Wow!!!

Don’t leave leave hanging ... Don’t leave me hanging ooo... lol

Nebud has probably killed almost everyone with lit okun... can’t wait for the next update

what a sad day. juke dead!! chus whyy!!!!

Marcinus,matina,juke....all dead ?,still wish am dreaming.....

Honestly Obehid...i sincerely do not see your constant desire for Nebud's tortures and lack of concrete achievements.

Why kill Uspecs who matter so much and let less important ones stay. You could have chosen another uspec not Juke. It doesn't hurt me so much that it died. I am just not seeing your reason for its death. Maybe to unleash a different Nebud, but what can it do? It will still be weak and too emotional uspec.

This updates keeps repeating itself. Next Matiu will die, matina too and everybody. Only a weak and indecisive Nebud will be left.

People are dying for nothing. Adding too many emotional part is not necessary. From action to another bout of punishment and captivity . For what gain?

If this tales keep coming in this format, sorry to say it's not worth all the time given it.

Fazemood:
Honestly Obehid...i sincerely do not see your constant desire for Nebud's tortures and lack of concrete achievements.

Why kill Uspecs who matter so much and let less important ones stay. You could have chosen another uspec not Juke. It doesn't hurt me so much that it died. I am just not seeing your reason for its death. Maybe to unleash a different Nebud, but what can it do? It will still be weak and too emotional uspec.

This updates keeps repeating itself. Next Matiu will die, matina too and everybody. Only a weak and indecisive Nebud will be left.

People are dying for nothing. Adding too many emotional part is not necessary. From action to another bout of punishment and captivity . For what gain?

If this tales keep coming in this format, sorry to say it's not worth all the time given it.

Thank you for the feedback, as always, I really appreciate it. I understand if it's gotten to the point where you feel like moving on from the story, I totally understand and I'm just happy for the following so far. I will definitely keep your plot critiques in mind, not for this one, since it's already done, but in the future. Thanks again, I really appreciate the honest, constructive, criticism

Part 14
----------

A vision of green filled my eyes.

Ma-mater.

Nebula.

Pieces fell into place like a puzzle being constructed. I remembered names and places and uspecs and feelings. Emotions flooded me. Pain, anger, joy, happiness, fear, sorrow, grief. I remembered Juke. I remembered Katan. The grief filled me, but the vision of green blinded me. I choked on green fumes and coughed. I felt suffocated. The green particles tickled my throat as they went in, sucked into my body by my large inhales. I wheezed.

Katan stared at me. Its lips moved but I could not hear a word it said.

The green swirled. It was as if the plenum’s camp had suddenly been infused with green fog. It took over everything. It made faces harder to see. The green swallowed up every inch.

Then the ground underneath my feet began to shake.

The ground trembled and every structure in the camp came crashing down.

Katan’s eyes widened.

The plenum soldiers looked around.

The other plenum Kaisers yelled something.

I read the word of their lips and tasted it in the swirling green fogs.

Chuspecip.

Katan faced me. It launched its dagger at me.

That was the last thing Katan did.

The dagger fell from its hands.

It screamed. Blood trailed out of its eyes, its ears, its noses. Its lips. Blood came out of it. Its eyes popped out of their sockets and the uspecs’ howls of pain grew deafening. It wept tears of blood from sockets without eyes. Then it lifted its own sword and stuck it into its mouth. It killed itself.

The plenum soldiers withdrew.

The entire camp was in ruble.

Every hard sludge dwelling was now nothing more than liquid sludge on the ground. There were no structures for as far out as the eye could see. Just thousands of soldiers in metal helmets and metal mesh belts, with their mouths hanging open and their eyes darting nervously around the camp.

The plenum Kaisers dropped to their knees. They spoke and I read the words off their lips and saw it swirling like white mist in the green fog. They begged for mercy. They begged for the founder’s forgiveness.

They died quick deaths.

This was route. I felt it. The life was taken from the Kaisers without anyone touching them and without red fog surrounding them. The form was taken from the sludge dwellings without anyone using pansophy to transfer it out. It was route. And if it was route, then the founder was here.

You awakened me. The voice that spoke was the founder’s within me. It was just as it had always been. From the first time that it called my name and declared that I was its, that I belonged to it. It spoke to me and I heard it as I would hear a memory.

The plenum soldiers looked around. The iriras that had surrounded Gamble sought to kill it. They died instead. All fifteen of them. The soldiers around Matiu and Matina withdrew.

The green fog thickened around Matina. I watched as Matina’s form seemed to leave it. It reminded me of what it had looked like when Musa was being sapped by the samu. Matina was being sapped. But it wasn’t sapped fully. Its form returned and the black gash that had been on its back was gone.

The green fogs thickened.

Plenum soldiers dropped. Not all, not many, but a few. I did not know how the ones that died were selected. I did not know what they’d done to earn the founder’s ire, but they fell, as the Kaisers had fallen. None of their deaths was as horrific as Katan’s.

Was that not your wish?

It felt oddly good to speak to the founder again. It was not in me, as it had been once. I did not feel its power, or any link to its self. I just heard it. I heard it as a whisper in my ear, and a bellow in my mind.

When the green fog lightened, my surroundings were different. I was still on the inter-port trail, still standing in the decomposed plenum’s camp, but now Arexon and the full Chiboga forces stood beside and behind me. Arexon’s sword was bloodied. It stared around with its lips parted. Its mouth hung open. I did not think I had ever seen Arexon look so shocked.

“It is done.”

The voice that spoke was loud and chiding. It bellowed and I was certain that every person there heard it as I heard it. In my mind, in my body, echoing within my skull, reverberating in my ears. It was as if the green fog had been given a voice and it spoke to us in that voice. In loud tones, in jarring whispers. It was a voice filled with contradictions. It was at once comforting and scolding. It appeared to come from outside but at the same time I felt it within me, as if I had birthed the sounds myself.

“It is done.”

And just like that, it was. Years of fighting, thousands of corpses, a bitter chasm, five Kaisers’ thirst for power, the founder’s absence. It was all done. It was all over. In a snap of Chuspecip’s finger. And I was grateful. And I loathed it. If it was so easy to end the war then why could it not have ended sooner, just moments before? Why was Juke dead? Why couldn’t the founder have awakened before Juke had to die?

The plenum soldiers left standing dropped their swords and knelt. They begged for mercy as the last Kaisers had. I did not hear their voices, but I saw the words. I watched the sound drift out of their mouths and swirl in loops in the green fog. The loops had different colors. Most of it was cyan. But there were a few that were a darker shade, like blue mixed with red. Then there were a few whose words came out in white swirls from their lips. Those ones died in the green fogs that surrounded us. More plenum soldiers killed.

The ones that remained begged more earnestly. More loops of words drifted out of their mouths and spun themselves in colors within the green fogs. The colors that drifted out of the uspecs’ mouths were ninety percent cyan. The last ten percent were killed, with only one exception. There was something in these colors, emotions perhaps, sincerity, I did not know. But the founder did.

The exception was a young uspec without features or outer eyes.

The green fogs seemed to be thickest around where Juke’s corpse had been. I could not see through them to the body I knew lay beneath. But I could see the others. My eyes locked on Marcinus. It lived. It was standing close to me, closer than I remembered it being before. In an odd way, I felt as if every uspec was standing close to me. I thought of an uspec and I saw it standing beside me. Not Juke though. The green fogs persisted around Juke.

“You have been spared by my mercy. But you are forever marked by the crimes you committed against me in this place.” These words were spoken selectively. The plenum soldiers heard it, the Chiboga soldiers did not. The plenum soldiers spoke in response, they cried in gratitude, they begged for mercy, they released endless loops of cyan words strung together in the vapor that wove around the green fogs.

The young uspec, the notable exception, its words were white and red. I did not know what those colors meant, but I knew that every other plenum soldier who’d released words like this was dead. I wanted to kill it. If not for this traitor, my Juke would still be alive. I wanted to reach for my sword and cut its little head off its body just as carelessly as Arexon had done to Sophi. I wanted to make sure that its traitor tongue would never wag again, and that its traitor eye would never see. I wanted to end its life just as Juke’s life was ended. I saw its center eye and remembered its age and my own offspring. It was so young, but I did not care. I wanted it dead.

Green fogs coated Marcinus. The uspec’s outer eyes widened. Then it fell to its knees and cyan words poured out of its mouth. “My god,” was all it said. I did not hear the words, I saw them. I saw the calmness in them, the resignation, acceptance and the faith. Even after all that Marcinus had been through, it was an Uspecipyte to the core.

“For your faith.” The founder’s words this time were heard by all but directed solely at Marcinus. “I will return what you lent me.”

Thick green fog surrounded it and it was impossible to see the uspec within them. I could not see its green form or the pink bow it had carried on its shoulder. When the fog lightened and drifted away, Marcinus had an eye in the center of its face. It had an eye to replace the soaru eye that I had taken from it. It spoke its eternal gratitude and devotion to the founder in swirls of cyan.

Then thick fogs formed around the last plenum supporter to remain.

Marina.

The young traitor. I wanted to kill it myself, but I was not fool enough to question the founder.

Marcinus was.

It begged. It begged in emphatic cyan swirls. It begged even as Marina continued to spew white and red disavowals of the founder. Marcinus begged in cyan and the thick fog around Marina thickened until the uspec was blocked out. I knew, even before the fog lightened, I knew that the founder would not kill it. I did not know why. Perhaps for Marcinus, in gratitude for Marcinus’ service. Or perhaps because Marina was still so young and impressionable. I did not know why, I only knew that the founder meant to spare it. The green fogs only grew thick around uspecs that the founder meant to touch.

I tasted hatred, bitter and acidic as bile, in the back of my mouth. I wanted the uspec to die.

One day, Nebud, you will learn the merits of mercy.

These were words the founder shared only with me, in my head, in my thoughts, in my memories. Yet I did not feel it as I had before. I felt no link to the founder’s lifeforce.

The fog lightened and the young uspec came back into focus. It blinked dazedly and then it turned its eye on me, then Marcinus and then it looked down and to the side. I followed the direction of Marina’s gaze and found Manus’ corpse as one of the many plenum affiliates who the founder had not chosen to spare. Marina’s gaze drifted back to Marcinus, then to me. When it spoke, the words that came out of its mouth were cyan, the color of the faithful.

The green fogs lifted.

The plenum soldiers still outnumbered us.

“What if they choose to fight again?” I asked. My lips did not move. No sound came from me and no swirls of color drifted from my lips.

They will not. Your lack of faith grieves me, Nebud.

Lack of faith! I wanted to yell at it. Juke was dead! Juke was dead because of how much faith I had in it. If I didn’t have faith in the founder, I wouldn’t have gone on this mission in the first place. I wouldn’t have taken my honoraria from Lahooni to the inter-port trail. Juke would still have been a Lahooni noble in its port, safe from the ravages of Katan’s demented mind. But I had brought Juke here, to this end, for what, for myself? I had done it for this war, this chasm between the plenum and the founder. Because it had been too weak to come to Arexon’s aid. I was tired. Perhaps the founder was right, perhaps I had no faith anymore. The war was over. Juke’s corpse was revealed to me. It lay on its back on the cloud flooring as it had been before. Its eyes were still open and staring off into the ether, its lips still frozen in a smile.

Juke.

The green was completely gone from the inter-port trail.

There were so many sounds. Chiboga uspecs were the loudest. They cried and sang and rejoiced and celebrated their victory. The bulk of the plenum’s soldiers shuffled around aimlessly. They looked as Cantonia had after the imp had it dazed. Several Chiboga soldiers slaughtered a good many of them. The founder did not return to gainsay them. I stared blankly at it all. The plenum soldiers, the ones that appeared dazed, they did not put up a fight. They just walked around like brainless uspecs incapable of lifting a sword. Was this what Chuspecip meant when it said they would be marked by the part they’d played in the war? I didn’t know. Things went a little hairy when a Chiboga soldier attacked a soaru plenum soldier who did not appear to be dazed as the others were. There were at least five hundred of these undazed plenum soaru uspecs. I wondered why Chuspecip had left them undazed.

“They are Katsoaru uspecs, sirga,” I heard Marcinus say to Arexon. “Please, hold your soldiers back.”

Arexon barked out an order and the Chiboga soldiers fell into line. They stopped their slaughter and their attack on the undazed soaru soldiers. Katsoaru uspecs. Chuspecip had left the Katsoaru uspecs undazed. For Marcinus of course. Just as it had kept Marina alive for Marcinus.

Metals clanged loudly against each other.

I turned.

Gamble had a sword close to Marina’s neck. Marcinus had stopped the blade with its bow.

“Get out of my way,” Gamble shoved at Marcinus but Marcinus did not budge.

Marina’s wide eye darted from Marcinus to Gamble and then back to Marcinus.

“Nebud,” Marcinus called entreatingly to me. It expected me to order Gamble back as Arexon had ordered its soldiers back from fighting with the Katsoaru contingent of the plenum’s forces. That contingent pulled closer to Gamble with their swords pointing out.

“Marina is the Kaiser of Katsoaru now.” Marcinus pleaded with me. “If Gamble attacks, our soldiers will be forced to defend their Kaiser. Hasn’t there been enough bloodshed already?”

I looked at Marcinus’ center eye. The founder had put that eye into Marcinus face. Eyes did not grow back, but the founder had made it possible. The founder had stopped the war in minutes. The founder had spared Marina and the Katsoaru soldiers for Marcinus. Could it not have brought Juke back to life for me?

I wanted to cut Marina’s head off its body. I wanted to be where Gamble stood, poised to attack. But I had watched the founder, I had seen its work in the green fogs. It was powerful. More powerful than even I could have imagined. In my mind, the founder was always an uspec. It was our founder, but it was still an uspec. I had called it my god, but it was still an uspec. What I’d seen on the inter-port trail was not the work of an uspec. It was a god, and it was back. It had spared Marina. I wanted that uspec dead, but killing it would not bring Juke back. Nothing could bring Juke back. I was not going to lose another uspec in my honoraria because of Marina.

“Gamble.”

It turned to me.

I shook my head. Its jaw clenched and its hand tightened on its sword. It did not move away. Its lips shook and pink drops fell from its eyes. Its sword remained where it had been. It turned away from me and pushed Marcinus aside with all of its might. Then it charged at Marina again. A soaru uspec threw a dagger. Matiu threw a dagger to deflect it. I ran to Gamble.

“Stop!” I yelled into Gamble’s face. “It is not the founder’s will for the uspec to die.”

Gamble’s lips shook. “I spit on the founder!” It yelled. Pink tears mixed with saliva were vaulted from the uspec’s mouth as it spoke. “Juke is dead! Juke is dead because of it!” Its shoulders shook and streams of pink liquid fell from its eyes. “Juke is dead!” It cried out in anguish.

Matiu took the sword from Gamble’s hand. The uspec did not put up a fight. It was too grieved to. It clung to me. It grasped me on the arms and its wet eyes stared into my face.

“Juke is dead, sirga.”

My eyes moistened and my lips shook. My vision was blurred by the excess of liquid in my eyes. I swallowed several times. Then I cleared my throat and I forced the tears back. It was Juke’s own words that helped me push the tide of grief down. I think tears are a solace for the living not for the dead. It had said that to me after Binna died, on our first night in the paradise on the Isle of Brio. I had not thought that this would happen. I’d thought that I would have to be dead as well for any harm to come to Juke. I’d thought that I would have been able to protect it, and that if I survived the war, then it would too. I had not thought that it would die. That its young promising life would end here, on the inter-port trail. It was meant to be a duke, my duke, one of the advisors I counted on most.

I turned Gamble around and forced the uspec back, away from Marina. It cried as we walked. Uspecs spoke, but I could not hear them. We walked to Juke’s corpse. Matina was kneeling on the ground beside it. It was weeping too. Matiu did not cry. I released Gamble and bent to pick Juke up. It had a brawler’s weight. It had built its bulk to please me.

“Do I please you imperial one?”

I remembered Juke grinning at me after I returned to our paradise after the years I had spent on the journey to return Chuspecip. I stared into the smile on its face. It wasn’t the uspec’s wide smile, not the smile that touched its outer eyes. Do I please you imperial one? Juke. Its lips didn’t move. Its eyes didn’t stare into mine. It was gone.

I barely heard Arexon’s voice. It wanted me to return with it to Chiboga. I needed to have my wounds seen to. I looked like I hadn’t eaten in days. I needed food. There would be a funeral for Juke in Chiboga. Arexon spoke more than I had ever heard it speak without anyone speaking back to it. Its chatter reminded me of Juke when it was younger. I remembered the stories it had told me. Its talks about fighting and tomes it had read. Its plays with my offspring. I felt the soft form underneath my feet. There were many green bodies wandering about aimlessly. These were the plenum soldiers that Chuspecip had dazed. Would it leave them dazed? Would they continue to wander about the inter-port trail as a sign to all of what had become of the uspecs who’d dared to side with the plenum against the founder?

We reached one of the entrances to the Chiboga hangar and Arexon stopped short. It turned around. My gaze remained on Juke’s smiling, lifeless, face. Arexon had mentioned wounds but I did not feel them.

Arexon cleared its throat and spoke. “I value you Marcinus, and you will always be free to come into my port at will. But not your junior cognate. And not its soldiers.”

“We will return to Katsoaru and await you, senior cognate.” I heard Marina’s voice and my jaw clenched. I kept my gaze locked on Juke’s face.

“Farewell, mighty one,” Marcinus responded.

It sounded as if it was bidding farewell to Arexon. I did not turn around. I was not angry at Marcinus. I did not blame it. It had fought for us and with us. It was its junior cognate I blamed. But the founder had spared its life, what was I to do in the face of that? I walked into a cloud wall and emerged in a hard fog room. We were back in the Chiboga hangar.

-----------------------------------------
The First Metropolis of Chiboga
-----------------------------------------

I’d been wrong, Marcinus had not left with its junior cognate. It was standing in the hangar, walking behind Arexon. I realized then that it was its junior cognate it had referred to as ‘mighty one’ and not Arexon. Marina, the uspec who’d betrayed us, it was Kaiser of Katsoaru now, with undazed soldiers to fight for it. Manus’ offspring was Kaiser and Juke was dead. It seemed somehow blatantly unjust.

The soldiers celebrated.

They could not help it and I honestly did not blame them. It was not their fault that Juke was dead. They had fought a hard war for five years and it was finally at an end. They’d won. They had every right to celebrate. I thought of Katan’s death and I felt a modicum of joy. Its death had been so painful that it had to put its own sword into its mouth to end the pain. It had killed itself. I thought that more pain should exist, that there should be a place for uspecs like Katan to go to so they could suffer even more, even after they were dead. Was that what the umani Chu had in mind when it created the umanis? It should have made a separate world for its dead umanis then, instead of sending them to ours. If I was the founder I would have kept Katan in endless pain. I did not know how it was possible, but I would have found a way. The founder was merciful. It spared over eighty percent of the plenum’s soldiers. It had left them in a daze but I knew the daze would not last forever. And it had spared Marina. Marina had betrayed us, and cursed the founder. But Chuspecip had spared it.

I got into a canoe.

The news of the victory had spread. It was evident because the hard fog streets were filled with uspecs celebrating. They bowed to us, probably because Arexon rode in the same canoe as we did. They called out praises to Arexon and to the Kuwor and to the Founder. We drove by them.

As soon as we reached the Castle, I knew that I had to leave. I did not want to be in this port with the uspecs celebrating. I was not in the mood to be around uspecs who were so cheerful and happy. Arexon talked me into putting Juke’s corpse down and I did. I placed it on a cyan table in my room where I could watch over it as Arexon’s retinue of pious healers trudged into and out of the room. Matiu, Matina, Gamble and Chike were in the room with me. They stared at Juke’s corpse as I did. Matina and Gamble had stopped crying somewhere between the hangar and the Castle. No one had any appetite when imps brought in trays of food.

Even the imps were happy.

I wanted to leave this port.

Arexon and Marcinus came in. Two imps accompanied them. The imps were soldiers. One of them was Zane, the imp from the mine of Aurelion.

Arexon paced the room.

“We should bury it, Nebud.” It said gently. “I can send for a cobra and give it a noble’s burial.”

A boga noble’s burial. I stormed out of the room. Two drunken soldiers almost collided into me. They lifted their cups in a slurred toast to the founder and then they laughed and continued walking along. They hummed the Uspecipyte fight song as they went on their way. All I wanted was silence, just a few minutes to myself, but everywhere I went, there were Chiboga soldiers drinking, celebrating, laughing loudly, telling riotous tales of the war, a few offered me the drinks in their own cups.

I went back to my room. Only Matina and Gamble remained. They stood on either side of Juke’s corpse. Matina sang a song. Their hands seemed to be doing something. I walked over to them and found them removing the scales from Juke’s neck. They polished the scales they’d removed and then placed them in a fine cyan hard fog box.

“What are you doing?”

Matina stopped singing. Its sad eyes dug into me. Gamble did not look up.

“When a Lahooni noble dies outside its port, it is customary to have a piece of the noble’s feature left to return to its line, so that they can inter it in quicksand with others of the line who’ve passed as well.” Gamble spoke without inflection. I remembered the words. I’d heard them before. “Hoonis also believe in passing on some of their scales to their loved ones, to be fashioned into protective weapons. That way the uspec who’s died is still able to protect the ones it left behind.”

I joined them. There was nothing else to do. I pulled out one of Juke’s scales and I polished it. Matina continued its singing. I remembered how relaxed Juke had been when Matina had begun singing on the alley in the inter-port trail. We removed all the scales and placed them all into the fog box. Gamble sniffed. Matina’s voice broke on a high note.

“Juke told me that, if it did not die protecting you, sirga, then it wished to die fighting in a great war. It died how it wished to, in your service.” Gamble’s words were spoken without inflection and I did not know how it expected me to take them. I was angry and sad and pained.

I reached into my anger. It was easy, I had a lot of it. I reached into the anger and brought out quicksand. It spread on the table underneath Juke and then sucked its corpse in. I interred Juke in the quicksand. Once the body was gone, I stared at the box of cyan scales.

“We are returning to the Isle of Brio.” I stated.

I picked up the box of scales and stared at it. This was all that was left of my Juke. Its scales. They were strong scales, sharp at the edges. Sturdy cyan scales. I extended the box to Gamble and then to Matina. They each took one scale. Then, I snapped the box shut and held it in my hand. My belt was gone. My dagger and my cutlass, both lost in the inter-port trail. I could make a new dagger from Juke’s scales. Whenever I fought, Juke would be there with me.

We did not have much to put together, but what little we had, we arranged. Every time my curtain flapped, notes of drunken revelry drifted from the port’s celebration into my room. The box was the only thing I had to carry. We’d only brought a few satchel bags. Matina and Gamble carried those. Chike and Matiu took scales from the box looking as grim as I felt.

“At least stay the night,” Arexon said, when I went to bid it farewell. “Just the night.”

I shook my head. I could not be around this celebration. I just could not.

It sighed. It walked over to me and placed its hands on my upper arm. “You will come back and visit me.” I almost smiled at the tone of Arexon’s voice. It was not making a request but giving an order.

“Yes, sirga. After things are settled, I will come back and visit you.”

Arexon smiled. “Make sure you bring Nebula. I’ll have an offspring of my own for it to play with then. And bring Musa. Tell the imp that I insist on its company.”

I swallowed and smiled, but the gesture felt off, somehow wrong on my face. “I will,” I promised.

Arexon nodded and its smile faded away in degrees. “Gratitude, my friend. If you had not come, we would all be dead.”

I shook my head. “It was the founder.”

“It was you.”

I was too tired to argue. “Farewell sirga.”

Its face was serious. It placed its palm against the side of my face, and it looked deeply into my eyes. “Farewell my friend.” It took its hand down.

Marcinus followed us.

I frowned when we reached one of the Castle’s docks and the uspec was still with us.

“I want to accompany you to the Isle of Brio before I return to Katsoaru.” It said.

I frowned at that. “Why?”

Its gaze dropped to the hard fog grounds. “I want to apologize to your offspring Nebud. I owe it at least that much.”

I nodded.

Part 15
----------------------
The Isle of Brio
----------------------

I stood in front of the hail trees holding the hard fog box in my right hand. I thought about the smoothness of the object, of the sharp corners, of the loops etched into it and the fineness of the material. I thought about trivial things so that I wouldn’t think on what was inside the box.

Marcinus stepped forward. It was a slight motion, but I caught it out of the corner of my eye. Every time my gaze fell on Marcinus I cursed myself for allowing it to come along. I could not look at the uspec’s soaru tentacles without remembering Marina. There was a part of me that knew that the founder’s mercy had been just in some ways. Marina was, after all, just a child, easily manipulated. Its head had been filled with Manus’ lies. But Juke was dead because it betrayed us.

Marcinus’ center eye held mine. It was a blessed eye. We’d run across bandits while we travelled back on the inter-port trail. One of those bandits had stabbed its dagger into Marcinus’ center eye, and the bandit’s dagger had shattered. The blessed eye could not be pierced by any material in this existence. Further proof of Chuspecip’s power. The power that made the eye, the power that ended the plenum in a single breath, in a swarm of drifting fog. But Juke was still dead.

I tore my gaze from Marcinus. The area between the hail trees was empty. I thought of Nebula and there was an ache in my chest. My offspring had loved Juke. It was Juke’s name that Nebula had said first. I did not know how to tell my offspring that I had failed to protect Juke. The pain in my chest would not ease. It did not matter what I did, I could not relieve the ache, I could not lessen it or wish it away. My mood was gloom and my heart heavy and weary. I felt the organ in my chest, weighing me down.

I continued to stare at the space between the hail trees.

Matina, Gamble and Chike stood behind me. I heard feet shuffle. It was not Matiu’s or Marcinus’. They both stood beside me, where I could see them. I was the only one without a belt, without weapons. Mine had been lost on the inter-port trail and I’d been in no mood to try to search for them. It was over now though, no more fighting, no more wars. I had no more need for weapons.

I sighed. No amount of waiting would make the news any easier to deliver.

“Salve,” I breathed into the empty space. I imagined the words drifting in swirling loops from my mouth as the words had done when Chuspecip surrounded the battle on the inter-port trail. Would my words be the pro-founder cyan or the white and red of those uspecs against the founder? They were all dead now. All but Marina.

Cyan fog appeared between the hail trees. The fog parted and I caught a glimpse of paradise. It was Juke who’d named this place so. I walked in.

Red fogs surrounded me and fine hail fell on me. My feet sunk into sticky quicksand and sludge. The top of my scalp brushed against a humid cloud and I felt turtles slithering against my skin. We walked by a large okun with swans swimming across the surface. I wondered if jumping into that okun would purge me of the pain of losing Juke as it had for Binna. I’d cared for Binna, I’d cared a lot for it, but Juke was different. Something small and alive climbed allover my feet when I stepped into a large puddle of quicksand. The white, scaly head of a draco bobbed out of the brown surface. There were no clangs of metal to welcome me this time, as there had been when Musa and I returned from our trip to bring the founder back to its existence. Those clangs had been Juke and Gamble sparring. Juke had grown so different from the young uspec I left behind that I had been unable to recognize it. It had grown into a warrior. I thought of its bulk and of its grace. It had been an exceptionally skilled fighter. My thoughts were flooded with images of Juke from the inter-port trail, killing the first plenum soldiers we’d encountered and then laughing about it. I thought of the uspec in Chiboga, sparring with Gamble against Marcinus. Then back on the inter-port trail, fighting against more plenum soldiers. Protecting me. I thought about when we’d been taken hostage by the plenum. Katan’s torture. Katan had cut off Juke’s hand and the uspec had not shed a tear. It yelled out its misery, but it had not cried.

I don’t cry sirga. My progenitor beat it out of me.

I thought of Juke staring up at me under the canopy tree and saying
You did not cry either sirga, and I know you loved Binna as I did. Is my progenitor wrong to say noble’s should not cry?

I had not wept for Binna.

I had wept for Juke. The first time in my life that I shed a tear. I did not like to dwell on it. I’d always thought that tears made an uspec weak. I despised uspecs that cried. But I had cried at the sight of Juke’s corpse. I had cried when the life slipped from its smiling face. And every time since, every time I thought of Juke, I felt a sudden urge to weep. Moisture filled my eyes and blurred my vision, and my throat suddenly grew tight, so tight I had to swallow. As I did in that moment. Of all people, why did it have to be Juke? I knew it was bad to think it, but I would have happily traded anyone else in my honoraria for Juke. It was an ungrateful thought, they’d all risked their lives for me. I did not want to lose any of them, but it was so hard to live with the loss of Juke.

I think tears are a solace for the living not for the dead.

My eyes watered. Juke. My heart ached to see its wide smile shining at me once again. To walk beside it either as the young uspec it had been or the brawler it had grown into.

“Mater! Ma-mater! Fa-bi-biana m-m-m-m-my mater is b-b-back!”

A young green form crashed into me. It came running and then jumped up high enough for its arms to wrap around my neck. The warm skin of its smooth face stroked against my cheek and eyelids. I wrapped my arm around its body and just held it close to me. It smelt of innocence and cheer. There was a scent of fresh okun that clung to it and a musk of clean drifting fogs. It was smiling so wide that a portion of its lips was against my cheek. I closed my eyes and just held it in my arm. I had feared that I would never see it again. I had thought of many eventualities, but not this. Not that I would return without Juke. I held tightly to my offspring and stayed as I was, under falling hail, surrounded by drifting fogs. Everything in this paradise appeared pure. Everything but me.

“Salutations sirga. Welcome back.” Fabiana’s voice tickled against my ears. There was an innocence to that voice too, a lightness that I had not heard in a while. Even when we were at our cheeriest on the inter-port trail and in Chiboga, our voices and thoughts had been polluted by the knowledge of war and then later, by death. The plenum’s war against Chiboga was one that would live on forever in spectral existence history, but I would have been happy to have missed it. Juke. I’d led the uspec to its death.

I opened my eyes. Fabiana was not smiling. Whatever happiness I’d heard in its voice was gone now. It must have looked at the uspecs I returned with and come to the conclusion that my offspring was yet to reach. It bowed gravely to me. I wanted to speak, to call out greetings to it in return, but there was a lump in my throat. I could not speak around it. So, I just kept looking. I looked past Fabiana to the score of imps that stood behind it. They would have cause to mourn too. Juke was not the only fatality that we’d taken. Two of the imps who’d accompanied me were lost as well. My gaze fell on Musa. It was still here. Its hand was intertwined with another imp’s. Halima. That was all it took for an imp to break its word. The imp’s gaze caught mine. I clenched my jaw and looked away. Whatever we’d once shared was long gone.

“Ga-gamb-ble. Chike. Mat-tiu. Matina.” My offspring counted off the uspec’s names and then it stopped speaking. I knew the moment I’d been dreading had come.

Nebula pulled back, far enough that it could look me in the eye. Its center eye focused on mine and its eyebrow pulled down. “W-where is Juke?”

I could not speak. The lump in my throat had not cleared.

“M-mater, w-where is J-juke? W-where is Juke?”

I shook my head.

Nebula let out a high-pitched shriek. “W-where is Juke?”

I felt like a fool, standing there, carrying my offspring in my arm and staring at the pain that was slowly growing to take over its features. All I did was shake my head. All I could do was shake my head. No one spoke. Nebula continued to scream out its question and no one spoke. No one answered.

“P-please t-tell me. W-where i-i-is J-j-juke?”

I looked into Nebula’s eye. Juke called it Ula. Now several of the other uspecs called it the same name, but it was Juke who’d nicknamed it that first.

“Juke is dead.” I said.

“N-no! N-no!” Nebula screamed. It pushed against me but I held it tight. I held it tight when its sludge stained feet pulled up, lay against my chest and then pushed back. I held tight when it pushed so far that it felt as if it would wrench my arm right out of its socket. I held tight even when its hands rose up and clawed at my face. it scratched me and I held tight. “W-w-why di-didn’t you s-save it? Y-you di-di-didn’t p-prot-tect it! Y-you l-let it die!” Tears trailed down my offspring’s face as it spoke. Nebula twisted forcefully from side to side and my grasp on it loosened. Before I could tighten my hold the uspec was already on the ground. I moved towards it and it ran away. I watched it go. It ran fast. It darted around the fronds of a canopy tree, over a large sludge puddle, behind a low cloud. Its green form disappeared from view, hidden behind the low clouds and drifting fogs.

“What happened, sirga?” Fabiana asked.

I could not speak. I just stared in the direction that Nebula had run away. Its accusations played on a loop in my head. I should have protected Juke better. I should never have let it fight Katan. If only Chuspecip had come a few minutes earlier. If only we’d been able to slip back into Chiboga without Fajahromo identifying us. If only Juke had not left with Marcinus to find the plenum soldiers Sophi had met with. If only I’d refused to leave with Juke in the first place.

Matiu told Fabiana what had happened. While Matiu spoke, Fabiana glanced warily to the side. I’d forgotten about Marcinus being there. I continued to stare out into the space that Nebula had run to. It did not return. There were several loud sobs when Matiu was done speaking. They all came from imps. Juke had been loved. The uspec had been a light, it shone brightly everywhere it went. It had come into my life and changed me in ways that I could not even explain.

I walked away from the group of mourners.

I’d meant to go in search of my offspring, but I found myself in the canopy room that had belonged to Juke. I stared at the stem of the tree and remembered when Juke had stood close to it, begging me to spare its progenitor’s life. I looked around the foam flooring, at the white and patches of luminous red, I looked at the multicolored fronds that covered the perimeter. Juke had spent five years here.

I heard ruffling sounds and turned around.

Fabiana was standing beside me. It bowed. “Condolences on your loss, sirga, Juke was very dear to us all. It will be missed.” My mind chose that moment to note that Fabiana had not wept when it learnt of the news of Juke’s death. It had not fallen to its knees and cried as it had after its sibling was lost. No pink streaks stained Fabiana’s face and its voice did not shake.

“Where is my offspring?”

Fabiana rose. It frowned. Its pupils all moved towards the center of its face and then roved my body all at once, travelling together in the same direction. “There is no end to this place,” it said, once its gaze returned to my face, “none that we’ve found in the years that we’ve been here. And there are coves, tunnels, secret entrances and exits that only the identity of your line can open. Ula has found several. It could be anywhere.”

My jaw clenched. My grasp on the hard fog box tightened. The sharp corners poked at my flesh but I did not mind the pain. “Arrange a hunting party,” I said, “I will not let it get lost.”

“I will if you insist on it, but I would advise against it. Ula needs time sirga, it will return when it is ready. It would never run away and there is no one here that would do your offspring harm.” Fabiana’s scowl deepened. “Well there was no one before you brought the imperial Marcinus.”

I eyed it. Did Fabiana really believe that it sought to protect my offspring more than I did? I turned my back on the uspec and stormed off. It said nothing to detain me, and it made no moves to follow me.

I did not see many people outside. There were several imps. It did not seem as if any of the imps had left. Did Musa not tell them that they were freed? I’d left them with enough of a fortune to start new lives away from me.

I made my way back to the canopy tree that I shared with my offspring. Chike was standing off to the side when I lifted the fronds and walked in. There was a platter on my coffer and a jug of wine. I walked past the imp and went over to that coffer. Then I removed the contents, placed them on the cloud ground, and reached for the key to my coffer. I stared at the box for a long time before I was able to place it into the coffer and then remove the key, returning the form to the fog lid.

“I’m not hungry. You can take the food away.”

I walked over to the little pond around the stem of my tree and jumped into it. I bent a few times, submerging myself in the okun, before climbing out of it. There were better okuns in this paradise, ones with bathing salts. I would visit one later. I was suddenly feeling exhausted.

Chike was still standing there when I climbed out of the pool.

“You should eat master.”

Its eyes did not meet mine. It mourned too. Eight of us had left and Chike was the only one who honestly mourned all the ones who hadn’t returned. I felt bad for not mourning the imps more. They had died fighting for me. Just as so many others had now.

I sat on the hardened cloud flooring. It reminded me of the inter-port trail, and the inter-port trail of Juke. Would a time come when everything did not remind me of the uspec?

“You are free. You all are. Did Musa not tell them?”

Chike’s gaze rose to me. “It did. It gave us the money too. I am grateful. It is more money than I’ve ever had. Even before I died.”

I nodded at the imp. “I am grateful for your service Chike. Truly.”

It smiled. “I am not going anywhere master.”

I sighed. Imps. I spread myself out on the foam floor and turned my back on the imp. I stared at the stem of the tree. The pink okun danced in the periphery of my vision. I heard the rustle of fronds when the imp left and heaved a sigh of relief. I was finally on my own for the first time since I saw Juke’s corpse.

Do I please you sirga?

I closed my eyes, but visions of Juke filled my mind. I saw them, as if they were painted into the insides of my eyelids. I felt Juke’s presence around me. I carried the uspec in my heart. My offspring’s accusations battered me. They sounded in my ears. Nebula’s words were stamped into my brain. How many uspecs had died fighting for me? Most of them had been traitors, Lahooni traitors sent by Jukien, Juke’s progenitor. I remembered how angry and mistrustful I’d been of Juke. As if that uspec could ever betray me. Juke was guileless. It didn’t have a single scheming bone in its body.

Do I please you sirga?

Yes, I wanted to say to the uspec one more time, you please me.

I was tired, exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept playing the events over again in my head. I should have forced Juke to stay behind. But it wouldn’t have. None of them would have stayed. Fabiana only stayed because I left it with my offspring. I could not have forced Juke to wait for me here. Even Matina that had no fighting skill had thrust itself into battle with me, time after time. I thought of the inter-port trail, of the troops of plenum soldiers. We’d been so close to sneaking into Chiboga. I’d been so close to being able to protect them all with my lit okun. So close. But Fajahromo had gotten in my way. I realized that I had not really thought of Fajahromo since then. Where had the uspec gone? I had so many reasons already to want Fajahromo dead, this was just one more. I would find it. It had my progenitor’s ring. It carried the key to me reclaiming my port. I had to find it, and when I did it. I would kill it for all the uspec’s that died because of it.

Time passed and I did nothing but twist around on the foam. I got up when it was obvious that I could not sleep and then I walked out into a red night. It was late in the night, late enough that the clouds beamed red light untainted by orange hues. I walked over to a canopy I knew had okun underneath it. My stomach twisted and the scarred flesh twitched at the thought of bathing salts. I remembered Fajahromo’s torture, I remembered the bathing salts that it had forced my wounds to grow around and how badly they’d burned. Fajahromo was the oldest enemy I’d had. Every other enemy was dead, but not Fajahromo. The uspec had an annoying ability to escape death.

I stopped in front of the canopy tree when I heard voices beneath it. I recognized the uspecs. Fabiana and Matiu were discussing the war in Chiboga in more detail. Fabiana told Matiu that the news in Lahooni was still the same. The plenum troops that had invaded my port were still there, which meant that the last plenum Kaiser was still alive. I turned around and walked towards another canopy tree with an okun. I was not in the mood to discuss with Fabiana and Matiu. Chuspecip could end the war in Lahooni easier than it had ended the one on the inter-port trail. I was not ready to return to Lahooni. Why should I run to the rescue of nobles who plotted against me? Chuspecip could take its time going to Lahooni.

I heard laughter. The sound seemed odd on this day, in this place, after the somber silence that had pervaded the paradise since we returned with our news of Juke’s death. It was such an odd sound that I followed it. It came from the other side of an okun, behind thick drifting fogs. I followed and heard it emanating from behind a canopy tree. I kept going until at last, I found the source.

I took a step back.

My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. Or I could be dreaming. Perhaps I had never left the canopy room, maybe I had fallen asleep after all, on that soft foam ground. That was the only explanation for what I saw.

I’d found a meadow, with cyan light shining down on a center patch. Namas grazed on the grass. They walked around the pair in the middle, underneath the cyan light. One of those uspecs laughed. It was the sound of the laughter that drawn me here. It was my offspring. It sat opposite another and it laughed. I gaped at the uspec that sat across from it.

It was Juke.

It was Juke, alive and well, underneath the cyan light. An ache in my chest eased. My dark mood lightened. I smiled when I saw the wide smile on Juke’s face. it crept all the way up to its outer eyes. It was Juke’s special smile.

“Juke!” I stepped onto the grass. My steps were unsure. I stumbled and fell. But then I stood back up. Nebula had turned around to face me. It grinned at me. There were unshed tears in its eye, but it was smiling. It was happy. Juke was alive! I could not believe it. I made my way over to them, in the middle of the clearing. A nama ran into me. Its horn grazed my thigh. I moved it out of my way and kept walking. A sky fowl landed on my shoulder. I plucked the creature off me and then set it free back in the sky. The sky above this clearing was cloud-free. There were no red fogs here. No falling hail. This did not seem like any part of the paradise that I’d ever seen.

As soon as I reached them, Juke turned to face me.

It was Juke’s face. Juke’s smile. Juke’s voice. Juke’s body. But it was not Juke.

“Run along now, little one, I will visit you again.” Juke’s voice, but not Juke’s words.

Nebula rose. It walked away as though in a trance. The smile in its face did not waver. I realized then that it had not been smiling at me, when it turned. My own smile went away.

Juke’s body rose and Juke’s head turned. Juke’s eyes stared at me. I clenched my jaw and said nothing.

Juke’s smile went away and Juke’s voice sighed. The cyan light focused intensely on Juke. The beams shone so bright that I could no longer see the uspec within it. The light was blinding. It hurt to look into it. I closed my eyes and shielded my gaze with my hand when my eyelids proved an insufficient protection. Seconds passed before the blinding light went away. I dropped my hand and opened my eyes, but all I saw was a deep cyan. I blinked and waited for the cyan to fade from my gaze.

Chacip stood in front of me.

It was a few inches taller than I and several inches brawnier. It stared evenly at me. I wondered what it expected. Did it think that I would fall to my knees in front of it as I had in the standard existence? Did it think that I would call it ‘my god’ again? After it had freed Marina and left Juke to die?

“Juke was already dead, Nebud. I can do a lot of things, but even I cannot bring the dead back to life.”

I clenched my jaw and looked away. The namas continued their run. They grazed off the grass and bleated to themselves. The cyan light still shone from above. The sky overhead was a strange one. It had no orange dots that I could see, no clouds. There was nothing, so where did the cyan light come from?

“Why did you appear as Juke to my offspring? You will confuse it.” I said. I was scolding the founder. I was scolding my god and I did not care. I was too angry to care, too grieved. I did not look into its face as I spoke. I stared at the grass and the horns of the nama that grazed on it.

“It will remember it as a dream, nothing more.”

I did not respond.

“Come.”

I turned to look at the face of the form that it had taken, Chacip’s face. It was its face, an uspec life it had lived. My ancestor, the first of my line. Born directly of Chuspecip. Not even in my wildest imaginations could I have imagined that. It was not staring at me. Green fogs surrounded us. I got the feeling of being sucked in, as if I was being teleported with quicksand. Except there was no quicksand. Just green fogs. When the green fogs drifted away, I was standing in what looked like a crystal, transparent, bubble, hovering over a port with falling hail. I turned to my right and I saw several tall structures a few feet below me. I recognized the structures. I turned around and looked down on a port filled with mazes. There was only one place in the entire existence like this. It had to be the Labyrinths of Damejo. But how had we travelled from Hakute to Damejo without going along the inter-port trail?

I remembered who it was that I shared this bubble with. Chuspecip was still in the form of Chacip. It still stared evenly at me. I saw no anger in its face, but also saw no joy. There was no love for me, but it did not seem to despise me. Its eyebrows were straight. It had nothing on its green skin, and it had its hands crossed behind it. Chuspecip of course had the power to teleport without the inconvenience of the inter-port trail. It had ended the war with the plenum with the snap of a finger. But it had left Juke dead.

Chacip’s brows tilted down and its lips inverted. My heart pounded with fear. It was an unnatural amount of fear that felt completely natural. It was natural, it was my fear. I did not like it. I hated being afraid.

“I could not have saved Juke.” Its voice was low, and its words delivered coldly. I heard a warning in its tone. It could hear my thoughts then.

“The umani Chu found a way to deliver its own from death.” Even afraid, I could not help but retort.

Chacip’s glower went away and my fear eased. My heart calmed and my body relaxed. It shook its head at me. “Only a few days ago you cursed Chumani for giving its umanis life after death. There is no pleasing you.” It tilted its head to the side and my legs were already moving before my brain interpreted the command in the gesture. It turned its back on me and stood with its hands held behind its back. It stared through the bubble. I walked over to it, stood by its side, and stared down. We hovered over the boundary between the Labyrinths and Nefastu. It took me a while to register the pressure being applied to the bubble. It felt as if the bubble was pushing against an obstruction.

“I cannot enter.” It stated flatly.

I stared into the red covered road of Nefastu and pieces began falling in place. I thought of the lack of animation I’d always felt as soon as I crossed the boundary into that road. The voice that had driven me to go to Lahooni and challenge Checha. That voice had been absent when I’d walked into Nefastu. I’d tried desperately to reach for it but it had been completely silent there. Chuspecip was the voice in my head. The voice that had gone silent in Nefastu. It had gone silent because it could not enter Nefastu. I turned to face it. It stared intently at that red road.

“What does that mean?” I asked. I felt chills on my back and tingles in my spine. The answer seemed like it should be obvious to me, but it wasn’t.

“I can’t stop the invasion.”

I laughed. I could not help it. This was the god that I had risked so much for. The one that I had pinned all of my hopes on. Once Chuspecip returned the war with the plenum would end. But it hadn’t. The founder had been too weak to come to Arexon’s aid. I’d had to go there. Juke had died in the process, because I’d pinned my hopes on Chuspecip. Because I’d sold the founder to them all. And after all of that, we were still doomed. The invasion could not be stopped. I laughed until my stomach hurt. I laughed because I did not know what else to do. When I stopped laughing Chuspecip was still not looking at me. It looked down at that red road.

“Perhaps we are better off with one of the other Chus invading and taking ownership of this existence. Following you hasn’t done us much good.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I wished I could take them back. The founder had done much for my line. Whatever else it was, it was my ancestor. It ran to my line’s aid whenever the request was made. That was how it had been trapped in the first place. And even if I didn’t respect it, I’d seen enough of its power on the inter-port trail to fear it. I knew how easily it could kill me.

“But you also know I won’t.” It turned to face me, and I expected a glower, but its face remained emotionless. There were no frown lines, no tilted eyebrows, or bent lips. Its eyes stared at me without feeling. “Up to a point, Nebud. You have done much for me and you are grieving, and so my mercy in this moment is boundless.”

I should have apologized, but I didn’t. I felt odd where Chuspecip was concerned. I feared it. I couldn’t not be afraid after I’d seen it take so many lives on the inter-port trail. There was a huge part of me that honored it. It was weak in this moment in time, but it had not always been so. In its strength it had founded my line and protected us. I was afraid and in awe, but I was also disgusted by its weakness. How could it have made this existence and allowed for a scenario like this, where its world could be invaded, and it was helpless to stop it?

“Did you know that Chumani gave all of itself in the creation of umanis?”

I nodded.

“It took that much power to create a species like the umanis. Capable of change of great weakness and also great strength. They multiply much faster than uspecs do, because they procreate on their own, without giving their lives to do so. Chumani and Churaya have that in common.” It stopped talking. It looked away and then its eyes rose back to mine. “I did not make this weakness, Chumani did when it made the umanis.”

“Yet you love the imps so much.”

Its lips twitched. “I admire Chumani. I often wonder if I could do what it did, give all of myself for uspecs, as it did for umanis.” It shook its head. This time when its eyes focused on me, I knew it was about to say something important. “I cannot stop the invasion,” it said, “but you can.”

I laughed again. This time the laughter was shorter. Perhaps I should have known this was what it was leading up to when it brought me. I had been hoping too much that the founder would be able to end the wrath the way it had the plenum.

“How?”

“Kill the primus drogher and destroy its effigy in Permafrost.” It replied without inflection.

Drogher. There was something about the word. I’d heard it before. I felt the synapses twitching. The dots were there so close, but I struggled to piece them together.

“I led you to Permafrost so that you could see that effigy. The wrath has several droghers, but the primus drogher is the one with its effigy in their prayer cove.” Chuspecip sighed at the confused look on my face. “Droghers are uspecs with my lifeform that the wrath has managed to turn to their side. They need a large number of droghers to complete their invasion.”

“That’s why they want me.” As the last brio, I was a link to all of Chuspecip’s lifeforms. Even if I did not know how this link was kindled, I had a feeling the wrath did. Just as the plenum seemed to have. I remembered the wrath’s attack on the inter-port trail. That was the night that my offspring had gotten sick and I’d feared that it would die. That was also the night that Musa had spoken to the wrath imps in the harsh tongue I could not hear. I remembered then where I’d heard the word ‘drogher’ the wrath had used it then. There had been an uspec with them. There was something else, something big.

“Remember the effigy.”

My memories scrambled from the command as if hastening to obey Chuspecip’s command. The knots in my memories loosened, unwound, and formed into straight lanes. I remembered the Labyrinths and the fight I’d had with Fajahromo in the Mausoleum. It was as if I was standing there, watching it. I remembered the fear that had gripped me when I thought Musa would die. I remembered the journey to Nefastu. It was as if I was feeling that cold again, walking under uncouth hail and being pelted by it. I remembered shivering and falling asleep underneath a canopy tree. Warmth invaded my senses. Marc. I remembered the bear and also the snow jackals. I remembered the bandits, Monica. I thought of Monica and my mind jumped from one cord to another. I was back in Permafrost refusing to be one of the uspecs who bowed to imps. I fought. Monica saved me. It took me to the prayer cove.

I was standing in front of a wall with a painted image of Musa. Imps knelt before it. They prayed to the firstborn.

“This is the tabernacle.” Monica whispered to me. “Our most sacred cove.”

There was darkness. The ground here was soft. It got softer and then there was light. There was something in the center of the cove. A statue. I peered at it. This cove had been roped off but imps knelt around the ropes. There was a figure hidden in the darkness. I moved closer. It was an uspec. No, I peered even closer. It was a statue, with the outline of ailerons. It had horns on its chest and a tail between its legs. My skin felt clammy. A slow buzz began to form in my belly. It burned through me. It crept up my spine and down my legs. It tickled my brain and made my tongue swell. My throat felt dry and my mouth dry. The effigy was a kute-boga crossbreed.

“With all due respect, drogher,” the imp began, speaking the kute tongue, “our mother…”

I was in a hard fog cell. An imp stood on the other side of that cell, with an uspec, a kute-boga crossbreed. The imp had been in Permafrost. It had spat on me. I’d wondered at the time what the uspec was doing with the imp. Then I heard another imp’s voice and I was standing in sludge.

Xavier stopped me. “No.” it said. “I cannot allow you to kill it…I can release your friend as I said I would, but I cannot allow Fajahromo to die.”

Fajahromo. The name came from everywhere. It crashed in on me from every side. I felt as if I was being hit in the face with the name. Fajahromo and Xavier in the pits of Hakute. Fajahromo having imps who fought and danced like the wrath. Xavier refusing to allow me to kill Fajahromo when I had the chance. Xavier who was part of the wrath. If it had known then that I was the last brio it would not have let me leave. Fajahromo in the effigy. As soon as I’d seen that effigy I had known that it reminded me of Fajahromo. Fajahromo in Lahooni, with another imp from the wrath. Fajahromo on the inter-port trail.

“The plenum has already decided to join with the wrath of Sada.” Marina’s words.

“When did the plenum decide?” I asked.

“They decided this morning and they sent the wrath’s envoy back with their decision and with sworn oaths of their intentions.” Marina’s response.

And right before then, Fajahromo had come to bid me farewell. Fajahromo had been the wrath’s envoy. All this time, Fajahromo had been working with the wrath of Sada to invade our existence. My fingers curled into fists by my sides.

I turned back to face Chuspecip and found that we were back in the paradise in the Isle of Brio, standing underneath the cyan light.

“You will do it.” It was not really a question. Chuspecip already knew that I had to. I could not bow to imps. Fajahromo being the primus drogher was only the icing on the cake.

“Where is it?”

Chuspecip’s eyes travelled over my face. “Permafrost, with the wrath.”

I smiled.

“I believe this is yours.”

I looked up and found my belt in Chuspecip’s hand. It held it out to me. The belt with my cutlass and my dagger.

“I found it on the inter-port trail.”

I took it with a nod of gratitude. There was an extra dagger in the belt. I pulled that dagger out and blanched at the black blade. It was Katan’s dagger. It was the one with polluted life.

“Destroy the effigy with that. It is the only thing that will end it. After the effigy is destroyed you will be able to use spectra and emotions easily, just as you would anywhere else. Once Fajahromo is dead, the effigy cannot be remade and whatever hold the other existences have on mine will be destroyed.” It paused and then its gaze bored into me. “You must destroy the effigy first. Once the effigy is dead, the rest will come easily.”

I nodded, frowning at its use of the word dead to describe a statue.

“This is risky,” It continued, “if they turn you to their cause then it could be the end of this existence as we know it.” I stared at Chuspecip, it looked at me though it felt like it was looking through me. Of course Chuspecip knew that there was no chance of the imps convincing me to join them. There was nothing I could stomach less than the thought of my existence being run by imps. The founder went on. “They need your cooperation to use you to locate the lifeforms. So, they will approach you, try to lure you in, try to convince you to join them. That is what we must use to our advantage. They will invite you to Permafrost. After they lead you into Permafrost, find a way to kill the effigy. Then the primus drogher.”

“Will you be able to enter Nefastu after that?”

It shook its head, its gaze haunted.

I turned my gaze back to Katan’s dagger. I’d watched Katan cut off Juke’s hand and fingers with this blade. I’d seen what happened once it stabbed the blade into Matina’s back. I placed the dagger back into the sheath it had come from, careful not to cut myself on the sharp black blade. When I turned my attention back to the clearing, the clearing was gone, as was Chuspecip. I was standing in the middle of my canopy room with Nebula sleeping soundly on the other side of the tree stem.

Obehi, this is going very well and I honestly think it's worth even more than the time already given. I mean, sacrifices must be made in times such as this. I'm not sure this is about emotions ns, this is merely logic.

Juke is the closest to Nebud.
Katan knows.
Katan hurts Juke to get Nebud.
Juke wants revenge.
Juke sees Katan later.
Juke attacks Katan.
Katan is stronger.
Katan wins.

If Juke wasn't the closest to Nebud, he wouldn't have had to die. I still haven't seen any part of this story that isn't necessary. What I'm hoping for now is that Musa is taught his lessons, I find myself resenting the simp.

And, Fahjaromo, oh: I await his death. It would be such a pleasure. I would savour the moments of his suffering.

Obehi, bless up. The way you describe the fighting always awes me. You show how the fights go, mentioning the body parts as if they are the normal parts we have. It is truly amazing. Sometimes, I wonder if your pen has an unnatural muse. And this is even more conflicting and striking when your discipline is considered.

Obehi, your novels are one of the best I have read on nairaland.
I am a sucker for fantasy, and yours is the best so far, I have read on nairaland.
I am amazed.
I have this thing that has always been on my mind.
What are the enemies(incosem allies) that the marked of Osezele's generation will face with the enemies' power(spectral existence power) ? The uspecs or the imps(wrath of sada)

I must commend you for this great work, it's too good. And I admire the way you take critics, 'Salutation to you mighty Obehid'.

Nebud is in for another battle, like always it won't be easy but it will pull through


I made note of something in this update, you're trying to describe how great Marcinus blessed eyes was but it looks off the way you put it here, no doubt Nebud is a great fighter but Marcinus is much more better, the possibility of Nebud and Marcinus in company of many Matiu and Gamble running into some bandits and the bandits come so close to piercing Marcinus eye is not feasible in any way, you should have kept that part till the war with the wrath

Regardless you're the best

Short of words....Obehid you are wonderful.... Thanks for this update

obehiD:


Thank you for the feedback, as always, I really appreciate it. I understand if it's gotten to the point where you feel like moving on from the story, I totally understand and I'm just happy for the following so far. I will definitely keep your plot critiques in mind, not for this one, since it's already done, but in the future. Thanks again, I really appreciate the honest, constructive, criticism

Thank you too for understanding.

Nebud is not our typical hero. An Uspec with raw emotions, great strength and an unparalleled perchant for getting a good beating and making errors. If only it showed a little less ineptitude...
Despite all these faults, I still love our favorite Uspec. In its mistakes, we are saddened. And we rejoice in its victories.
Strong willed (an euphemism for stubborn), a friend, loyal, even to a fault, the legend, my friend from afar, Nebud of Lahooni.

Fazemood:
Honestly Obehid...i sincerely do not see your constant desire for Nebud's tortures and lack of concrete achievements.

Why kill Uspecs who matter so much and let less important ones stay. You could have chosen another uspec not Juke. It doesn't hurt me so much that it died. I am just not seeing your reason for its death. Maybe to unleash a different Nebud, but what can it do? It will still be weak and too emotional uspec.

This updates keeps repeating itself. Next Matiu will die, matina too and everybody. Only a weak and indecisive Nebud will be left.

People are dying for nothing. Adding too many emotional part is not necessary. From action to another bout of punishment and captivity . For what gain?

If this tales keep coming in this format, sorry to say it's not worth all the time given it.

I disagree with your opinion!!

This story summarizes the life events of nebud from its childhood to his middle age (I guess).
Most great people (that climb their way up from the lowest of the lowest) usually faced a lot of tribulations when making those steps.
Those tribulations usually come one after another with each one bringing its own lesson and those lessons mould the person to the greatness they are.

The deaths, heartbreaks, suspense are what gives the story life and makes it real.

Life is never easy most especially when you are coming from nothing.

so in summary i disagree with your points due to :
1. The repeated and continous tribulations are okay since its a biography and not a story about a certain event ( Although the writer can also do well to pipe down on some unnecessary details
2. The deaths are also okay coz it makes the story real and makes it none predictable.

Lastly, i observed you are highly emotional about the story, its okay but criticism should not be based on that.

Nebud has tried. The travails he has endured is enough to make a man go insane.

RealLordZeus:

I disagree with your opinion!!

This story summarizes the life events of nebud from its childhood to his middle age (I guess).
Most great people (that climb their way up from the lowest of the lowest) usually faced a lot of tribulations when making those steps.
Those tribulations usually come one after another with each one bringing its own lesson and those lessons mould the person to the greatness they are.

The deaths, heartbreaks, suspense are what gives the story life and makes it real.

Life is never easy most especially when you are coming from nothing.

so in summary i disagree with your points due to :
1. The repeated and continous tribulations are okay since its a biography and not a story about a certain event ( Although the writer can also do well to pipe down on some unnecessary details
2. The deaths are also okay coz it makes the story real and makes it none predictable.

Lastly, i observed you are highly emotional about the story, its okay but criticism should not be based on that.

When I read I try to see reasons behind a writer's story, every time I immerse myself into what I read I take my time to study it. I re-read the important parts of the story to see through the plots and uncover hidden messages and other ideas the writer is trying to put out. I am that critical.

You are right to say that I am highly emotional towards this story. In actual fact I am. Not because I chose to be but because I love the writer. I respect her for her diligence in writing also in updating.

I am a die hard fan and follower of Obehid. I will go lengths to get her write ups.

This is one of her many well written books. It is amazing but at the same time it is too frequentative.

I have never disguised my pleasure or my displeasure at any moment in this novella. I do believe that compliments and criticism builds a writer. I choose to be unbiased with my thoughts on any arising matter.

This tales is the most emotional of all the stories Obehid have written so far (or should I say that I have read so far). It encompasses all emotions including frustrations. I was at some point angered by the choice of personality our dear author chose for our protagonist. But I like it despite its shortcomings. I expected not a perfect individual as I know there is non as such.
I don't hate it rather I distastes it's indecisiveness at crucial moments.

Also, In some parts I noticed the author digging out too much those situations that would pull out tears from readers and bring them closer into what she feels and wish to express in her story.

Nebud was a poor orphaned uspec that lacked so much in its earlier stage of life and it went through more hells than any other could. It should be damaged but it held on strongly and most of all stubbornly. I so much love that. But that isn't enough to ignore it's errors and overlook it's stupidity in many cases.

I know I do sound harsh and inconsiderate towards the writer sometimes but it is all for good. It is in my nature (I can be called a 'Nag' but it is by choice) but it is all for good.

I appreciate hardworking people with talents and steady drive but I also lash out when I sense misdirection. I too like receiving criticisms when I make mistakes it helps me see through and make proper changes which improves me. So I kinda do that to others hoping for the best out of that person.


I apologize to Obehid if in any way I may be off and out of tune with my words but it is out of love. It does some crazy things to people. I am a victim

I hope this clarifies my stand in the house and also have created my profile here too.

Thank you RealLordZeus for seeing through me. I appreciate that.

Love you all.

@OluwabuqqyYOLO I liked the way that you summarized the Juke Katan incident. I mean it really hurt me that Juke died, I keep wishing that it'll come back...it's soo sad. I'm glad you think it's going well

@tunjilomo thank you. Your question about the human part is very good, I'm happy you remember that. I'm not going to lie, the entire marked series has changed/become clearer as I've written this story. There are many things I didn't understand before about that whole incosem vs ancestry thing, that I'm starting to understand now. I think some of your questions will be answered by the end of this book. Though this story is not part of the marked series, the start and the end ties back into the marked series and it prepares us for what is to come in the human world.

@PToretto thank you and you are absolutely right about that part with Marcinus blessed eye. Thank you so much for pointing that out, I could definitely have handled that better

@cassbeat thank you for reading

@decoderdgenius Nebud is certainly not our typical hero. Nebud is very different. There are definitely better uspecs in this story, better skilled, better mannered, nicer, but there is something about Nebud that sucks you in a little. There are aspects to Nebud's character that I don't like, one of which is its attitude towards imps. I keep trying to counsel the uspec towards better behavior but it doesn't listen to me. And it tends to make some very rash decisions at times without thinking through to the consequences. But it still has some positive qualities which you've mentioned

@RealLordZeus there are a lot of details, but I think those details are necessary to really enhance the story. Plus, this is also where I'm learning to be a better writer. There are times when you can use a single word to describe what a character is seeing/feeling, but if you want the readers to feel it too then you need to do more. Anyway, my challenge now is to have the details in a way that does not point glaringly at the amount of details but just flows seamlessly. Thank you for pointing this out and you're right about the way of the story. It is meant to be Nebud's life story and in that it's different from others I've read (and written), in that it doesn't really follow a pattern of one big challenge that the protagonist has to overcome

@eROCK247 as in, I've seen a little to the future and I must say that I agree with you, it is a wonder that Nebud is still sane

@Fazemood I really do appreciate the criticism. I know how hard it is to give brutal feedback especially when it might not fully be appreciated/accepted by your audience. It's not always the easiest thing for me to read/hear but that makes me appreciate it even more. As long as you're giving constructive criticism, then that's an avenue for me to grow and get better, which is my ultimate goal. If I don't know how my plot and characters are failing, then I don't know how to improve them, and I need to know how to make it better so that I can create and write to the best of my ability. So, I really am very grateful to you for your honest criticism because I need it to succeed. Thank you

Part 16
---------

I slept fitfully that night. My visit with Chuspecip had played on a loop in my head, before I was swept away on the waves of torpor. If only the thoughts ended in my sleep. They did not. They invaded my unconsciousness, weaving themselves into delusions that my sleeping mind tortured me with. I dreamt of biting chill and pelting hail, of effigies and imps spitting on me. I saw Permafrost in my dreams and I saw a glimpse of something other. Another Chu, perhaps? A more powerful one than ours. Juke filtered into my dreams. At times it was my friend as it had been in life, fighting alongside me, running into battle undaunted, other times it was a bitter foe. It stood beside Fajahromo and snapped a whip into my stomach.

When I woke, I was soaked in sweat. Odd sensations crept over me. I blinked drowsily and stared up into the fronds of my canopy tree. I looked at those fronds and remembered my dream. I remembered Nefastu in all of its horror. I sat up and Nebula was nowhere to be found. It had been in the canopy room when I’d slept, but it was not here now that I had woken.

Placing my palms against the soft foam ground, I pushed myself up to my feet. My head spun and my eyes blinked dazedly. It was as if I was suffering from the effects of overindulging in liquor. But I’d had no fermented wines last night. I walked out of my canopy room and stared into the paradise that greeted me. The orange dots shone brightly. The red clouds hung low. The fine hail that stuck to my skin was instantly warmed by the drifting warm fogs. Somewhere off to the east I heard the blaring of a smoke bear’s trumpet. It reminded me that I had not been to see Marc since my return.

I let the large frond I’d been holding up fall. The air smelt good, clean and fresh, with a sweetness to it. But the sweetness of the air made my stomach churn and my head spin. I was feint after walking by only three canopy trees. Wheezing, I stopped to catch my breath. The weakness felt odd. I pushed myself to move forward when the temporary dizziness passed and my stomach did not feel quite so belligerent. The combination of light drifting fogs and fine falling hail was good for me. It wiped the sweat of my body.

I was walking underneath a purple fruit tree when I finally realized why I felt so weak. A branch of that tree hung low, so low that its red and yellow leaves tickled my neck as I walked by. The fruits on this tree where long and bulbous. They did not provide much sustenance, but they were sweet and so they were used largely in making wine. I plucked one of those fruits and took a bite. I chewed slowly, contemplating the last time I’d eaten. It had been two days ago, on the inter-port trail, when I’d been the plenum’s prisoner. Marcinus had forced me to eat a nama sandwich then. It was the only break I’d had in a six day forced fast. No wonder I was so weak. It was a shock to me that I’d even been strong enough to fight on the inter-port trail. It was desperation, pure and simple, which had driven me. I’d wanted to save my honoraria, to save Juke. Now Juke was dead. The sweet fruit burned my throat as it made its way down. My stomach was so empty that I thought I could hear it land in the sac.

I ate the fruit as I went.

There were not many people around. Paradise was quiet. I wondered where my offspring had gone. I thought of Nebula and I remembered its words of accusations. It blamed me for Juke’s death. I remembered the tears it had wept. Then it had run away from me. Would it ever forgive me? Could I ever forgive myself?

Guilt weighed me down like a metal sleeve. It coiled around my neck and ensnared me in its vicious hold.

The den was another canopy room. This one had a hard sludge ground. It was the largest canopy room I’d seen, there were five tree stems underneath it, five large canopy trees together. The fronds for all five fell together. There was no separation in this room, just a large space where the smoke bears ran together, and lived together, and slept together.

Marc’s trunk swung in the air as it blared a loud trumpet. It ran towards me, its hefty legs smashing against the hard ground as it bore on me. I just stood there, waiting for it. It stopped a few feet away and wrapped its warm trunk around me. I pulled myself closer to it and embraced it. Memories flooded my mind of how this bear had wrapped its trunk around Juke. Was there anywhere I could go that memories of Juke would not haunt me? I stroked Marc’s fur and tried to get lost in the bear’s warmth. For a few seconds I forgot it all. The mantle of responsibility that Chuspecip had placed on me fell lightly from my shoulders. The noose of Juke’s death uncoiled from around my neck. I could breathe and I drew in deep, shaky, breaths of smoke bear musk. But after a while, even Marc’s presence was not enough to quell the rioting feelings inside me. I pulled away from the smoke bear. It turned its head towards me and stared at me with eyes that held wisdom far beyond that that any animal could possess.

I buried my hand in its deep fur one last time, before turning to leave. Marc blared its farewell, then it turned around and ran back towards the company of its kind. The smoke bears formed around it, their snouts all pointed up and they all blared loud discordant sounds.

Two imps walked in with pails of okun just as I moved towards the exit to the den. They bowed to me and held the fronds apart with their bodies. I did not know these imps. I only knew three out of the twenty-two that remained. They knew they were free so why did they remain? Imps. Of course the moment I gave them freedom was when they decided to punish me with their persistent presence. There was just no satisfying them. I thought of one imp in particular, an imp I had journeyed with, laughed with, dined with, explored the spectral existence with. I stormed out of the den.

My mood was foul. I could not help it. Everything in this paradise filled my thoughts with memories I tried to forget. I glanced at fronds and remembered how Juke had termed them canopy rooms. I looked at empty spots and remembered how Juke had sparred with Gamble on my return. Every sight seemed to have a memory of Juke attached to it.

I pushed a wide frond aside with my body, exposing a large okun pond. The liquid was a darker shade of pink with white granules floating on the top. I jumped into the okun and tried to swim my troubles away. I’d hoped that the scalding of the salts would burn so completely that no thought remained but the bite of the okun against my flesh. It did not work. The bath salts burned, and I remembered Fajahromo’s torture. Bath salts walked across my skin and my stomach ached with the memory of healing around the salts. The burn, the biting pain, and then Katan. I slapped my hands against the surface of the water, heaved and pushed even when every cell in my body cried out in fatigue. I was too weak. I had to eat. But I had shared too many meals with Juke. How could I eat without remembering how the uspec had told me stories? In the end my fatigue won out. I climbed out of the cleaning pond and walked out of the cleaning canopy room. Canopy room. It was a term that Juke had coined.

The warm drifting fogs dried the drops of okun left on my skin from the bath and the hail cooled my heated flesh.

I walked back into my canopy room and found five uspec faces turned abruptly to stare apprehensively at me. I dipped my feet into the okun that wound around the edge of the canopy tree, cleaning the sludge off the soles. Nebula was not amongst them. Marcinus’ soaru tentacles reminded me of the uspec who’d betrayed us. Marina, Kaiser of Katsoaru now, rewarded for its duplicity when Juke was dead. Under the founder’s protection. The weak founder that needed an uspec to fight its battle. I spat into the okun as I climbed over it. They watched me without speaking. Someone had left a platter on my hard fog coffer. I ignored the uspecs standing close to the stem of the tree and walked over to the hard fog coffer. I picked up a piece of sky fowl. Juke had eating sky fowl with me on the inter-port trail. After it had kept fast with me when I refused to eat due to my offspring’s ailment. I took a bite of the sky fowl meat but it tasted like dirt in my mouth. Still, I forced myself to chew and swallow. I had made an important decision. I needed to eat. I ate half of the sky fowl and then scooped up a marinated grain meal with my fingers. I felt the weight of the silent eyes behind me, digging into the skin on my back. I took a gulp of fruit wine. It was made from the same purple fruit that I had eaten that morning.

I turned around and stared into the faces watching me. Matina, eyes wide, fingers drumming nervously against its thighs. Gamble, hands crossed over its chest, feet planted apart, jaw clenched. Matiu, somber. Fabiana, worried and Marcinus without emotion.

“I am leaving this place.” I said. It was the decision I’d made earlier, the decision that had given me the momentum to eat. I had to leave. I needed to fight, to kill. I needed to drown myself in something that could purge Juke’s ghost from crawling through my mind. Marina was in part responsible for Juke’s death. But so was Fajahromo. Fajahromo who was the primus drogher. Fajahromo who’d been working with the wrath of Sada from the very start. Juke died fighting for the sovereignty of this existence and every uspec’s way of living. Juke died because Fajahromo had kept us from entering Chiboga. Marina was protected by the founder, but Fajahromo was not. Fajahromo I could kill. Perhaps killing Fajahromo would earn me redemption, perhaps in some small way I could honor Juke with Fajahromo’s death. Our existence was still in trouble, by leaving this place, with its haunting memories of Juke, perhaps I could save the existence and myself. Maybe when I returned victorious, Nebula would look at me as it once had before. It would not run away from me again. It would not see me as a disappointment. Maybe or maybe I would die in the process. But I could not live like this.

Fabiana exhaled deeply, as if it had been holding its breath. It walked over to me and sat by my side. Then it leaned back against the coffer and it smiled. Its features relaxed.

“I knew you would not abandon Lahooni.” It said in a whisper of words.

I frowned at it. “I am not going to Lahooni.”

Fabiana started. Its eyes snapped open and it turned to stare at me. “Surely, sirga, you jest.”

I shook my head. The plenum’s reign was over. The plenum Kaiser that remained in Lahooni would die soon, whenever the founder chose to end its life. At least that was something the founder could actually do. The plenum troops that remained could continue to threaten the traitorous nobles in my port. They could keep them penned up and starving in the palace for all I cared. It was not as if they would accept my rule anyway, not without my sire’s ring, which graced Fajahromo’s finger. Fajahromo was my lifelong foe. It was the uspec that had grieved me the most and the time had finally come for me to face it. In a place where Juke had never been, in a frost plagued hell where memories of Juke would not follow me.

“Then where do you go?” it asked quietly, its eyebrows pulled down in confusion.

“To end the wrath.” I replied. I spoke in terse words, quick summaries of the visit I’d shared with Chuspecip. I tried to be kinder in my speaking of the founder than I was in my thoughts. I tried to pretend that I was not angry at it for granting Marina life and privilege when Juke was dead. I did not tell them how I had called the founder a coward. It had read my thoughts then. Did it read my thoughts now? There was a part of me that loved it. How could I not when it was my god, the first of my line? It was powerful, but it was so weak in the ways that truly mattered. It should have been strong enough to bring the dead back to life. It should have been strong enough to end the wrath of Sada as it had ended the plenum. For all that it should have been but wasn’t, I loathed it. I thought of how much I loathed and loved it, the two emotions warring within me, and then glanced nervously around me to see if there were green fogs in the air. My words would be a base cyan if they were colors. No matter how much I hated Chuspecip in that moment, my words would always be the loyal cyan. It was the first of my line. It was my god. It was weak.

When I was done speaking, the uspecs appeared somber. Fabiana stared thoughtfully into space. Matiu was as it always was, grave. Marcinus showed no emotion. It had no reaction to my words. Matina appeared at a loss.

“Then we are doomed,” Matina said, “the wrath has won.”

Gamble spat onto the okun pool that surrounded the stem of the canopy tree. “We have risked our lives in service to a weak god. Juke died in service to a weak god. I spit on Chu…”

“Hush.” Fabiana snapped at Gamble, silencing it with that single command. Gamble frowned. It stared belligerently at Fabiana, but it did not speak. “We are honored to be in a position to help our god after all that it has done for us. I will accompany you to Nefastu, sirga.”

“No.” I would not make the mistake that I had made before. This fight would be mine and mine alone.

“But I must,” Fabiana said, “no one knows Permafrost as well as I do.”

There was one who knew. Their firstborn. Would Musa accompany me on this mission? Would it rally to my side and fight with me as it had before? Was there a chance for the rift between us to be mended?

“No.” I said the words to Fabiana but I could not fight the chilling thought that I was saying it in response to my questions about Musa as well.

“Sirga, please, I cannot let you go alone.”

“I have made up my mind.”

“Sirga,” Matiu began, its tone grave and solemn, “we have sworn to protect you. The only way to keep us from going with you would be to lance your cutlass through our hearts.”

I stood up and walked over to the belt that Chuspecip had retrieved for me from the inter-port trail. The belt was resting against my hard fog coffer. I picked it up and strapped it around my waist. I had all the wealth I would need, wealth enough to buy supplies on the inter-port trail.

I turned to Matiu. “If you try to accompany me, I will kill you.” I glanced at all of them, direct gazes meant to pass on my sincerity. I would not lose another one of them. This battle was mine and mine alone. Fajahromo was the primus drogher. Fajahromo who’d been behind my first offspring’s death. Fajahromo who’d stolen my offspring’s affection and then stolen my sire’s ring, the proof of my legitimacy. Fajahromo who’d released a samu to bite Musa, back when Musa and I were as we’d been. That was when it all changed between us. When that samu bit my imp. Now Fajahromo had another crime to answer for, Juke’s death. It was always meant to end this way. The true battle had always been between me and Fajahromo.

I pulled aside a frond.

“Ma-mater! N-no! M-mater!”

I frowned. That voice appeared to be coming from within the canopy room. But how? Nebula wasn’t there. I turned back around and my offspring materialized from thin air before my startled eyes. It had taken away its appearance. I barely recalled Fabiana telling me that my offspring had grown skilled in appearance in my absence. I had not imagined it was this skilled though.

“P-please,” its lips trembled, “I a-am s-s-s-sorry,” it cried. It was only five. Had I known this much loss at five? I’d not known as much happiness as Nebula, but I had also not known loss. I had not had my life threatened by aspiring nobles at the tender age of five. “I I w-was wr-rong, b-b-bad, I sh-shou-uld not hav-ve b-blamed Ju-juke’s d-death on-n you. P-p-please ma-mater, p-please d-don’t l-leav-ve m-me ag-g-gain. P-please.” It wept as it spoke, and webs of saliva were suspended between its parted lips. Its nose ran with slime that mixed with its tears. It begged. It knew the reality of death now. Juke’s absence had taught it that I could leave and never come back.

I walked back into the room and knelt in front of Nebula. “This will be the last time, I promise. Once this is done, nothing will ever separate us again.” I pulled it into my arms and held it tight. Its mucus and tears and saliva rubbed against my chest. It wrapped its hands tightly around me as if it thought that by doing this it could force me to stay.

I pulled myself out of its embrace.

Nebula held tight. It grabbed onto its left wrist with its right arm, behind my back, and wrapped its young legs around my waist. It was locking itself to me with its limbs. “N-no!” It screamed. “N-no!!” It shrieked so loudly that my ears rung. I wasn’t surprised when I heard imp voices asking what was wrong. Chike asked questions. I even heard Musa. Fabiana told them this new development with the wrath and Fajahromo. It told them where I intended to go. Alone.

After trying unsuccessfully to free myself from my offspring gently, I did it forcefully. I exerted pressure on its arms until it was forced to release me, then I stepped back from its embrace. It shrieked for me to stay and ran back to me. It stammered its pleas but I kept it from wrapping itself around me again. Then its limbs lashed out. I thought that it was having another spasm, the first since I returned, but the motion of its limbs was too controlled for a spasm. It was throwing a tantrum. It scratched at me with its nails and clawed at me with its fingers. It was desperate not to let me leave.

I forced it to stop by holding its arms against its body. Then I picked it up and carried it over to Fabiana.

“I will return,” I said to them both. “I will be back. I will not leave you alone, precious one.”

My offspring continued thrashing. It yelled for me to stop as I turned my back on it and walked towards the nearest frond. Musa was no longer standing underneath the canopy tree. Chike followed me, the rest of the uspecs stared at me with angry gazes. Would they follow me? I went to the den with Chike trudging silently beside me.

“Let me accompany you,” it said, when we reached the den. I whistled and Marc came plodding out. “Let me accompany you master, I am imp, you need not fear my death.”

“You are an imp and my mission is to end a resistance group of imps. I trust you Chike, but if you push to accompany me any further, my trust for you will come to an abrupt end.”

The imp’s mouth flopped open. It gaped speechlessly at me.

I climbed onto Marc’s bent back.

“Is there anything I can do?” Chike asked when we’d walked four canopy trees away from the den.

“You have your freedom Chike. You are free to go. But if you insist on staying, then take care of Nebula for me.” It was the same favor I had asked of Juke. Juke had called it an honor.

Chike bowed. “It will be my honor, master.”

I glared at the imps bent head. Why did it have to say the exact words that Juke had? These were the ghosts that haunted me. I would kill Fajahromo and the ghosts would leave me alone. They would have to.

Musa stood glowering by the exit to our paradise. For a split second, my chest swelled with hope. Musa wanted to accompany me. Then the hope came crashing down. I could never trust Musa to side with me against the imps that called it Firstborn. Not since Halima, not since that imp had taken Musa from me. There was no one else. Where were the uspecs? My honoraria. They had not even come to bid me farewell. Were they that upset that I would not let them accompany me? Even Marcinus? I shrugged. It was for the best.

“You cannot accompany me Musa.” I said to the imp.

It glared at me. “I know.” It spat out. I was taken aback by its tone. “Have I not rendered enough service to be trusted?” Its question sounded like an accusation.

I was at a loss.

Musa turned its back on me and walked towards the entrance, between the hail trees. The cyan fogs swallowed the imp up and then it rose from the ground back in the spot that I had seen it standing. My eyes widened. I did not have the power to do what I had just seen. It was Chuspecip. If Chuspecip was not willing to allow Musa leave, then…I frowned at the imp. “I am going to end the wrath.” I stated simply.

It frowned at me. A few seconds passed before that frown was smoothed off its face. “Please, end the invasion, but do not harm the imps. If I ever meant anything to you, do not cause more pain to those imps than they have already been forced to live through at the hands of uspecs.”

I stared at its empty eye sockets. It had not wanted to accompany me to protect me, but to protect its imps. I turned my gaze from it and urged Marc forward. Marc was the only one following me into battle. I did not have a plan, but I did not need one. The wrath would find me.

The journey along the inter-port trail reminded me of the journey back from Chiboga. Specters of Juke clung to the cloud walls and to the cloud grounds. I could not look at an alley without seeing Juke fighting in it, its body limber, its moves graceful, its sword darting through the air. Its body may have been stained with blood or fresh from a cleaning. It did not matter what it looked like, or if it fought in the air, clashing swords with other uspecs in flight, or if it fought on the ground. It always had a smile on its face. Its smile was wide, extending to the outer eyes.

The parts of the inter-port trail between Aboga and Hakute were deserted. The emptiness had a bad aura around it, as if it was a place where ill-luck clung to. Had Chuspecip cursed it? I found no other travelers. There’d been uspecs when we’d returned, dazed plenum soldiers, and bandits. I did not encounter any dazed soldiers on my way. The emptiness on the inter-port trail only made me think of Juke more. I rode Marc long and hard. I did not stop until we veered away from the plenum’s war route. Damejo bordered Chiboga and so I had to make the entire length of the journey through the empty haunted road. I was relieved to enter Damejo and have uspecs around. The uspecs that I met in the hangar were commoners. They spoke of the war in hushed tones, of Chuspecip’s wrath. An irira commoner stood in line with none of its features hidden and no one said anything to it.

The chasm had ended.

I envied these uspecs their knowledge of the war. They spoke of it as I would speak of the conflict between the Chus which had caused their rift and led to the creation of the existences. It was a lore to me, just as the chasm, and the war between Arexon and the plenum was a lore to these uspecs. They cleared a way for me, in my fake banneret neckcloth, and I walked to the front of the line. I had to wait. I had to listen to the whispers of Chuspecip’s might which trickled out from these uspecs’ lips. They told of the green fog and they knew details, the plenum deaths, the plenum pardons. But they did not know of the cyan swirls that had been used to decide who lived and who died. They spoke of the extended war that general Arexon had fought and the lives that had been lost. They counted in numbers. Numbers of the dead plenum soldiers. Numbers of the dead Chiboga soldiers. Numbers of years that Arexon had defied expectations and survived the war. Numbers. But they did not speak of the distinct uspec lives that had been lost. They did not talk of Animaon, of its loyalty to my line, a loyalty that had led it to its death. They did not speak of Moat who’d died to save a lust-addicted Marcinus. And they did not speak of Juke. My heart squeezed. They talked of the plenum Kaisers. The mighty Katan, but they did not know of Katan’s life polluted blade that I now carried. They had the incomplete knowledges of tales told. They could not taste the war on their tongues as I could. I remembered the metallic taste of it and I missed Juke.

An uspec questioned me. Nobody asked me ‘Tiyoseriwosin?’. The founder had returned and the chasm ended. I was given my tag and I entered Damejo. I went through the motions. I would need supplies. Food and drink. A heated cloak to survive the Damejo frost. I found what I needed where I’d found it the first time around, in the markets of the Tundra Vacuous Chambers. I bought my grains and dried nama meats. I bought my pouches of okun and my garments. I would be prepared this time. I bought a heated cloak, heated footwear, heated gloves and a headguard.

I paid to be teleported from the Tundra Vacuous Chambers to the boundary of the Labyrinths of Damejo.

Green fog swirled around me as I rode Marc into Nefastu. The fog did not cross the boundary.

But there was green waiting for me when I entered.

Five green faces. Two grinned at me. One looked somber. One emotionless. One apologetic.

I was going to kill them.

No doubt the marked series is changing. I am sure you will still need to give the series a redressing.
You have gotten better, and getting the hang of it all, if this current "novella" is anything to go by.
I will advise you get an agent the next time you want to publish the book.

The loyal 5's.

Nice story so far ObehiD, I appreciate your talent. As a lover of words, I think the description of surroundings is actually great as it helps the reader form a mental picture.

A fantasy novelist must first create an imaginary world and then characters to populate the world. World building is never complete until the end of the book and even then it might take several books to get a complete picture of the world.

To the plot:
Nebud’s frequent cycles of torment and then victory might be getting too much and might appear “cliche”. Hopefully he gets to kick-ass in the upcoming fight and not get captured...

Ps: saw my name

Part 17
---------

I rode past them, as if they were visions of smoke that I could not see. I gave Marc no leave to stop. In fact, if the pelting of the uncouth hail in Nefastu was not so vicious, I would have urged Marc to go faster, anything to lose the group of uspecs that had defied me. They called themselves my subjects, they swore loyalty, but they never obeyed the orders I gave. Now they trailed me like shadows.

Nefastu was as bleak as I remembered. The ground was a mixture of uncouth hail and sludge. The air was a pitiless red. It was midday, and so the orange hue of the daylight dots added some coloring that gave light to the surroundings. But I knew from experience that when those daylight dots went away, the area would become a deep red, a red so deep that it was impossible to see through. Uncouth hail fell on me. Every part of my body was covered. The headguard had sheer material over my eyes, but even this gave off heat. The padding of my coat severely weakened the force of the hail pelts. The journey was not as bad as it had been the first time around. This time I was properly dressed and had Marc’s warmth as an extra protection against the cold. But when the swirling fogs came, I was forced to revisit my conclusion. These fogs in Nefastu were miserable. They were fast drifting fogs that carried hail within them. Once they surrounded me, I couldn’t see anything. Uncouth hail pelted me from all directions and with high enough numbers that I could feel the force of the blows against my skin. I gritted my teeth and endured the pounding of the hail. Fog always drifted. Eventually, this one would drift away too. And eventually, it did. It drifted from me, taking its battering attack to the stubborn uspecs who’d defied me with their company. I grinned.

This was as far as my plan extended. I would come to Nefastu and the imps would come for me. I’d expected to be alone, which would have made me more enticing to approach. I expected that the imps would try to convince me to join them, as Fajahromo had tried to do so many times now. What would they offer the last brio to side with them against Chuspecip and other uspecs of my kind? There were not many uspecs I liked anymore. Most of those were dead. My chest tightened as images of a young Lahooni noble with a wide smile flashed through my mind. A boulder of uncouth hail slammed against my left shoulder. I gasped from the force of it. My mind clear, I returned to thoughts of the wrath. They would approach me and I had to trick them, make them believe that I was on their side, make them invite me to their home and give me free walk of Permafrost. Then I would go to the prayer coves and destroy the effigy. Then Fajahromo. Fajahromo was the price I claimed. I thought of how pleasing it would feel to finally end that smug uspec’s life. Another boulder of uncouth hail slammed into me.

My mind cleared for a moment and I looked ahead. Nefastu had thick fogs. The cursed road. It had thick fogs that made it harder to see and it was because of those thick fogs that travelling around at night was a complete waste of time. I did not know that I had been travelling that long, but when I looked around there were no more orange streams of light, just red. I’d hoped that we would have reached canopy trees by now, but there were no canopy trees that I could see, just a deep red. I couldn’t even see the green faces I’d tried to ignore trailing behind me. I felt Marc’s fur, but I couldn’t see it, or the deep black leather of my coat. It was time to stop.

I stopped the smoke bear and then jumped off its back.

I stroked Marc’s fur and cooed to it. The bear sat and I sat by its side, seeing by touch, aligning myself beside the warm mass of its flesh. I wondered if Marc felt any stirrings of home. I wondered if it remembered this place as the place it had come from.

Suddenly, the area around us exploded with light. A white light source hung from a brown ceiling revealing five green forms standing at several locations in the sludge dwelling. This dwelling, which seemed to have appeared from nowhere, was cylindrical. There were several hard sludge platforms extended from areas in the wall, and ten hard cloud beds erected in two rings around the center of the room, where I sat, beside Marc. I blinked dazedly, trying to come to terms with this new development. The room was hot, too hot. I had to take off my heated clothing. I stood to do just that. When I was done removing the garments, I remained standing, with my hands against my hips, and looked around the room.

The other uspecs stood too. They all looked at me.

“I left my offspring in your care Fabiana.”

Fabiana bowed to me. “Chike and Musa will take care of it.”

I clenched my jaw. “Chike and Musa are imps! I’m about to destroy their resistance group, do you really think that they would not seek to stop me any way they can?”

Fabiana shook its head. “They wouldn’t. And even if they could, the founder wouldn’t let them. No imp can leave the paradise. We saw it with our own eyes.”

“And so you all decided to defy me!”

Matiu nodded solemnly. “You did not kill us,” it stated simply.

In that moment, I was sorely tempted to. My gaze caught on the only non-Lahooni uspec. “Even you?” I demanded angrily.

Marcinus shrugged. Its emotionless mask cracked for a second, and in that second the corner of its lips tipped upward. “Perhaps this is the real reason why I felt a pull to follow you. Your mission is sacred, Nebud, given by the founder, from the founder’s own lips. I could not live with myself if I allowed you to undertake it by yourself.”

“Your deaths are on your own heads, not mine!” I screamed it out so loudly that my throat scratched from the effort. They just nodded in silent acceptance, before breaking away. I did not want this. Despite the words I’d spoken, I knew that the guilt of their deaths would lie with me. It did not matter what choice they made, I would blame myself for not being able to protect them, just as I blamed myself for Juke. The tightening in my chest returned. It was as if vines had wound their way around my heart and squeezed with all their might. I couldn’t breathe. I stumbled backwards and would have fallen if Marcinus and Fabiana did not appear by my side. They both placed their hands on my backs and shoulder and supported me towards a foam mat a few steps back from Marc. They sat me on it and sat on the sheet of hard clouds beside me, waiting and watching. It took a while for me to remember how to breathe again. Marcinus silently handed me a pouch. I uncorked it and gulped down the okun inside it. Then I heaved.

“We will be alright sirga,” Fabiana said softly, “we will be alright.”

I shook my head, but I could not find the words to say. I knew that it was wrong. I knew that they would all die and that their death would be on my conscience.

“What is this?” I said instead, once the tightening in my chest eased and I had enough breath in my lungs to form words. I still coughed and wheezed after the words were spoken. Marcinus wrapped its hand around my wrist and maneuvered the tip of the pouch back towards my lips. I guzzled more okun.

“Just a formless mobile dwelling sirga. We fed it a few form cards. We have enough to last us a month here, and enough food for a week. After that we’d need to send a few people back to Damejo to purchase more.”

“We won’t be here for a week.” I said.

No one argued.

Gamble approached us with a platter of sandwiches. The things were large, not the small portions that Marcinus, Juke and I had been forced to share in the plenum’s camp on the inter-port trail. I forced myself to keep breathing as I thought of Juke. It was easier to forget the uspec here, in this icy hell that it had never been to. It was easier to look at things and not instantly be reminded of its wide smile. But when I did remember it, it was a torture to breathe.

Tingles chimed and I didn’t need to look to know that Matina was playing the mbira that Arexon had gifted it. I picked up a sandwich and tore into it. The food was much better than the one I’d brought with me. I’d brought grains and dried meat. This sandwich had succulent meat and sweet buns. I took a gulp of okun and eyed Matina. The uspec baffled me. It knew nothing of fighting, all it knew was music and art. Yet every time I headed into danger it was eager to accompany me. It had taken a blade meant for me. I took another bite and listened to the rhythm of the tines it plucked. How did one make music like this? Matina was gifted, it was gifted beyond any other that I had ever heard. I found myself relaxing with the music, floating, drifting.

The atmosphere in the sludge dwelling relaxed with me. Uspecs laughed. They teased each other. There was a sad undertone to the jokes, a dearth in Gamble’s laughter. Gamble felt Juke’s loss as keenly as I did. I knew it, those two had been as kin. Matina’s music was like magic, perhaps it was magic, nothing else could explain the way I was starting to feel. The anger I’d felt at the uspecs drifted away. Perhaps Fabiana was right, maybe this time would be different, maybe this time no one would die. Maybe I needed them. I finished off the sandwich in my hand and took another from the platter. Matina sang a strange version of the Uspecipyte fight song. It used the same words that I was familiar with, but the rhythm was different. Matina’s version, sung from lips that barely parted, and accompanied by plucked mbira tines that chimed soft and sweet, didn’t sound like a fight song. It sounded like an homage to the founder. Not belligerent, but beseeching, a prayer instead of a call to arms. How could the same song sound so different?

Matiu was in rare form. It was not often that I saw the uspec this relaxed. It was usually grave and serious. Now it poked fun at Gamble. Gamble laughed but I found the same emptiness in its mirth that I had in mine. Our laughter was distorted by grief. It hurt, but Gamble continued anyway. It laughed even though the sound was an obvious wraith of what it ought to be. Matiu threw a piece of candy at Matina and…

“Who is there?” I yelled.

The candy Matiu threw at its younger stopped short. It hit a block of seemingly empty air, and then dropped to the ground. Which meant that there was someone or something there. Someone or something without appearance. Most likely an imp sent to attack us.

“Do we have appearance identifiers?” I jumped to my feet, with my hand on my belt, and approached Matina. “There is something without appearance in this room.”

“We brought appearance identifiers and samus.” Fabiana said. I hadn’t thought to bring samus. I wouldn’t have needed it if I was on my own. I wouldn’t have needed appearance identifiers either. I’d wanted the imps to find me. By myself, they had no choice but to bargain with me. The presence of my honoraria changed everything. I gritted my teeth. “Flare the appearance identifiers.” Fabiana gave the order.

Everyone jumped to their feet. Matina stopped playing the mbira and instead held the object in front of it as if it was a weapon. Gamble ran over to one of many satchel bags they’d brought with them. I suspected the appearance identifiers was in one of those. Matiu and Fabiana walked up to me and stood on either side of me, taking up similar poses, with their hands on the hilts of their weapons.

“Flaring the appearance identifiers!” Gamble screamed.

“W-w-wait.” A small, shaky, voice called out.

I stumbled backwards. I heard that voice and I knew who it belonged to, but I would not allow myself to believe it. I could not. One patch of green after the other, the owner of the voice was given form. Its appearance returned, showing a little uspec with smooth skin and a single eye on its face. It had no features, no outer eyes. Just a middle eye that fixed warily on me.

I had never been more enraged in my entire life.

I took a step towards it and it hopped back and then ran behind Marcinus of all people. It peeked at me from behind Marcinus’ body. My fists clenched and I ground my teeth as I plundered towards them. Marcinus’ eyes met mine, but it did not move away. It stretched out its hand to me instead. “Perhaps you should calm down firs…” I grabbed its hand and twisted before it could finish that sentence. Something broke in Marcinus’ hand, a wrist, fingers, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I shoved the uspec aside and then grabbed my offspring and lifted it up by its upper arms.

“Have you lost your mind?” I bellowed at it.

It trembled. I couldn’t tell if it was shaking out of fright, or if it was having a spasm, or convulsing, in that moment I didn’t care.

“I-I’m s-s-sor-ry. I w-want-ted t-to p-prot-tect you!”

I shook it so hard that I was certain its little brain, if it even existed in the uspec’s head, would rattle.

“Sirga,” Fabiana placed a hand on my shoulder, “please, calm down.”

Calm down! My offspring was in Nefastu. And it was their fault. If Fabiana had stayed as I’d asked it to, my offspring wouldn’t be here. Nebula had copied them. It had removed its appearance and followed me just as they had. It was their fault! My hands tightened in rage and shook even more than they had before.

“You are hurting Ula sirga,” Fabiana whispered the words to me.

It was right. I was hurting it. My hands had tightened to the points that I could feel the uspec’s little bones underneath my hold. I forced myself to release it. It fell against a hard sludge ground and crawled away from me. It did not cry, but it hurdled into itself and rand its hands over the prints of my hand on its skin. The uspec did not look up at me. Its legs were folded up with its knees against its chest and its head bowed.

“This is your fault!” I growled at Fabiana. Then I shrugged its hand off my shoulder. I knew I was angry, but it wasn’t till I glanced at my offspring, still hurdled into itself, still stroking the marks on its skin which I’d given it, that I recognized the pounding of my heart and crawling underneath my skin. I was angry, but I was more afraid than enraged.

“You will take it back to the Isle of Brio.” I said to Fabiana. “You, Matina and Gamble, will take it back to the inter-port trail. And you will stay there!”

I looked at the uspecs I’d called and expected argument. None spoke, they just bowed their heads in silent acceptance. Finally. In the moment when I wished they’d put up a fight. I was in the kind of mood that required an outlet. An uspec’s skull perhaps, something soft and sturdy that I could pound against. I punched pointlessly into the air.

“I w-won’t l-leave y-you!”

My jaw clenched and my hands tightened into fists by my side. I turned slowly to stare into the face of the young uspec. My offspring. Older uspecs knew better than to question me in this mood. I glared at it. It met my gaze, but it was shaking. Again I wondered if its shaking was from fright or if it was a spasm.

I didn’t trust myself to face my offspring, so I walked instead to one of the sludge tables poking out of the wall and I pounded my fist into it. The sludge extrusion broke off. I picked it up and then flung it against the wall. Then I punched the wall, hard, once, twice, there was blood on the wall when I pulled my fist back the third time. My heart was beating slower, still fast, but not as erratically as it had before. My breath came slower too.

I walked back to Nebula. “What did you say?” My voice was low. Not gentle, just low.

Its single center eye widened. It had never seen me like this. I did not even know if I had ever seen myself like this. Anger, fear, the combination did not bring out the best in me.

“P-p-please.” Its lips quivered. “D-don’t s-s-send m-me aw-way.”

“No.”

It looked down at the ground but it did not repeat its previous outbursts. I turned back to Fabiana. “You will coat it with appearance identifiers so that if it does try to remove its appearance again you will know.” Nebula shrunk into itself. Fabiana jerked its head down in a terse nod.

I paced the room. I felt their eyes on me, boring into me. Gamble and Matina were the youngest in my honoraria, they stared apprehensively at me, as one would watch a caged predator.

“What are you waiting for?” I snapped at Fabiana. “Use quicksand. Go. Now!”

It nodded and walked over to Nebula. Gamble and Matiu followed warily behind it.

“P-please ma-mater. P-please.”

“Silence!” I snapped at it. How could it have been so stupid as to follow me here? Did it not understand the dangers that it faced? Did it not know what would happen to me if any harm came to it? I walked back to a wall and punched it. My fist was sore and spots of blood appeared on my knuckles.

“J-just th-the n-night. P-please ma-mater, l-let me st-t-t-tay the night.”

I whirled around, preparing to tell it, in no uncertain terms, that it was not going to spend another minute on this cursed road. But Fabiana was standing in front of me. I came very close to slamming my fist into its face before it could speak.

“This is my fault.” It said lowly. Its word were whispers delivered directly into my ears. “I accept the blame and I will take Ula back and I will make sure it doesn’t leave again.” My fists loosened a bit. It bowed. “This task of yours is dangerous sirga, and that is why we all came. If there is a chance, any chance that you could die here, then you owe Ula a farewell. Is this the last memory you want it to have of you?”

I glared at Fabiana.

It didn’t look up. “Just one night, sirga, give your offspring, your heir, one last night with its progenitor.”

I took a deep breath and then released it. Fabiana was right. I nodded.

“I have one more request, sirga.” I grunted when the uspec continued speaking.

“What is it?”

It rose its head. “Let me teleport Gamble, Matina and Ula back to the inter-port trail and return to fight with you.”

I glared at it.

“I am the only one who can use spectra and pansophy in this place. I know how to get past the curse of Nefastu to use my magic. You need me.”

I gritted my teeth. Fabiana was right again. It did know how to use magic here in ways I couldn’t. The curse of Nefastu was that my emotions were stunted here. It was harder for me to get through to my spectra. “Nebula’s safety is more important than my own.” I said. I didn’t need its protection, I needed the wrath to try to bargain with me.

Fabiana nodded. “If you die, sirga, then the entire existence will fall. How safe will Ula be in a world ruled by the other existences? It will become the last brio sirga. Five years old, and the entire world will know that it is the last brio and they will hunt it. Your safety guarantees your offspring’s.”

“Fine. But you will deliver it to the Isle of Brio before returning.” I wasn’t convinced I needed Fabiana, in fact, their presence here was starting to seem more like a liability. But as long as my offspring was safe in the Isle of Brio, I could accept the extra help. If I hadn’t already killed Fajahromo by then.

Fabiana bowed.

I walked away from it. Nebula watched me cautiously. Its eyes followed me. it remained hurdled into itself with its arms wrapped around its legs. The imprints my hands had left were still on its arms. Fabiana walked over to Marcinus it healed the uspec’s hand, the one that I’d broken. Marcinus said nothing to me and I said nothing to it. I continued to pace the room. The uspecs must have sensed my decision because they settled back. Matina, predictably, started playing its mbira, but the mood was still tense. I continued pacing. Nebula still watched me, sitting as it had been before. It was five and had more courage than many four times its age. It had followed me into Nefastu. It was a stupid decision that the uspec had made, but it was a brave one. It took me a while to realize that it had returned its appearance to itself here, in Nefastu, without showing much difficulty. Just how skilled was my offspring in pansophy and how much more skilled would it become? It continued watching me.

Matina’s plucked tune changed. The plucking went from a smooth melody to something that accompanied melodious chiming with striking notes that landed like thuds of a drum.

“When I hear the drum beat,” Matina sang in a way that was singing but also talking. Its voice was so melodious that it was hard sometimes to tell the difference.

Matiu chuckled.

“The rhyme and the melody.”

I turned to find my offspring smiling. It was no longer looking at me but at Matina. It clapped in accord with Matina’s chimes. Gamble whistled. Matiu sang! Fabiana had told me once of this fluke occurrence, but I saw it then. Matiu sang, its voice was actually quite good, it had a deep bass that complemented the high notes of its sibling’s voice.

“When I hear the drum beat,
The rhyme and the melody
The sound makes my soul glow
Distinct notes but they flow.”

Everyone but myself and Marcinus joined in here.

“These beats make me purr like a kitten
I’m in love with the rhythm
Tell the player I am smitten.”

They all broke into rounds of laughter and the tension in the room dissolved. I stared at Matina and its mbira. That uspec had to survive all of this. I had seen fighters, hundreds of them, many skilled. I had seen magic, pansophy, emotions, spectra, uspecs who knew how to manipulate them all easily. But I had never seen an artist like Matina. One who could diffuse a room as tense as this had been with a few sung words and plucked tines. The agitation left me. I had this night with my offspring, I would make it last. I apologized to Marcinus for breaking its wrist and then I sat beside my offspring. I’d expected it to stay away, but it didn’t. It sidled towards me and wrapped its arms around me as if it could shield me from danger. It rested its little head against my chest. I wrapped my arms around it too.

“That doesn’t sound like an uspec song,” Marcinus said.

“It is not.” Matina replied. “An imp taught it to Ula and it was the first song Ula sang in an uspec tongue without stammering.”

“Ag-gain!”

Matina plucked its tines in that strange but audibly appealing combination of striking low notes and melodious higher notes. Matiu led the song this time and Matina joined in. My offspring jumped up and it began moving in a way that I assumed was a dance, though it looked like a standing convulsion. I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. It was hard to stay angry in the face of Nebula’s mirth. My laughter was strained, as Gamble had been earlier, tinted with grief, but it was laughter, and it had been a long time since I laughed. Nebula continued its ‘dancing’.

“When I hear the drum beat,
A force takes over my feet
I lose all my self-control
I feel it echo in my bones.”

This time I heard myself joining into the chorus. I could not sing though, but it didn’t matter. This part was belted out discordantly.

“These beats make me purr like a kitten
I’m in love with the rhythm
Tell the player I am smitten.”

I asked what it meant to ‘purr like a kitten’ and Gamble and Nebula spoke over themselves as they tried to explain. I had a feeling that neither of them truly understood, but my offspring was closer to explaining it in a way that made sense. Gamble contradicted itself. Apparently, a kitten was an umani creature, like our smoke bears, and they purred when they were happy. I asked why Matina did not just replace that line with something that made sense to uspecs, like ‘these beats make me happy’ and they all laughed as if I’d said either the funniest joke or the most ludicrous statement. Finally, Matina explained that the rhyme of kitten with rhythm and smitten was important for the song. I shrugged. Artistry was not my specialty. They explained why the song was sang in so many different uspec tongues. Matina was trying to maintain the rhyming scheme. I shook my head and my offspring teased me and jumped at me. It reminded me of the way we’d played when it was younger. We hadn’t had the time to play like that since my return. Nebula even spent some time speaking with Marcinus. Between Matina’s cheerful songs and Nebula’s playful mood, even Marcinus’ had a break from the apathy it usually wore on its face. It laughed. When we sang the song again Marcinus proved that it was not a bad singer itself. It sang the verse with Matiu and Matina and its singing voice was a complement to both. Matina described Marcinus’ voice as an alto. The trio sang other songs together.

I relaxed into my bed, with my squirming offspring beside me, listening to the music, and I was happy. There was still the ache in my chest from losing Juke. My eyes moved to an empty foam mat beside Gamble, where Juke would have slept if it was still alive, and I felt the pain of its loss. But it did not make me lose my breath as it had before. I was at peace.

I fell asleep at peace.

And when I woke, it was from a peaceful slumber. I’d had no dreams.

Fabiana removed the form from the dwelling after we’d broken our morning fast. Nebula clung to me, but it did not ask to stay. It had promised me during the night that it would stay in the Isle of Brio. Its visit had been good for me. It had done me good to see Nebula happy and able to inspire joy in one such as Marcinus. I wished that I could spend the rest of my life like this, surrounded by friends. Happy. I felt as if I’d had so very few moments of joy in my life. This was my reward. Not Fajahromo’s death, but this. My offspring, my friends. Their joy. A good, happy life. That was my reward. Fajahromo’s death was just a task I had to accomplish to safeguard my reward.

The light from the orange dots streamed in and the hail pelts raged. I hugged my offspring close to my chest and then I sent it towards Fabiana.

“Sirga!” A voice yelled.

Matiu pushed me down.

A small arrow jutted out of its back. There were tumultuous drifting fogs heading towards us. Where had the arrow come from? I shoved Nebula towards Fabiana screaming for Fabiana to teleport them away quickly. Someone else screamed for appearance identifiers another person yelled for samus to be released. I just wanted to make sure my offspring was gone.

The cold drifting fogs surrounded us. The hail here was sharper than others and these fogs were faster than any I’d ever encountered before. I felt hands reach for me. I reached for a dagger and stabbed at those hands. Hands fell away, others came. I heard the umani tongue. Imps! I cursed myself for not sending Nebula away sooner. I should have forced Fabiana to take it back when I’d wanted to. I shouldn’t have given in to the temptation to spend the night with it.

I fought savagely even if I couldn’t see through the drifting fog. I cut at arms that sought to grasp me. Some fell on me, but there was no pansophy used. No one tried to take away my appearance.

By the time the drifting fogs cleared, there were only four us left standing. Fabiana, Matina, Gamble and myself. The others were gone. It was as if the fogs had carried them away.

“Nebula!” I screamed. I ran after that fog, but it disintegrated, right before my eyes. It wasn’t a natural fog. It couldn’t have been. Natural fogs didn’t disappear like that. “Nebula!”

Part 18
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“Nebula!” I screamed till my throat got hoarse. I forced the breath out of my lungs and felt it scratching against my throat, clawing itself out, and heard it echoed against the bitter path. Pellets of uncouth hail took the sound from my lips and bounced it around, but there was no response. Still I kept screaming, until the sound that came out of my lips was nothing more than wheezes of air devoid of words and structure.

I fell to my knees.

There was nothing, no one, just the constant stream of uncouth hail and drifting fogs. I heard footsteps behind me, but none of them approached me. They stayed back. I just stayed on my knees, broken. They’d taken my offspring. The imps from the wrath. They’d somehow found a way to manipulate fogs, or create fogs that did not take away life, or whatever it was that they’d done and they’d used it as a cover to kidnap my offspring. My innocent offspring who’d spent the night laughing. I looked out at the bleak place. A boulder of hail slammed into my face like a punch from the ether. It snapped my head to the side, forcing my gaze towards the single splash of color in the red environs. It was a hail tree, gleaming white. I looked away.

One fist following the other, I immersed my hands into the sludge ground of Nefastu, and pushed myself up, to my feet. I looked out into the scenery of falling hail and drifting fogs and felt a fire in my throat. It was sore from all my screaming. I turned around and stared at the faces gazing despondently back at me. Matina and Gamble carried two packs, one on each shoulder. Matina looked down, its feet shifted uncertainly and it fingers were tightened around its mbira. Gamble looked at me. Its lips drooped. It held its sword out in front of it, but it was too late. It was already too late. Fabiana caught my gaze and then looked away. Its hands tightened into fists by its side and then it turned back to face me. There was misery in the gaze it fixed on me. Pain that I was sure echoed the one in my eyes.

“We will get it back, sirga.” It swore. “If we have to burn Permafrost to the ground, we will get Ula back.”

I nodded. But I could not speak. My throat was too sore. I just clenched my jaw and jerked my head to the side. I pushed down my fears for Nebula’s safety, shoved it so far down that I convinced myself it didn’t exist. A cold flood of determination rose instead to take its place. Fabiana was right about one thing, Permafrost was going to burn to the ground, and every imp in that place would face my wrath if they so much as laid a finger on my offspring. I was just about to march ahead, when I heard a gasp. I turned to find Gamble pointing in the direction of the hail tree. I squinted, but I could not see what caused Gamble’s alarm. The uspec broke off at a trot and I found myself jogging behind it. It stopped a few feet in front of me and began digging into the ground.

I stopped short when I saw what it excavated. It was an uspec hand. A green hand. The blood on the wrist where it had been cut off was still fresh, fresh enough to show that it had been recently severed.

“Sirga!”

I turned to Matina. It pointed away from the hand towards another spot of green peeking out of an icy hail ground. I walked towards it. My stomach churned as I approached, and a sick feeling twisted in my gut. Matina dug out another body part with its sword. A green arm, the full arm this time, with the hand attached to it, severed at the shoulder with blood as fresh as that on the hand that Matina had found. The arm was large and muscular. Not the arm of a child. Nebula was not the only uspec who’d disappeared. Marcinus and Matiu had been taken as well. Matina dropped the hand and scurried away from it. Its eyes widened. It crawled away from me and threw up onto a patch of sludge close to the severed arm.

I walked only a little bit further and I saw more body parts. The rest of the green arm that the hand had been cut off from. Two sets of uspec ailerons. A leg with the feet pointing towards the hail tree. Bile rose from the pits of my stomach, up my already burning throat. I kept going and stumbled on the other severed leg. Then there was a chest. I was only a few feet away from the hail tree now, from the glow of that white stem.

My feet stopped moving. Perhaps I’d seen something, an image, a body part that cautioned against further exploration. Whatever it was glued my eyes shut on instinct. Darkness pervaded my senses. Darkness and overwhelming dread that made my skin crawl. Icy tendrils scraped against my spine. Uncouth hail pounded me with vigor. Small pellets, boulder pellets, the spartan fine pellet, they caroused my skin and drummed against the lightest parts of my body’s covering. Something was wrong. Something missing.

I heard trumpets. A group of them. The call of a herd of smoke bears. It wasn’t till that moment, with that sound tearing through the silence, that I realized that someone else was missing. Marc. They’d taken my smoke bear. My fingers dug into my palm and my teeth ground against each other. My eyes stayed shut. Had they dismembered Marc as they had this uspec?

I forced my eyes open and walked closer towards the base of that hail tree.

Soaru tentacles were spread from it like cyan roots of a pale white tree. I dropped to my knees in front of a severed head.

Marcinus’ blessed eye stared back at me.

Over the head, “Beware the wrath of Sada,” was written in blood. And below it, “for every imp life you end with the samu, we end one of yours with our blade.”

It was as if I couldn’t comprehend it. I blinked and my eyes took in the soaru tentacles and Marcinus’ severed head resting at the base of the hail tree, but I couldn’t really see it. I didn’t understand it. Why would they dismember an uspec? It made no sense. How could Marcinus be dead? I didn’t understand. How many imps would it take to kill a fighter like Marcinus? I shook my head. An uspec knelt to my right, another to my left. Matina threw up. It wretched for so long and so loudly that I would have been surprised if it had anything left in its stomach after it was done.

I realized, as I stared at Marcinus’ head resting on the base of the hail tree, that there was a point beyond rage. A point beyond grief and pain. A point beyond even fear for one’s own offspring. I reached that point then. I placed my hand against the blood letters that the imps’ had written onto the stem of the hail tree, and used that as a hold to hoist myself to my feet. Marcinus was dead. Juke was dead. Nebula, Marc and Matiu were captured. Something stirred in me, a distant twinge in my chest, a slight pang of pain. Whatever it was I did not think on it, or dwell on it.

“Fabiana, come with me. Gamble and Matina, bury the corpse.” I forced the words out. Through a sore throat. They sounded weak, and breathy, and each word burned as it made its way out. But I was beyond the point where pain affected me.

Fabiana followed.

I scoured the area, looking for flashes of brown or creamy white. I had only one mission now, and that was to get my people back. The imps would have fared better if they had not kidnapped my offspring, they would have fared so much better if they had not taken the life of an uspec I loved. I scanned the area, impervious to boulders of hail slamming against me with the force of ten fists. Fast drifting fogs swirled and encircled us, but we did not stop. We made our way through the blinding trails of spinning red. It took a while, but my gaze locked on what I’d been searching for. Two imps kneeling beside a third. The third was the one that had been sapped. I hadn’t expected three imps. I’d only expected the one, the sapped one, the one they’d claimed Marcinus’ life as retribution for. The imps had their hands on the sapping imps body. They were probably trying to infuse it with growth. The fact that they bothered with trying to heal it showed that the imp that had fallen was important to them.

“Release two samus.” I said to Fabiana. Its gaze snapped to mine. It stared into my eyes and then nodded. There was something of a grim resignation in the straightness of its features. It dug into its belt and released the samus. I stopped and watched as the creatures slithered their way towards the imps, who, impervious to our presence behind them, battled to save the life of their fallen friend. They used pansophy and the samu chased after the scent. I watched and waited and felt nothing when the samu bit into their flesh and feasted on it. The imps yelped. They turned around, and their empty eye sockets widened. One of them, with the samu latched onto a sapping arm, ran towards me. I struck out with my cutlass and cut its head off its body. Its head rolled about, as if searching for my face. The rest of its body continued moving aimlessly. Its sight was in its head. Without that head it was blind.

“Can you sap them?”

Fabiana gaped at me. “Sirga?”

“Can you sap them? As the wielders do?”

“Some.” Fabiana’s voice was small.

“Do it. I want their appearance.”

It looked at me. Its eyebrows turned inwards and its eyes stared at me, studying me as if I had grown into something it could not recognize.

“Now,” I snapped.

It exhaled and then placed its hand on the body of the headless imp. I watched dispassionately. The samu had already done most of the work. Fabiana knelt by each imp, one after the other, it placed its hand on their chest and drew lifeforms from them. The appearance was the first to go. Once the appearance was gone I saw nothing but the samus leeched to invisible skin. Fabiana did not like what I made it do. Its distaste was plain in the grimace it wore. But it did it. One imp after the other, till they were all invisible. It reclaimed the samus and put them back into pouches in its belt.

“It is done.” Fabiana said.

I nodded. We made our way back to the others. I ignored Fabiana’s glances at me. I ignored the way its eyes traveled over my body, its gaze lingering on me. I was beyond emotions in a hyperplane of existence were death and gore meant nothing to me. Nefastu made it easy to bury emotions. That was the curse of this road, I chose to use it to my benefit.

I sunk my covered feet into the hail-sludge and marched back towards the hail tree. When we arrived, there was nothing around that tree to speak of the horror that the imps had done to Marcinus. The words were still written on the stem of the tree. The imps took responsibility for the crime against me in those blood words. I would make them regret it.

I looked impassively at our little group. Gamble and Matina’s gloves were stained with the hail-sludge hybrid. There were no cut-off body parts exposed. Four uspecs. Three imps. I turned to Fabiana.

Fabiana stopped beside me. “Did you really have me do that out of spite?” Its voice was low, trembling, weak. I eyed the uspec. For a second, I thought about ending its life. It had too much sympathy for imps, I feared that it would betray me. The thought chilled me. I cleared my throat and forced it out of my mind.

“No. We need a way into Permafrost. I had you take their appearance so that you can transfer it to us.”

Its eyes widened and then its head lifted and it smiled. I blinked. I felt no joy or happiness at Fabiana’s smile, just a momentary flash of surprise, the surprise waned, leaving me feeling just as empty as I had before.

“That is smart sirga. But one of the imps was being sapped by the samu, we will not be able to infiltrate with that imp’s appearance. It would be too suspicious.”

I nodded. I’d expected only the sapping imps appearance, and with that I would have snuck in and hid until I had the opportunity to strike, but the presence of the imps who’d stayed behind, attempting to heal it, gave two more appearances to use. “if only we had a bit of Musa’s appearance,” I mused.

Gamble cleared its throat. “I do. Why?”

I turned from Fabiana to the uspec. How did it have Musa’s appearance? It shrugged and then looked down at the ground. “Juke and I made a game out of stealing bits of people’s appearances without them knowing. It had stolen quite a bit of yours too, sirga.”

For a brief moment my chest tightened with grief and my heart swelled with pride. Juke had been so mischievous. But then the emotions faded, pulled at by the cursed road and willingly given by me. Emotions were nothing but a distraction to me now. If I allowed myself to feel, to really feel…I shivered at the thought. Just considering emotions brought back flashes of green body parts and a severed head placed at the base of a hail tree.

“Fabiana, do you have enough spectral energy to change our identities to imps?”

It nodded at me. There was a gleam in its eyes. I couldn’t interpret it. Was it hope? Joy? Suppressed tears? Whatever it was, I could not place it and it felt odd to gaze on it on the uspec’s face.

Clouds appeared around us. They surrounded us, four patches of red clouds for four uspecs. Once the red surrounded me, I closed my eyes and waited for pain that didn’t come. I remembered the soaru magic being painful, but I felt no pain this time. There were minor nuisances, pinches against my skin, light prods, inconveniences, but nothing that escalated to the point of pain. I thought of Nebula and kept its image in my head. I would die before I let anyone lay a hand on it. The image of a green head placed against a tree stirred something in me, something that thinking of Nebula had allowed slip. I pushed all the feelings and thoughts away. I knew what had to be done.

The clouds went away and I was a green imp in a heated cloak. Fabiana sent Matina and Gamble after the clothes that the imps had been wearing. I watched the two uspec-imps scurrying away as Fabiana approached me, that gleam still sparkling in its eyes. Matina and Gamble disappeared behind a drift of fogs.

“Which imp’s appearance should I give you?”

“The sapped one.”

It nodded. I shrugged of my heated cloak, giving Fabiana skin-to-skin contact with me. I only asked for the imp’s appearance, it was the only touch of pansophy I wanted, but I felt Fabiana trying to push thoughts into my head. I ignored it and focused on the pelting of the uncouth hail against my naked imp form. I was a male imp, we all were. The imp appearances we had belonged to male imps. Fabiana worked silently, even after the two younger ones returned with the clothes. They were stained with sludge. Matina nervously brushed away at the sludge stains on the clothing.

Fabiana finished with me and moved over to Gamble.

“You should take Musa’s appearance, Fabiana, you are the one most likely to pull it off.”

It nodded and went to work on transferring another imp appearance to Gamble. The clothing were all the same. Black trousers, black shirts, all made of leather, with black boots. I took off everything else I had on and stared at my brown skin. This shade was different from Musa’s, brown in a way that was closer to tan than black. I cared little for imp skins and imp clothes, but I found a pair that most closely fit, and put it on silently.

“We will wait until we come across a group of scouting imps then we will join them. The key to Permafrost is a tune that the imps whistle or sing. I do not know it, so we cannot gain entry ourselves…”

Matina cleared its throat. “I may know it.” Its voice was unsteady. It was not subject to Fabiana’s pansophy. I could not help but notice the way that its arms shook. “I’ve learnt many songs from your imps sirga.”

“Sing the ones you know, and I will tell you if you have the right tune.”

It did. One imp song after the other. I shook my head and it kept going. How could one brain hold so many different songs and tunes? Fabiana concluded its work on Matina and began to change its own appearance to match Musa’s. It must have taken the appearance from Gamble when it used its pansophy on it. I jumped.

“That’s it!”

Matina stopped singing and smiled at me.

My emotions slipped again. I felt, for a moment, pride, joy, happiness that Matina was the artist I had scolded it so many times for being. Its artist ear and artist tongue were going to give us smooth sailing into Permafrost, which would make our tale even more believable. Only imps were meant to know of this tune, only imps ought to have access. I smiled. We were going to waltz into that blasted headquarters and they weren’t even going to know they’d been invaded until the deed was done. The emotions started to slip and I let them. I let them go, I gifted them to the curse of Nefastu.

“Did you sap their thoughts too?” I asked.

Fabiana nodded.

“Then brief us on our identities.”

“Let me just give you the memories I sapped instead.” It countered.

I acquiesced, that was better. “We are going to walk right in, and they are going to welcome us with open arms.”

Gamble cheered. “Then we will burn that place to the ground.”

Its sentiments echoed mine exactly. I felt nothing but the slightest glimmer of appreciation. I jerked my head towards the uspec in the form of the imp and that gesture seemed to be enough. Fabiana touched me and an imp’s memories filled my head. I was named Sri, my ‘mother’ was a respected elder in the wrath, that was why they’d worked so hard to save me. Was that why they’d felt the need to take an uspec life in retribution? I pushed the thought away. I was not newly dead, but I had been sapped by my last owner. I’d only regrown from the sapping a year ago. My mother and I had died together, our umani lives ending at the same time. I had lust, I had offended my last master by refusing to make lust for it. I found the act of making lust in public revolting, especially when my mother was one of many slaves who attended to the master during the lust binge. Gamble’s name was Chang and Matina’s Li. They were older fighters in the wrath. I admired them. I was not supposed to have gone on this mission with them but I had snuck out before mother could stop me.

I cleared my throat. “Musa saved me,” I said, “it…” I cleared my throat again, “he found me and saved me.”

Fabiana, now appearing as Musa, smiled at me. “It was my duty and my pleasure. I came bearing urgent news, Chuspecip has returned. The invasion plan is in peril. We should abandon it before things get worse. This invasion was never the purpose of the wrath. It was not why I created it.” I grunted at Fabiana’s impersonation of Musa’s voice. It was good.

My voice was different, it sounded young and high pitched. I wondered if Fabiana had transferred the imp’s sound to me as well. “You will insist on being led to my offspring and you will take Li and Chang with you.” I turned to Gamble-Chang, “Once you have the location were Matiu and Nebula are being held, you will come and find me in the prayer coves. Remove your appearance and come to me. You should be prepared to teleport us to the location. As soon as you come, I will destroy the effigy and we will have to leave at once.”

Chang bowed.

“Keep Li with you.”

Musa nodded.

Li, Chang, Musa. Having the imp’s memory made it so much easier to stay in character. He’s not its. Li, Chang, Musa.

Li, Chang and I were dressed in the clothes we’d left Permafrost in. Musa wore Fabiana’s cloak, but we had nothing better, and I doubted it would be questioned. I picked up my belt and asked Fabiana, no Musa, to remove its appearance. Li and Chang did the same. Musa kept Fabiana’s belt but changed its appearance incase any of the imps remembered seeing it.

“No fear.” I stared pointedly at Li. “No hesitation, we are exactly the imps we say we are. Give me a few samus.” Musa dug into Fabiana’s belt and pulled out five of the creatures. I placed them into a pouch on my invisible belt. “Do not hesitate to release the samus if you need to.” This time I stared at Musa.

Then I took a deep breath and released it. “Take us home, Li.”

Li sang. It was strange to hear Li sing when I knew that the man didn’t actually have a melodious bone in his body. I remembered teasing Li about how bad his singing was. Li. Bad singing. “Don’t sing when we get in, Li.” Li nodded, without breaking its tune.

The ground underneath us softened and we were pulled into the hideout, a cave with hard sludge walls and soft sludge ground. We’d entered Permafrost. Li and Chang led the way down the cave, I walked behind them, and Musa brought up the rear.

Part 19
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We walked down the cave without speaking, until we reached the curtains. These curtains led to the quicksand portals that would carry us from the underground hideouts to the main level of Permafrost. Chang pushed the curtains open and held them open for me. That was strange, Chang never held anything open for me. “Chang considers himself superior to Sri,” I whispered to Chang. Chang nodded and then let the curtain fall before I was fully out. I caught it and held it open for Musa. Musa was the firstborn after all, it was deserving of the respect. I’d only ever had the honor of speaking with Musa once, when it had arrived a few months ago, sapping from the same breed of creatures that the uspecs had released on me. Musa saved my life, this one was harder to pass as fact. It was a lie, it made the façade of Sri crumble a little. I would have to do better. Musa smiled and nodded to me as it walked underneath the curtains I held open. It did not argue against having the curtains held open for it. But it also did not walk by without showing its smile of gratitude. The firstborn was kind and courteous to all, that was what mother always said. I kept Sri’s memories streaming.

As soon as the four us stood on the hard quicksand ground, it softened and pulled us in. A large pellet of hail dropped onto my hair and then rolled off. My hair was different from Musa’s. Were Musa had short curls, I had long strands. As soon as our presence there became known, whispers of ‘firstborn’ where carried around.

I almost frowned, but Sri knew better. Sri was not surprised by the sight of these many imps crowded together in front of the living lodges. It was used to it. Li and Chang had rooms in the living bunks, but because my mother was so influential, I had a room in her suite in the living lodges. My name was picked up too, in lesser notes than the firstborn’s. Chang frowned, it always frowned whenever it was reminded that I was the favored son of a powerful elder. It hated how easily power would come to me once the invasion was over. Mother had already been chosen to become the Kaiser of Damejo, and I would be duke of the first metropolis. Chang would be lucky if it even got to be a sovereign of a desolate burg. But Chang could fight, that would come to its benefit. Li was a bit slow, but it had fists like hammers. I swallowed, and hoped that no one tried to pick a fight with Matina-Li.

Imps continued to swirl around us. Sri reminded me that these imps were my brothers and sisters, the wrath was all one big family. Musa smiled. He stretched out his arms and smiled as if he was truly happy to be back. Of course people would see now that the rumors that the firstborn had forsaken us were all lies. How could the firstborn forsake us? How could it choose an uspec over its own kind? Lies, I’d said it from the start and my life was living proof. I cringed a little, had to do better with that lie. I remembered Musa saving me. Or rather, I remembered Chang and Li’s hands on me and forced Musa’s face on one of them. I remembered the infusion of growth, of health, the warm feeling in my chest when I realized that I was not going to be sapped, but I would instead live to see my mother again. The lies were harder, but I had enough of Sri’s memories to forge them into some semblance of truth.

“Sri!” Mother’s voice. I turned to the tall, plump, matron running towards me, dressed in the heavy cloaks of the elder and forced myself to smile. I was Sri. I let the memories flood me. Sri loved his mother. Sri had a beautiful smile.

I hugged my mother and she hugged me. I smiled. Hands the same complexion as mine cupped my face and brown lips pressed against my right cheek. “Sri! My son is alive!” Warm moisture trailed down my face, mother’s tears, as she held me in her tight embrace.

“What happened?” this was the voice of one of our three high elders.

“The firstborn appeared right when we’d given up hope and he saved Sri’s life.” Chang’s voice bellowed with confidence as it spoke. It turned to Musa and bowed deeply.

Musa’s smile was light. “I only did what I had to. We should speak.”

The high elder bowed. “Of course, of course.” It extended its hand towards the prayer coves and we all headed in that direction. Mother held me in a vice, cooing at me. She’d stopped crying. She was so pleased to see me that she just kept talking. Other imps walked around us, giving us a respectful distance. They pointed at Musa and gushed. Musa walked in front, with the high elder. He folded his hands behind his back and had an air of quiet authority around him. We trailed them. Li and Chang walked between us, behind Musa. I could not hear what Musa was saying because mother just kept cooing. I pulled back a little whenever it seemed she would get so close that our hips touched. I did not want mother feeling Nebud’s blades. She laughed whenever I did this though and called me her ‘little man’. We kept going.

When we finally reached the prayer coves, I excused myself.

Mother frowned at me.

“I want to give honor to the firstborn’s name.” I said.

Musa chuckled. “It is not necessary, Sri.”

I frowned at it and sulked as I’d done many times before. “I think it is.”

The high elder nodded. “If only more of our youths were as religious as you, Sri.” She inclined her head towards the painting of the firstborn. No one knelt in front of it. I extricated myself from mother’s hold and went to kneel in front of the painting. Mother watched me for a while, and then she followed behind Musa and the high elder, walking deeper into the cove. Li and Chang trailed them.

I waited till they were all gone before I forced Sri’s memories away. They were polluted memories transferred with pansophy, so it would take pansophy to remove, but I could still push them back and bring my own real thoughts and memories to the front of my mind. Once this was done, I wiped at the streaks of imp tears that I’d been forced to stomach. I remained as I was, kneeling and staring at the image of Musa on the wall. I did not know what prayer was, but as I stared on that image, I thought of the imp and the last time I had seen it.

I knelt on the hard ground and continued to stare at the image of Musa. My heart beat faster in my chest. It was not a delirious pounding, just a slight quickening. My emotions were returning, I could not stare into the face of the imp I’d once called friend and feel nothing. The emotions were stunted, but they came. Grief, grief in overwhelming tides. Marcinus’ head, cut off and left to rot on the base of a hail tree as a message to me. Its eyes, the blessed eye that the founder had gifted it, staring straight into me. They shouldn’t have killed it. They should not have killed Marcinus. I looked at the painting of Musa and I heard its pleas, the ones that it had uttered before I’d left the paradise.

Please, end the invasion, but do not harm the imps. If I ever meant anything to you, do not cause more pain to those imps than they have already been forced to live through at the hands of uspecs.

Musa’s words were played like the backdrop to the vicious images of Marcinus’ dismembered body parts. I hated Permafrost, I loathed the wrath and the imps who’d antagonized me so many times, but for Musa, for Musa perhaps I could have shown them mercy. Perhaps I could have killed Fajahromo and left the rest of them free, with this Permafrost as their home. Perhaps. But then they’d kidnapped my offspring. They’d killed Marcinus. I had not even thought to come with samu, I had come for Fajahromo, I had come to end its miserable life. Now I wanted to kill every imp in this place. I wanted to dismember them and place their body parts artfully littered around this home they claimed as they’d done to my friend. Grief, twisted and clutched at me, tearing at my insides, clawing to be let out. I swallowed down my desire to scream. They killed Marcinus. I clenched my jaw and glared at the image of Musa.

No one came. The imps that walked in walked by me. The ones that came to pray to their ‘firstborn’ gave me a wide berth. I just stayed as I’d been, kneeling in front of the painting and wishing that I had the power to destroy all imp life with a single swipe of a pen. I wished for the power of a Chu, the power to eradicate with a single breath. I did not have that power, but Chuspecip owed me. If it was not weak, Marcinus would not be dead! It owed me. And I was going to collect. I wanted them all gone! Every imp! The image of Musa came into focus and I gazed at it. Perhaps not all the imps. Not Musa. Even estranged as we’d become, I still could not wish for its death. Not Chike either. I didn’t really care about the other imps in the Isle of Brio, but they had been good to my offspring and so they could live too, but the rest of them could go. They’d already lived their lives and more. If Juke could not be reborn then they should not be either.

More pain and sorrow clawed at my gut. The emotions were stunted, but they ravaged me, and I had to fight with everything I had not to let the emotions show.

“Musa already sent them a missive from the Isle of Brio letting them know that Chuspecip had returned.”

The voice startled me. I almost jumped, then I reminded myself that I had asked for this. This was Chang’s voice. It was Gamble, without appearance, speaking to me. I jerked my head slightly, so as not to give our conversation away.

“They got the idea to kidnap Ula from Musa.” Chang continued to whisper.

The betrayal of those words stung worse than any pain I’d ever felt. I couldn’t fight the gasp of pain that escaped my lips.

“The night that they attacked on the inter-port trail, Musa told them that you would die before you let anything happen to your offspring. It told them that there was nothing you wouldn’t do for it. It also confirmed that the brio was hereditary and that if you died Ula would be the last brio.”

My jaw clenched but the pain eased slightly. It had not told them specifically to kidnap my offspring but it might as well have. This was what Musa had said to them in that harsh tongue I could not understand. This was the fruit of Musa’s words that night. I shoved all thoughts of Musa out of my mind, I would deal with the imp later.

“Do you know where they’re being kept?”

“Yes,” it whispered back. The closest imps were a few feet away, still we were careful to keep our voices low. “They led us right to them. The great Fabiana makes a very convincing Musa.”

I nodded and rose slowly. This was a path I was familiar with. I kept walking, going deeper into the dimly lit coves. My mind kept repeating Gamble’s words about what Musa had told the wrath on the night of their attack. I knew that it had not told them to kidnap my offspring, but it had shared more than it should have. Much more than it should have. The words twisted around in my head and I wondered if perhaps Musa had indeed wanted them to kidnap Nebula. It may not have given the order but it had told them enough. Why else would it tell them that Nebula would be the last brio if I died? Why would it mention anything of the brio to them? And why had it sent them a missive telling them that Chuspecip had returned? I thought of that missive and Fajahromo’s presence on the inter-port trail suddenly made sense. It had gone to the plenum already knowing that Chuspecip was back. The wrath had known and they’d sent Fajahromo to share the message. Which was how Katan knew that I was lying when I said that my mission had failed. They’d known before they’d questioned me, they’d already known the founder was back because Musa told them. Musa told the wrath. Musa betrayed me.

I forced my mind away from all thoughts of the imp. Why did it surprise me? It had lied about the wrath, lied to me, of course it would betray me for them. I had trusted too much in the imp. It wanted an invasion, it was what it’s imp friend Halima wanted, what it had urged for.

We reached the edge of the roped off corner of the tabernacle and I glanced at the imps kneeling in front of it. I could clearly make out the outlines of the effigy.

“This is easier than robbing the blind,” the invisible Gamble stated beside me, “at least the blind would put up a fight. The imps just led us in.” It chuckled underneath its breath.

I had no time for joy.

I pulled out the life-polluted blade in my belt and held it by the hilt. There was no draft in here, no drifting fogs, just still air. There were no imps in my way. Nothing at all to stop me from hitting my target. The appearance had been taken from Katan’s poisoned dagger, so I had no fears that anyone would see. But I threw it without wasting too much time waiting. I released the blade. Gamble was right, this was a lot easier than robbing the blind.

A loud bang filled the room. I had not expected that.

I reached for my quicksand, but none came.

“I can’t pull my quicksand, sirga.”

I cursed in my mind. I’d forgotten that Monica told me the last time I was here, that quicksand didn’t work in their coves. But I could feel my emotions. The stunting, the curse of Nefastu was gone.

“Take away my appearance and lead me there. We’ll go the way you came.”

Imps were already rushing in towards the tabernacle. Loud screams sounded. Black smoke trailed off from the shattered effigy into the prayer coves. Gamble removed my appearance and led me into the cove in time to dodge the giant imps, wielding large axes. A loud gong rang. Horns blew. Bells chimed.

We made our way, free of appearance, deeper into the coves.
No one stopped us. They were all too busy focusing on the destroyed effigy.

What is the imp Musa's end game...