streaks of white, signs of sockets that had been robbed of their eyes.

I imagined the grief Gerangi must have felt at the loss of its eyes, and I felt an answering grief within me. It had subsided, the sorrow was not as engulfing as it had been after the birth, but it was still there. It was still a potent force within me, one that I was not yet ready to face.

My gaze flickered to the fog barring entrance to the cell and I could not help wondering why my baton had worked. I had suspected it would when the pious one specifically went out of its way to mention that the key would not work for these cells, but I did not know why I would be given a key that worked. And if the pious one had known it would work, why hadn’t it simply said so? My mind darted back to the events of the past week, starting from the slaughter of the wardens, to fighting Maxad in the arena, and now to this, this gut-wrenching sense of loss I felt. What was all of this for?

Gerangi cleared its throat.

I took my gaze back to meet its and for a moment, or two, we both stared at each other. There was no exchange of words, no questions or demands, simply a companionable silence, as the pious one’s eye roamed over my body, taking me in. I studied it myself, noticing a few bruises on its face and belly. Apart from that, it appeared fine. A voice in my head informed me that I could quest out with my pain and find out how much pain Gerangi was in, but the sadness I felt was too draining to spare much energy for communicating with lifeforces and examining pain.

“What ails you my friend?” Gerangi asked, breaking the silence.

I was silent. The memory was still too clear, the feelings still so raw, that I feared what would happen if I attempted to speak of it. And for seconds I found the silence to be an acceptable alternative to the grief I knew would pour out of me if I confessed my loss. But then Gerangi remained quiet, simply waiting. It stared levelly at me. It had risen slightly now, risen so that it was supporting its lying frame with an elbow propped up on the head of the bed. There must have been something in my face, something that spoke of the sorrow I felt, because Gerangi’s passive face, morphed into one of concern and then one of pity.

It pushed itself up, straightening from the relaxed way it had been lying, and sat. Crossing its arms over its thighs, it bent forward so that its face was closer to mine and then it said, “my friend”, in a consoling tone, as if, through some means I could not imagine, it could understand the ache I felt.

The tone was my undoing. I found myself talking. I spoke slowly at first, starting from the conversation with Fajahromo after I had killed Maxad. Those words were easier to share. I went on talking. I found myself stretching out my recounting of the mundane events. Like the different room I now inhabited which despite its comforts, brought me no peace. I shared my thoughts of the dining room, and the friendly atmosphere which accompanied the wardens’ meals. I must have made an offhand joke, because Gerangi’s lips quirked in a half smile. When I could no longer talk about the richness of the curtains which draped certain rooms, or the slightly sturdier ground which I believed to exist underneath the sludge in the wardens’ quarters, I had to move on to my tale of the day.

Once I started with the novice who’d walked into the dining room and summoned me, I found myself tripping over the retelling. I rushed through the events of the day, hoping to alleviate the suffering by glazing over the details. And for a while it worked. I talked about the pious ones’ quarters and I noticed on some level the changes which came over Gerangi as I spoke. I noticed that its jaw had clenched tightly and that its hands had balled into fists. I noticed that it had frozen, and no longer nodded in the gentle way it had done while I spoke of the earlier parts. I imagined the pain it must feel to hear me talk of quarters it must have once lived in, to hear my journey into a life which had been stolen from it. But it did not stop me from speaking and so I went on.

It wasn’t till I got to the hatch that I found myself stopping to swallow lumps which suddenly seemed to fill my throat. I swallowed, cleared my throat and tried to move passed the stops. It was pointless though, because the closer I got to the recounting of my fight and the young which had been born, the harder it became to swallow the lumps in my throat.

But I told it. I told it all and listened deeply to the silence that followed my last words.

Gerangi sighed.

Sometime during my tale of the fighting, Gerangi had relaxed. The fists it had made of its hands had gone, its jaw no longer clenched, and it moved slightly, no longer frozen in place. Had its sorrow waned? I wondered, hoping that if a loss like that which Gerangi felt had abated, then mine would too. Gerangi had lost everything. It had been a pious one, a highly ranked prelate with outer eyes filled. If Gerangi could recover, then surely, I would too. What was it I grieved for? A young that I had never spoken to, never seen its eye open? Compared to Gerangi’s my loss appeared insignificant.

“Do you fear your patron?” Gerangi asked.

The question caught me by surprise. I frowned. My immediate response was ‘no’, I feared no one. I was irira. I could kill Fajahromo, I could wrap my hand around its neck and squeeze till the life drained out of it. So why hadn’t I? I realized, sitting on the floor in front of Gerangi, that I hadn’t even tried. For all the rage that I had felt when Fajahromo abandoned me, and all my oaths to take its life, I had not made a single attempt. Why? And why had I been so quick to rush into the hatch and kill at its bidding? Of course I told myself that I had done it for the challenge, but would I have refused if it was the other uspec, the smaller, non-challenging one, who had survived?

“It is not your friend. It will turn on you just as it turned on its own line. When you are no longer useful you will find yourself where I am, begging an enemy for death.”

Maxad’s last words rose again in my head. I could not shake the words, they clung to me like a wet cloth. I hated what those words wrought in me, the power that it made me accord to Fajahromo. I hated that every time I heard the words in my head, I remembered the way Maxad had begged me for death. And I thought, if Fajahromo could reduce Maxad to that, then what difficulty would it have with me? But fear was for weaklings, it was a loathsome emotion that I could never admit to.

Gerangi was not fooled by the mask of courage I fought to construct. “Good.” It said. “That tells me that you are wise. Only a fool would not fear one as cunning as Fajarhomo.” It sighed as though releasing some deep regret with the sound. “Maxad and I were fools to underestimate the grand one.” And it was in the way it doled out the honorific, its voice dripping with scorn, that I realized the depth of hatred it felt towards Fajaromo.

My eye met Gerangi’s and it held my gaze. “Do not make our mistake.” It warned.

I swallowed and then nodded. It released my gaze and I studied its profile as its shoulders drooped and it bent even lower as if suddenly exhausted.

“Do you know why Fajahromo brought you here in the first place, why it brought you to the pits?” it asked.

I shook my head in reply.

“Do you know why it had you kill the fighter that survived in the hatch?” it asked.

Again, I shook my head.

The pitch of Gerangi’s voice increased. I did not need to quest out with my anger to feel the undercurrents of rage in its next stream of questions. “Do you know of the plenum? What of the chasm? But you must know of pansophy? No? No! Then spectra! Even illiterates know of spectra!” Each word was flung out with the biting edge of a whip, and each shake of my head only seemed to enrage it more. Until it was done and then it exhaled. I could sense the anger flow out of it and in its place rose a fierce determination. That determination was evident in the upright posture it now sat in, and the uncompromising tightening of its lips. “Then you will learn.” It said.

I could sense it was waiting for some gesture from me, an affirmative action to let it know that I understood. And I simply stared at it, wondering if it knew that I was a killer. The pious one had no outer eyes, which meant it had no magic. In this cell, I held the advantage. But Gerangi was a voice from my past. It was the one who had showed me how to learn emotions. I owed Gerangi my life and so I said, “yes, pious one.”

“Good.” It nodded approvingly. Gone were the recriminations, the disavowals of the pious honorific which it had taken such great pains to steer me away from the last time we spoke.

“Listen and pay heed to my words.” Gerangi started, and in saying those words, old religious rites that I had learned in the slums came back to the front of my mind. I pushed everything back, as I had been taught to by the traders, and my mind was almost empty. I could not rid myself of the grief so easily. The young uspec still stood, covered in red, in the back of my mind.

“There are four forms of spectral magic, but to truly understand them, you must first understand the spectrums. Five different spectrums exist in the spectral existence, and I have no doubt that you have their names on the tip of your tongue. The comprehension I speak of is much deeper than just the knowledge of their names. Each spectrum has three defining characteristics, they are: the weapon, the emotion, and the soul. The weapon of a spectrum is the distinctive feature which the uspecs in that spectrum bear. For us kutes, our distinctive feature is our tail, that is the kute weapon. The emotion of a spectrum is the emotion which exists in the spectrum’s soul, and is the emotion which the uspecs of that spectrum are most closely bound to. The kute emotion, as you well know, is pain. The last, and most important, is the soul. The soul of a spectrum is that which inundates it, that which it draws power from. There are five souls in the spectral existence: okun, quicksand, fog, hail and cloud. Each soul has the ability to manipulate a specific lifeforce if triggered by one with a key. The key to a spectrum’s soul is the eye of an uspec who belongs to that spectrum. Now that you understand the spectrums, we can proceed to the magic. Remember, there are four forms of spectral magic.

The first, emotions, is a gift of birth. Only few such as yourself, possess it. It is one which is present in irirakun, or kun as they are more commonly called, from the moment they open their eyes. A kun has an understanding of the lifeforces present in the emotions of the spectrums it belongs to. With those understandings, it can control emotions.

The second, spectra, is a gift of strength. To unlock spectra, an uspec must gain two imp eyes from imps whose umani lives began or ended in the same plane as the uspec. An uspec can further its spectra by stealing eyes from other uspecs of different spectrums. Spectra gives an understanding of the lifeforces controlled by the soul of a spectrum. With this, an hooni eye gives the ability to use quicksand to teleport, and a boga eye the ability to use the fogs to kill.

The third, pansophy, is a gift of tuition. It is a set of understandings which must be learned and are reserved for the pious.

And the fourth, route, is a gift of ascendancy. To possess route, an uspec must have all forms of all the other types of magic and then one extra piece. Only Chuspecip has route.”

In a part of me, I registered the casual way in which Gerangi, a pious one, said Chuspecip as if the name did not refer to the founder, to our deity. But I shrugged it off, as I had been taught to, when listening to a pious one speak. I had never once thought I would ever actually have cause to use the active listening I had been forced to learn in the slums, never once thinking I would actually meet a pious one…I cut myself off and focused on the pious one.

Moyenii:
Omugwo ke??

as in...lol! too funny

Fazemood:
Baby girl wherevis today's update na?

Or have you gone for Nebud's omugwo?�

This got me laughing HARD! LOL!!!! It's not only omugwo hahaha

I walked towards the fog. I stopped outside of it and, for a second, I thought of what role I had to play in all of this? I contemplated the hatch, and the birth I had thought I had come to watch, and wondered what it all meant. I knew from the pious one’s spoken words that two were meant to fight for the birth, but I did not know exactly what that meant. And if two were meant to fight, then why was I being added? Hadn’t two already fought? But then I looked at the giant, its chest full of spikes, and the uspec it had just killed and for the first time since I stopped fighting in the pits, my heart pounded. My heart drummed with the steady rhythm of an expert anticipating an indulgence in its field of expertise. I was a fighter, what did I care about the games Fajahromo played? The giant was a challenge, and as my eyes darted over the blood-stained spikes, I realized it was a challenge I was eager to face.

I walked into the fogs.

Something came over me. The fogs wafted towards me, moving into me, permeating into my body. It was as if the fogs could communicate with me, as if they could affect me, toying with my emotions in the same way as I had done to others. When I walked out of the fogs and into the hatch, the only thought on my mind was murder. I did not know why I felt as I did, only that I did and that I had to kill my opponent. In the back of my mind I registered the feeling of the cold pellets, the hail falling from the sky and raining onto my bare skin. I felt the chill, but was instantly warmed by the fogs that drifted around me. The juxtaposition was not missed on me, but my mind was so focused on the fight that the surroundings did not thrill me as they should have.

The giant walked towards me and I could feel the tremor of the ground underneath me as it approached. It stepped onto the corpse, crushing what was left of the head as it came closer. I waited until it was a few paces away before I pulled out two large scales from my neck.

The giant reached out with its hands to grab me, and I evaded, bending over so that my head was at a level with its waist. I swiped, lashing out with both of my hands, and cut straight lines into the giant’s legs. The giant let out a wild cry. Its legs rose instantly as it tried to kick me. I simply swerved around it and repeated my actions at the back of its legs. I had fought bogas before, so I knew the trick to evading their chest spikes was to stay low. If they were weak, you could escape once they caught you, but for this giant, I knew my best chances lay in completely avoiding its grasp.

Swipe after swipe, I cut across the back of the giant’s legs, setting a crisscross of cuts across its legs. Then I stood straight and put all of my strength into my leg as I stomped on the back of its knees, over the wounds I’d made there. The giant let out a feral cry and then it fell to its knees.

It bent to the floor, supporting itself with its left hand, while reaching out for me with its right. I kicked the left hand away, removing its support, and the giant fell, its face sinking into the quicksand. It pulled its hands out, desperate to push itself back to its feet. I bent to a squat by its head and dug one of my scales into the back of its scalp. It howled in pain, and its hands thrashed forward. I knelt on one of those hands, ignoring the shaking as it tried to pull its hand free. While the other hand came up in the air, moving towards me, I used both of my scales to cut a deep line in the back of the uspec’s neck.

The arm underneath me stopped moving. I stood up and watched as the blood gushed out of the back of the giant’s neck. It bled from all of the cuts I had given it, but I could still see its feet twitching. It wasn’t dead. I reached for the giant’s shoulder’s careful of the spikes on its chest, and turned it over. Its eye was opened, but it stared off into space. I tipped the giant’s head upward and then I put both scales in one hand, lined up to cut evenly together, and I tore through its neck, severing its veins.

The giant twitched a few more times and then it stopped. It was dead. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed that figures were approaching. I could make out the shapes of uspecs. I turned to watch them, as I put my scales back into my neck. These were my favorite. They were the biggest I had, and if I discarded them, new ones would have to grow. So, instead, I dug them into my own neck, cutting myself slightly as I forced the scales in. I could already feel the skin form around them and by the time the uspecs got to the outer fog, the scales had reattached to my neck.

The red fog turned opaque before I could clearly make out any distinctive features on the bodies of the approaching uspecs. Then green hands came out, poking through the fog. Then they rescinded.

Suddenly the entire place was dark. The red clouds and the lighting they’d provided was gone, the fogs had cleared, the hail stopped falling and the orange dots no longer streamed down orange rays. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of emptiness as the darkness enveloped me. I could make nothing out. As far as I was concerned, I had been swallowed up by a void. Then the ground underneath me turned from the sticky sturdiness of the quicksand I had fought on, to a liquid substance, similar in some regards to the shallow okun in the arena, but different in a manner I could not place.

A bright green glow emerged from the liquid in the ground. The glow took over, lighting the hatch as the dots and cloud once had. The green glow grew from the ground, moving higher, and revealing the loss of the features I had awed at. Now there was nothing in the hatch but the luminous green liquid covering the ground. Even the corpses were gone.

The center of the liquid bubbled, and I stared with a wide eye, dazed by the sight which greeted me. A red head emerged from the bubbling liquid. As the red head continued to rise, a face became visible. The face was completely covered in red. I could make out the outline of a nose poking out from the face, but the red covered the other facial features. It continued to rise, emerging as a red uspec from the bubbling liquid. It came all the way out and I could see the red covered ailerons, which sprouted from its back. It was small, an uspec young. I realized then that I had just witnessed a birth and I could not look away, I could not take my attention from the uspec.

I felt a bond to this uspec, a connection unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was small and it looked weak and I was filled with an overwhelming urge to protect it, to kill for it, and if need be, to die for it. It was as if it owned a part of me that I had not known existed. I looked at the little red uspec as its covered head moved from side to side, and I knew, I knew down in the deepest recesses of my being that it came from me. It was mine.

The uspec moved and then it tripped, falling into the green liquid. I sprung forward, moving towards it to help it up, and I was immediately held back. The thick red fog of the outer wall surrounded me. It enveloped me, pulling me in, regardless of my struggles. It sucked me into itself, and just before it pushed me out, I saw two novices walk into the hatch and pick the little uspec up. They helped it to its feet and began to wipe off the red which covered it. They cleaned it with their own hands, washing away the red and revealing the true green skin of the uspec.

And it made me sick to watch.

I was not sure why, but I was filled with a sense of injustice, as if the novices were robbing me of something that I was entitled to. But before I could do anything, before I could scream or lash out, the red surrounded me, and then pulled me back, spitting me out of the hatch.

I found myself on the outside staring at a wall of opaque red fog. I could not see a thing. I could not see the rest of the young uspec’s body, I could not see the little eye I knew would be revealed, or the small hands that should have reached out to me, or the little feet that it had tripped on.

I was possessed with grief. A deep sorrow took root in me as I stared achingly at the red fog. Then I ran towards it. I reached the wall, and the pain of the hard surface making contact with my body registered to me on some level, but it could not overshadow the grief, the sadness which accompanied knowing that I had lost a part of me. And so, like a mindless creature, I continued to run into the wall of red fog, hoping to break through it by sheer force of will. I slammed against it, over and over again. A part of me knew that the fog would not respond as I willed. But perhaps I continued in the hopes that the pain I felt would overshadow the sorrow.

Eventually, I sunk to my knees, fatigued. I knelt by the wall of fog and simply stared at it. I thought that the novices would have to clear the fog, that they would have to bring the new uspec out. That would be my chance, I thought, my chance to take back that which belonged to me. I don’t know how long I knelt there, but the sorrow never ceased, and the fog never cleared.

Somehow, I found the strength to get off my knees. I found the fortitude to ignore the sudden sadness which had taken over me, the sorrow of knowing a loss I could not begin to describe, and walk. I must have spent most of the time pacing. I must have walked in circles, learning new areas in the pious ones’ quarters and then retracing routes in the pits that I had visited early. I don’t know how long I walked, or how I found my way out of the pious ones’ suites, but I knew where I ended up.

I found myself back in front of Gerangi’s cell.

I did not contemplate the warning the pious one had given me. I did not stop to wonder if perhaps it really had been a warning and not a clue of some sort. I was too wretched, too desolate to care much for myself as I put the end of my baton into the fog which covered the cell. I did not even wait to see if the fog would turn translucent, signaling that I was indeed allowed to enter this room. I simply walked into the fog and let it do with me as it willed. There was too much grief in my heart to care about my own life. What point was there to life if something so precious could be stolen from me?

“Who is it?” Gerangi’s startled voice filled the small cell.

Emotions coursed through me as I walked through to the other side of the fog unharmed. I could not tell if any one of the emotions I felt was relief that I had survived the fog. I moved, completely unaware of my surroundings. I found the closest wall to rest my back against, and then I simply dropped, sinking to the sludge ground. My head rested against the hard wall behind me, and my eye closed.

Part 12
---------

The air grew colder the closer we got to the orange light, but the chill was tempered by the clammy fogs which drifted towards us.

“Stop.” The pious one ordered, suddenly.

I froze as the fog encircled me. The fog was like the ones I had experienced in my slum, hot and sticky, but unlike those, this fog felt as if it had a life in it, something driving it to move in towards me and pull at me. As the fog moved closer, sucking the air away and making it harder for me to breathe, I remembered the noble one who’d taken me to Fajahromo. I remembered when it had used the fogs to threaten me. That experience had felt a lot similar to this.

The fog kept moving inwards and I suddenly felt lightheaded. I opened my mouth, desperate for air, but there was none. I could feel myself go weak as the life was drained out of me, and I had an awful suspicion that this was what the pious one had planned. It had brought me here to kill me with the fogs, not for me to witness a birth.

But then the fog swirled around my baton, tightening around it as it had around me. The fog pulled back and I could breathe. I inhaled, taking deep breaths as I rushed to fill my deprived lungs.

“Now we go.” The pious one said, moving forward.

I glared at the back of the pious one’s head, wondering why it hadn’t warned me. It didn’t mind warning me about the fog cells, which I hadn’t asked its interference on, but this it had left me in the dark on.

The fogs remained, but the life I had felt in them was gone. Now they were just as they’d been in my village, present, but harmless. I walked through them, fighting off the disconcerting feeling of the juxtaposition of the heat with the cold.

Streams of red light became visible as we drew closer to the hatch. I cast my gaze upwards, but I could not see the source of the light. I expected to see the red clouds which had lit our nights in the slum. Instead I saw a thick wall of red fog. The fog extended upwards, going much higher than my eye could see. The red fog grew into darkness the further up it went. Unlike the nearly transparent fogs which had greeted us, this fog was completely opaque.

The pious one kept walking, going into the fog and so I followed. Unlike the pious one, I was repelled by the fog. I walked towards it, and found it to be a hard wall which I could not enter.

The pious one continued unobstructed. It was swallowed by the opaque fog, and disappeared from sight.

I heard footsteps and so I swerved, remembering my training in the arena. Two new uspecs came into sight. There were hands behind each of them, hands that seemed to steer them towards the thick wall of fog, but as soon as the uspecs became visible, the green hands disappeared.

I recognized both of them. They were both fighters from the pits. One of them was a giant like Juwara, with long cyan spikes covering its chest and back. Those spikes showed that it was of the boga spectrum. The other was shorter. I could not be sure from the distance, but I imagined that it would be about my height. The top of the uspec’s head reached midway to the giant’s chest. It wasn’t built as big as the giant, but it had lean muscles, the type that were good for running, I thought, the corners of my lips tipping up. I knew the smaller uspec had little chances of survival, so running wouldn’t really help it in a fight against the giant. The smaller uspec was of the soaru spectrum. It had tentacles coming out of its waist and moving all the way down to the ground, covering its legs like a skirt.

The lower parts of the wall of fog lightened, becoming translucent. A few paces above the giant’s head, the fog remained opaque.

My mouth hung open as I stared at the sight which had been hidden behind the opaque fogs. There was a pool in the center of the space. A large okun with clear and beautiful pink liquid. Quicksand surrounded the okun, extending from the edges of the pool all the way to the base of the wall of fog. There was more fog above the ground, but the fog was light, nearly transparent, like the ones which had greeted us. And further upwards I saw a combination of red clouds and orange dots. They joined and intertwined in a way that created a strange color of light which rendered the entire scene with a surreal level of splendor. And through it all, thick drops of white pellets fell. The pellets seemed to disappear into the pink or brown in the ground once it touched the floor, but while it dropped in the air, it was beautiful. I had never seen it before, but I knew this was the hail of which’s existence I had doubted.

My thoughts were halted by the pious one. It cleared its throat and then it closed its eyes and bowed its head. Solemnly, it intoned,

“Two as it was in the days of the firsts,
two duel for life, thus two duel for births.
Of you both the founder has chosen,
to make one progenitor, and the other reposing.
And that which survive shall become undead,
to lead a young as it too was led.
And that which is gone forever the offer,
forever exists in what is left to the other.”

Then it lifted its head and gestured with its hands. I turned towards the two uspec fighters and found four imps approaching them. I was shocked at the sight of these imps. I did not know that imps could be so tall. The imps that walked in were all giants themselves. They were taller than the giant uspec, taller, I think, than Juwara had been. The imps wore plain tunics and carried thick coats. They dressed the uspecs in these coats, lining the holes in the coats to match up with the uspecs’ ailerons and hands. Then they fastened the buttons. With this done, the imps retreated and were gone from sight, leaving fully clothed uspecs with nothing but their ailerons, hands, and heads exposed.

Then the pious one stepped aside and the uspecs walked in through the translucent fogs.

They must have been coached, must have been instructed as to why they were there and what was expected of them, because as soon as they walked in, they began to fight. It was as if the calm which had existed while they stood outside the hatch had been a façade. The smaller one walked through the thick outer fogs first. It didn’t wait for the full emergence of the giant before it threw the first punch, aiming at the giant’s head. The giant took the blow easily and then moved its head down, slamming it into the smaller one’s head. That one retreated, stumbling backwards as it tried to get its bearing.

The giant reached out with its large hands for its opponent, but the smaller one was faster. It bent, dodging the giant’s grip and then it reached out with its tentacles. Two of the smaller uspec’s tentacles slapped the giant’s hand away and four swept out. Those tentacles wrapped around the giant’s legs, fixing onto them with the suckers, and then pulled. The giant rocked on its feet, but the smaller uspec did not have the strength to fell the giant.

The rest was almost predictable.

The giant lifted one of its legs and used the tentacles latched onto it, to pull the smaller uspec forward. The uspec immediately released the giant, but it was too late, the smaller one was already within hold of the giant. The giant grabbed onto the smaller uspec by its upper arms, lifted it off the ground and brought it close to its chest. Without stopping, the giant shoved its chest against the smaller uspec’s, digging its iron spikes into the uspec’s body.

The giant pulled back and I could see each of the holes that the spikes had formed in the uspec’s body. Blood flowed freely from each wound. The giant let the smaller uspec fall to the ground, and then it grabbed onto its neck and pulled it back up. The giant smashed the uspec’s head against its chest, sending its spikes through its head. One of those spikes drove into the smaller one’s central eye.

As the dead uspec dropped to the ground, the pious one sighed. It walked out of the outer fog and the fog became opaque again. I watched with mild curiosity as the pious one approached me. It stopped in front of me.

“I had heard that the other fighter was one of the best in the pits. Truly.” It said as though it were apologizing. Something about the pious one’s contrite tone warned me that there was something off, something coming that I may not like. “Truly.” It said again. “I had hoped it would do some damage, that is…I had promised that…” it stopped and stood straight. Its eyes met mine and it stared at me with an openness I did not expect. “I apologize, truly, you were meant to finish it, not fight it.”

I frowned, completely puzzled by the pious one’s words.

It must have been able to read my confusion because it said, “your patron wants a kun. That is why you are here, to attend its birth.” When the confused expression on my face did not change, it frowned. “Did your patron not explain it in the note it sent you?” When I continued to stare puzzled at it, it sighed in exasperation. “You are to fight Nebud. You are to fight that giant and ensure that an irirakun is produced, one of the boga and soaru spectrum.”

“I do not understand.”

The pious one threw its hands in the air in frustration. “Is it not enough that I must partake in this, that I must make a mockery of the single most sacred duty of my order? Is it not enough? Now I must lay our secrets bare to you before you do your job? No! I will not! Your patron orders that you kill the giant. Do it or do not do it, that is between you and Fajahromo.”

I was shocked to hear the pious one shout. It had appeared so serene, but now I knew how much of its appearance had been a mask put on for my benefit. It was only when it begun shouting that I could feel its anger. But before I could take it, the pious one stopped talking and it somehow made its anger go away. I suspected then that it hadn’t simply exhausted it, as I’d thought before, but hidden it. Somehow, the pious one knew how to hide its anger from me.

It turned around and walked back in the direction it had come. It walked into the red fog and it became translucent again. I could see the giant standing still, as if it was expecting something, and I could see the corpse of the dead uspec it had killed.

@Fazemood Thank you!!! Happy resurrection day to you too (in arrears that is)

@tunjilomo Thank you! Happy Easter in arrears...well, Easter is a season so it is still valid

@spixytinxy it has been a while, nice to see you back! I'm happy you think we've gotten to the interesting part ***insert dancing emoji***