The duelist 9, p.5
The Duelist 9, page 5
“This is a happy occasion,” Zoie finally said. “And I’m so delighted to be able to share this with all of you. But we must turn our attention to other matters.”
Goddamn, she was sounding more and more like an Asher’s first wife by the day. A fierce warrior, a loving wife, an excited mother, and now a regal diplomat? Was there anything she couldn’t do?
“You’re right, love,” I said, and I leaned down to kiss her cheek before I continued. “We still need to deal with the Soaring Light, and-- hang on. Where’s Nemis?”
The last time I’d seen him, he’d been tied up with a hood over his head while being led to a dungeon.
“Mercedes! We forgot about Nemis!” Shay gasped and pressed her hands to her mouth. “He must still be locked up in the dungeons.”
“Shit!” I winced.
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about a poor man being thrown into the brig of his own ship. The pirates, led by Luhrmann, had hijacked Councilman Sha-Kane’s ship, the Gilded Dawn, thrown the Councilman overboard, and then slaughtered his men. Using the Dawn’s reputation, they’d then intercepted the Soaring Light, where they’d taken Amaya and Anwaar prisoner, along with the rest of the crew, and thrown Captain Nemis in his own cells.
Captain Nemis had not been especially warm, but he’d been fair and very respectable. There was no way I was going to leave him to languish in the brig of the Soaring Light any longer than I needed to.
“Come on,” I said, “We need to get the man out of there.”
My three wives, Horus, Anwaar, and myself all headed over to the Soaring Light and below decks to find there were actually two people in the cells, not just one. The first was obviously Nemis, who seemed barely conscious and more than a little delirious, but the second was a lemur-man who seemed to be unsuccessfully trying to coax Nemis into drinking water.
The lemur-man recoiled from the bars when I approached. I couldn’t remember seeing him before, but maybe he’d heard about how Krev Alda had taken the form of a high-ranked Asher, so I tried for my most encouraging smile.
“We mean you no harm,” I told him. “We’re friends of Nemis’, we’re here to get him out.”
“What about the pirates?” the lemur-man asked, and his eyes narrowed.
“They’re gone,” I answered. “I killed Luhrmann myself. And Horus killed the Rogue mage, Aiken.”
I had helped, though, because I’d also somehow managed to reverse time, thereby saving Horus from a dagger to the heart. But we hadn’t had a chance to properly discuss that yet. Not the new limitations of my time powers, nor the consequences such a thing might have for someone who’d technically died and come back.
“Good riddance,” the lemur-man remarked, and I nodded firmly.
“We’re gonna get you out of there,” I said and turned to the others. “Anyone have a key?”
The general consensus from my Crew was ‘no,’ and I frowned. I didn’t really want to go hunting around this enormous ship for a set of keys, assuming the keys were even still on the ship. They were probably in some random pirate’s back pocket. Those crazy bastards may well have even thrown the keys overboard.
I groaned and let my head tip forward to pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Perhaps I can help.”
I looked up to see Horus standing before the cell door with his hands in his pockets and a placid expression on his face.
“No offense, but those bars look a lot sturdier than you,” I told him, but he shook his head.
“Not every solution requires force, Chief,” he said, and he crouched before the lock on the cell door. “Sometimes, it’s just about finesse.”
He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and I saw he held a strange metal object in each hand, like a wire, or a knitting needle, but the ends were oddly-shaped. A moment later, as Horus inserted them into the lock, I understood.
“You have lockpicks?” I asked. “You can pick locks?”
“I studied a lot of things as a kid,” the falcon-man told me with a shrug. “Not just alchemy. Not to mention, with a father as crazy as mine, it helped to have a few tricks up your sleeve.”
Shay hummed in grim agreement. Zoie made a sympathetic purring noise and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and the phoenix-woman leaned into her touch gratefully.
“You have to teach me!” I grinned at Horus. “That’s so cool!”
He was like a rogue from a D&D campaign.
“Sure thing, Chief,” Horus laughed just as the cell door gave a ‘click’ and swung open on creaking hinges.
Shay immediately rushed in, with her hands already aglow with her Incarnate healing power, and she began checking over the now fully-unconscious Captain Nemis. The lemur-man, meanwhile, peered up at us all, and I outstretched a hand both for a handshake and to help him to his feet.
He looked at it for a few moments but then took it.
“I’m Alex Brightwood,” I said as I helped him to his feet. “Who’re you?”
“Kohen,” the lemur-man answered. “I was the Overseer that Councilman Sha-Kane was supposed to be situating when the Gilded Dawn was taken over by those wretched pirates. I’m a Duelist, like yourself, but they confiscated my stone when they threw me in here.”
He eyed the glowing stone around my neck, and I frowned in sympathy.
Why was I not surprised?
“Oh,” Horus then said, and he reached into his pocket again. “This must be yours, then. I got it off Aiken’s… ash pile.”
“You Ashed a mage?” Kohen asked as he stared at the falcon-man and then me. “You Ashed something besides a demon?”
“Well, possibly, I guess,” I said with a shrug, and I rubbed the back of my neck a little self-consciously as I looked at Horus, who also shrugged. “But he was a Rogue mage. I think he was just holding himself together with fucked-up magic. There wasn’t enough personhood left in him to die normally.”
“Which is one of the many reasons a mage requires an augur partner,” Anwaar said primly.
I was a little impressed that, even despite the ordeal she’d been through, her main issue seemed to be that the man who’d taken her and her sister prisoner just had no respect for the practices they’d dedicated their lives to.
“Good riddance,” Kohen said again, and I nodded firmly.
“How’s the captain looking there, Shay?” I then asked, and I leaned slightly sideways to get a look at my phoenix-wife as she ran her magic over the raccoon-man’s limp form. She had a frown on her face that made me uneasy. “Is something wrong?”
“Something is,” she said. “But I’m not quite sure what. It feels… similar to what Jenner had in his mind.”
Oh, fuck. That wasn’t good.
Still, at least we knew how to fix it.
“Are you sure?” Amaya asked, and she took a step toward the cell and Shay while pulling Anwaar behind her by the arm. “Sister, you read more about these curses than I did…”
“I did,” Anwaar confirmed. “Do you think…?”
“I do,” Amaya agreed, and the two of them let a soft glow of not-quite-visible magic waft through the air, like probing fingers. They wrapped around Shay’s hands as if they were a friend giving a comforting squeeze, then around Nemis.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kohen’s already-large lemur eyes grow even larger with shock.
A moment later, the magic faded, and the three women’s faces were grim with understanding.
“What?” I asked. “Is it like Jenner after all? Is it worse?”
“Not worse,” Shay told me. “Just… different. Certain Leen-folk are bound to the house of their Lord, a sort of… insurance for their loyalty, a requirement of vassalage. The enchantment alters their mind in a specific way, and it varies from Lord to Lord, from servant to servant. But it doesn’t seem to be as strong or as destructive as the Eng-enchantment in dear Jenner’s head.”
“Oh, that’s a relief,” I said. “So, can you fix it? Or do Rylan and I need to do our thing again?”
“I can’t, but Anwaar should be able to,” Shay answered, and she waved the ibex-mage forward with a smile.
Anwaar looked calm and confident, and she nodded graciously as she knelt beside Shay in front of Nemis.
“The enchantment on Eng is ancient and set in its ways,” she said. “This is comparably new. I should be able to break this with no negative repercussions to the captain.”
She reached for Amaya, who was already there, and took one of my oryx-wife’s hands as she rested the other on Nemis’ forehead. Now I understood that the need for Amaya wasn’t to draw on her strength, even if she did have considerable power, but to keep Anwaar grounded so she didn’t slide down the slippery slope that resulted in someone like Aiken.
A few moments later, Nemis began to stir, and inside of a minute he was sitting up in the cell, dazed but otherwise alright. Then Shay helped to heal the last of his more superficial wounds, presumably sustained from a beatdown by Luhrmann and his crew.
“Asher Brightwood,” he said when he got his bearings. “What… what are you doing here?”
“Good to see you, Captain,” I told him. “Your ship was taken over by Luhrmann and his Virus crew. How much do you remember?”
“Hm… not a great deal,” Nemis admitted as he rubbed his head, but already I could see urgency on the edges of his expression. “But I imagine the important parts will come back to me in time. I have a more important matter to attend to for now.”
“Oh, you do?” I asked. “What is it? Maybe we can help.”
Nemis looked up at me, and his eyes were clear and stern.
“Where is Prince Bodin of House Hana?”
Chapter 4
I was sure I’d misheard.
“Prince who of where?” Shay squawked, and her emerald eyes went wide with disbelief. “Surely you don’t mean our Bodin?”
“Is there another?” Nemis asked dryly, but there was still unmistakable irritation on his face. “I’ve been looking for him for months. I know he’s nearby. I know he’s bound himself into your service, Brightwood. Where is he?”
I wasn’t about to give up my friend to this guy without knowing exactly what I was getting Bodin into, so I eyed Nemis with a firm expression.
“What do you want with him?” I asked in an authoritative voice. I even mustered just a hint of that ‘Asshole Asher’ persona I’d had to don while I’d been masquerading as Krev, just to show I meant business.
Nemis scowled at me, but not like I’d wounded his pride or something, not like with Luhrmann and Aiken. This was something simpler. Almost… childish.
“I want to kick his ass for faking his death all those years ago,” Nemis said flatly. “And paying off one of the archivists to erase him from the Hana Family Histories.”
Wait-- what?
“Bodin… faked his death?” Zoie blinked in disbelief.
“And erased himself from his family history?” Shay asked, and she actually looked like she might faint.
That I could understand, she was well-versed in the political machinations of family relations, and something like scrubbing yourself from the records was probably very shocking if not downright insane.
“That’s… a lot,” I said, because it was, and I didn’t really know how to respond. I couldn’t fathom the idea of erasing yourself from your family history-- mainly because I’d never had a family of my own, not until I’d come to Aventoll, at which point I’d built my own family. Founded it. I’d been desperate for a place to belong for as long as I could remember. But for someone with a lineage that went back Mercedes-knew-how-long, maybe the chance to build your own legacy would be freeing, and the weight of all those ancestors would be a crushing burden.
“Tell me where my cousin is,” Nemis said as he continued to glower at me. “I want him to pay for the pain he caused our family.”
“Okay, let’s maybe take a breath there,” I said, and I raised my hands as if to physically push Nemis back, though he was still sitting on the floor of the cell beside Shay and Anwaar. “Bodin’s our friend. I’m not gonna sic some long-lost angry cousin on him out of nowhere.”
“I’m only a long-lost cousin because he ran away!” Nemis snapped. “He abandoned us! He faked his death! We mourned him!”
I’d never learned a relative or friend had faked their death, so I had no experience for the combination of rage and relief Nemis was currently feeling, but I did know that apparently-Prince Bodin was much more likely to explain his situation to us if he wasn’t being beaten to a pulp by his cousin.
With this in mind, I waved Shay, Amaya, and Anwaar out of the cell, and before Nemis could scramble his feet, I shut the cell door and locked him in there again.
“Let me out!” he demanded as he slapped his hands against the bars. “This is my damned ship! You let me out right now! Brightwood!”
“This is just temporary, Captain,” I promised him, and I forced my voice to stay even and calming, like I had with savage-Jenner in the Dark Realm. “We’ll let you out once you’ve calmed down and we’ve had a chance to get Bodin’s side of the story. We’ll come back in a couple hours, alright?”
“Y-You can’t be serious!” Nemis spluttered. “This is my ship! Let me out!”
“Once you can be trusted not to maim or murder your cousin, we will,” Zoie told him firmly, and that was all there was to be said on the matter, because a second later we heard trumpeting from outside.
At that moment, I suddenly remembered the Okoba had their woods infested by the remaining members of Luhrmann’s pirate crew, since they’d all fled after I’d killed their captain and Rogue mage.
Which meant it was one hundred percent my fault if those thieving scumbags hurt any of the Okoba or damaged the forest.
“We should help out,” I said to the others, and I was already headed for the stairs back up to the top deck.
Zoie and Horus were hot on my heels, and both of them had already drawn their respective weapons by the time we emerged into the daylight again.
“Are you sure we can leave Captain Nemis down there?” Kohen the lemur-man asked me as we walked across the desk toward the gangplank and the lakeshore. “It’s a humiliation to keep a captain imprisoned in his own ship.”
“I know,” I admitted. “But Bodin’s my friend, and a good guy. Plus, he’s been such a huge help with… with our friend. She’s had a rough time of it recently. I don’t want him getting the shit kicked out of him by his own cousin. And I want to hear his side of things, first.”
Kohen bobbed his head like he agreed with me, even though he was still concerned about Nemis. I had to admire that. He was willing to let his mind be changed, but he was still loyal to his friends.
“I concede that it would be easier to speak to the prince without the captain trying to tackle him,” the lemur-man told me, and I chuckled a little at that.
Once we got to the shore of the lake where the Soaring Light was moored, it became apparent we weren’t the only witnesses to the Okoba’s apparently very successful efforts to flush the pirates out of their forests.
Several former members of the pirate ship’s ‘Virus’ crew were sprinting out of the forest, and none of them looked remotely like they had anything under control. They were just bullies, really, who’d all ganged up together in a facade of strength and intimidation. But after someone had taken out their leader, they were just cowards rushing to save their own miserable lives.
On the lakeshore across from us, several more pirates, either unconscious or dead, were being dragged out of the forest, too. Once they were clear of the trees, they were thrown onto a pile like they were just bits of firewood.
And then there stood the Okoba’s other spectators, and I gaped at the enormous creatures that were a wholly separate race from the Omites.
“Tatabo Plains people,” Horus said in a soft, awed voice. “I’ve never seen them with my own eyes before. They’re enormous.”
“Mercedes,” I muttered in agreement.
These creatures really should have been called the Tatabo Giants or something, because even the smallest of them, clearly a juvenile from how it was moving and behaving, was over twelve feet tall and could probably crush me with one lumbering step.
Their expressions were utterly unreadable as they watched the Okoba sloth-people take the proverbial trash out of their forest. Honestly, if Horus hadn’t said anything about them being people, I might’ve just assumed they were unusually humanoid-looking trees.
“Any sign of why they blew the trumpet?” I asked as I cast my gaze around, because I couldn’t see anyone holding a horn or what might have caused someone to sound a horn in the first place.
Everything seemed very under control. Comically so, really.
“Not that I can see,” Horus replied, and as a falcon, I knew he had the best eyesight of our group. But, a moment later, he swore under his breath and pointed off to the side. “Mercedes! Shay, is that who I think it is?”
Shay’s head whipped around to look in the direction her brother was pointing, and she gaped.
“It is!” she gasped. “I-- how is he here? How is he alive?”
“What? Who?” I asked as I tried to see with my paltry human eyes what their bird-like eyes noticed with ease. “Who’s here? Who’s alive?”
“Councilman Sha-Kane!” Kohen cried out, and he surged forward just as my eyes found the osprey-man, who until bare seconds earlier I’d believed to be dead.
In her dream-trance-thing, Amaya told me Luhrmann’s crew had thrown the Councilman overboard the Gilded Dawn to his death.
Apparently, he’d survived.
“Kohen, old friend!” Sha-Kane said as he met the lemur-man halfway, and they embraced one another heartily. “You’re still alive, then?”
“Thanks in no small part to Asher Brightwood and his friends,” Kohen said equally and gestured to me.
Now that I could get a good look at him, I could see that whatever Sha-Kane had survived had been nothing short of an ordeal. He was missing a chunk of feathers from the crest on his head, his arms were covered in small scratches, and there were dark circles under his eyes from exhaustion.
