Tsen Chuk lay in the center of the doorway chamber, his blue scales shimmering in torchlight. Byron could hardly believe the size of him, easily the length of two buses and as just as tall as a British double-decker when standing on all fours. The dragon brooked no argument with his study, which he had requested before the trio passed on to Craeton's Bay. They would actually be going to nearby Moorehead, where they would hire on a carriage to drive them to Craeton's Bay, but Byron had practically begged Daggeuro and Tsen Chuk himself to allow him to study the dragon's body from every angle.
He was just hopping down off of Tsen Chuk's tail when Kathy realized what he was up to. As they walked to the Moorehead door, she leaned in close to him and said, "You're going to write his name on a card."
"A dragon could be useful in a pinch," Byron replied. "Of course, I don't know if it'll work. I've never tried to write someone's name before." They passed through the Ether door and its mysterious, foggy hallway, coming out the other side into what looked like a small park in the middle of a medieval-looking township. The streets surrounding them were cobblestone, the shanties and houses made of either warped wood or rough stone masonry, not the most stable-looking structures. Everything in Moorehead had a falling down look to it, even the stables where they hired a carriage and driver from a grimey-looking elf with more fingers than teeth.
Kathy and Byron sat on one bench, Daggeuro across from them, a book of poems open in his lap. After riding through the countryside for a brief while, Kathy asked, "What's with the poetry, Dag? I never figured you for the sort to read that stuff."
"Yeah, I was gonna ask you before, eat any good books lately," Byron quipped. Kathy nudged him in the ribs, earning a yelp from him.
"I'm actually very well read, Mr. Torg," Daggeuro said dryly. "It's for the wedding. Or rather, for the reception. Selena wants me to memorize and recite a poem for us to open the festivities. I'm having a devil of a time finding one that suits us both, I'm afraid."
"Does she have a favorite," Kathy asked.
"A few. Why?"
"She's a bride, Dag. She doesn't actually want you to pick a poem you think fits. She wants you to pick one you think she'd pick, and you'd better get the right one. Trust me, I've seen 'Bridezillas'."
"Is that one of your reality television shows?"
"Yeah."
"I thought you said the people on those shows were all monsters and idiots."
"Doesn't make them not-real. Get crackin'," Kathy said with a smile. She watched the hills and fields roll by outside of their carriage along the trade road, mentally marking the occasional outbound patrolman that kept the roads safe from specter assault. They called them Wilders here in Engelesh, the equivalent of Amermidst's Rangers, but these men and women served in solitude. Either they were highly capable, or there weren't many gruesome specters in Engelesh.
The trio passed into Craeton's Bay shortly before five in the afternoon, Daggeuro offering their gnome driver a seven drake tip for his service. The kennin High Knight told Kathy and Byron to take a tour of the town, which was a sizable fishing and shipping port on the coast. Kathy had yet to ever see a proper large ship in Ether, and Byron was more than happy to guide her to the pier. He'd been to Craeton's Bay a few times, he informed her.
While the humans took off, Daggeuro nipped into the nearest hotel and took a room under his own name, dashing through the quaint, New England-style establishment to his room. He tossed his enchanted bag on the bed, watching with wry amusement as it bucked and writhed on its own. Senta emerged from within, gasping, wheezing for air.
"That was a very near thing on the air, Sir Daggeuro," the assassin choked out. "Another hour and I would have suffocated."
"No prattling. You have your assignment. Burnstrom is downstairs in 208, I saw his name in the guest log book." Senta gave a sharp salute and vanished, off to do his part. Daggeuro shrugged out of his armor, donned his simple blue tunic and trousers, and lay on his bed with his book of poems. He kept Kathy's advice from the carriage in mind.
Kathy ducked as pixies flitted past her head inside the trader vessel Insurmountable, a ship rigged for oceanic expeditions to Thorenica across the waters. The ship's captain, a swarthy minotaur, had recognized Byron from an article he'd done praising the Shippers Union, and happily granted them access for a tour. He was just now showing them the second deck.
"Yar, ye both have my 'pologies about the pixies, they've been busy as all bugger gettin' the lady fixed up these last three days. Had water wights come aboard two days out from harbor here, wrecked the place, killed half my crew. They do a fine job, but they won't clean the mess."
"I could help with that," said Kathy.
"Oh? How so?" Kathy pointed at a mop and bucket a few yards away, channeling her power at them. The mop hopped up into the wringer, which squeezed down on its own. The mop then leaped out, swabbing back and forth all on its own.
"Well, isn't that handy? Say, miss, would you be willing to make all the cleaning supplies do that?" Kathy and Byron smiled at one another. He wrote on a card, snapping a power scrubber into existence, which she then animated. The captain hooted and clapped, handing her a bag of fifty drakes so he could go off into town for some drinking. "Show yerselves round, hardies," he called back as he departed.
"Well, let's earn our keep," Byron said. He gave Kathy a raised eyebrow. "By the way, you just confirmed a theory of mine."
"What's that?"
"Most actual machines I produce don't work here. I wouldn't normally have been able to make that scrubber work. No electricity."
"So?"
"So I need to think on that," he said, following Kathy around the ship, producing equipment where they needed it with his cards.
It was almost nine o'clock when Kathy and Byron knocked on Daggeuro's door, the kennin High Knight still dressed in his casual garb. Byron seemed perplexed. "I was starting to imagine you lived in that armor."
"That would be rather impractical, don't you think," Daggeuro countered. "What can I do for you, friends?"
"How do you feel about a late dinner," Kathy asked. After carefully avoiding the seedier parts of town some twenty minutes later, the trio stood in the entryway of one of Craeton's Bay's finest restaurants, Monchant's. The décor screamed money, and the color scheme of deep scarlet and gold could be seen everywhere, even upon the maitre'd's scarf, tucked into his vest. He wore the sort of thin-rimmed, rounded glasses favored by aristocratic types, an elf who would not have stood out in the society pages of Kathy's world. She took one look at this man, and laid over top his forehead in her mind's eye was a single word in italics- 'Smug'.
The elf's forehead stretched in bemusement as the trio approached, mouth drawn down. "Reservations," he asked, his tone pompous.
"I fear not, good sir," said Daggeuro. "We are but newly arrived today in Craeton's Bay, and sent no missive ahead. Mayhap we can be seen to in any event without." The maitre'd chuckled, a closed-mouth throat hum Kathy and Byron recognized as belonging to those members of society who conveyed the impression that theirs was a better class of citizen.
"My good man, even were I to make an exception, which I shall not, you and your guests hardly seem the kind of clientele we cater to. You simply do not meet the expectations of our establishment." Daggeuro puffed out his chest, and Kathy could see his hands stiffening into hooked forms best suited to ripping or strangling. She took up Byron's arm and moved them one step cautiously back.
"My, good, man," Daggeuro said, his voice light and airy, as if testing these words for their validity. He cocked his head to one side. "What is thy name, sir?"
"I beg pardon?"
"Name. What is thy name," Daggeuro asked, as though speaking to a dim-witted child.
"Er, Samuel," said the maitre'd, looking uncomfortable.
"Samuel. Excellent name. Samuel? My friends and I are hungry. We have traveled far from Celia, capital of Amermidst Kingdom. I serve there as High Knight of Ovin's court, you see," he said. Kathy and Byron both held back vicious grins as the color drained from Samuel's face, mouth starting to droop open in dismay. "I am not an elitist, or at least, I try not to be. My friends here can tell you, I'm sometimes too stuffy by far. Isn't that right," he asked, looking to the pair, who nodded. He returned his attention to the elf. "You see? And I've come to appreciate the position of those of lower social rank, to understand their frustrations and misgivings about wealth, rank and privilege. Now, a man with no money should not be starved like a dog in the street just because he's less fortunate than I. I firmly believe that. Building on that, a man with money and an honorable reputation should not be held out of enjoying a nice meal in a gorgeous atmosphere because he and his company don't look like the well-dressed whoremasters and vipers seated within a given establishment."
All of this Daggeuro said in the pleasant, melodious tone of an academic pontificating on his or her subject of lifelong study. The maitre'd had gone from mollified to terrified in less time than it would take to order their meal, if they got seated.
"I-I-I," the elf stammered.
"You're going to grab three menus and show us over to the empty table I spotted over by the wall with the filigreed golden chain armor, and you're going to be thankful I'm the one who's done all the talking. I could have let this gentleman deal with you," he said, grabbing Byron by the shoulder and giving him a comradely shake. "He's far less tolerant of such arrogance as yours."
When they were seated, the maitre'd scarpered off like his ass was on fire and his head was catching. Byron silently golf clapped at Daggeuro. "Brilliantly done, man. That was some of the best shit I've seen in a long time dealing with clowns like that."
"Yes, well, for far too long I wasn't much different from that prig," Daggeuro said. "You should have seen how I treated my brothers when I was first knighted. I was dreadful to them. Took me until about nine years ago to pull my head out of my ass. Even since then, it still manages to get wedged up there occasionally." He popped open his menu and reviewed their options. "Well, order whatever you'd like, my friends. Tonight, dinner's on me." They enjoyed a lovely meal that evening, and good company, Daggeuro sharing tales of his adventures and his early service as a member of the Royal Guard.
Kathy learned things about Daggeuro's life that evening she'd never known before. He had, for instance, once been betrothed to a kennin woman who served in the Rangers, a retriever clan woman by the name of Gisette. She had broken his heart, however, by sleeping with several of his friends, all of whom he later denounced. One fellow, an elf named Corid Chandell, had spent an afternoon bragging at a tavern about how he'd pulled the wool over the knight's eyes on that score. He hadn't known Daggeuro was seated in the corner of that bar, and had been utterly caught off guard when the kennin warrior smashed a chair over his head.
"I was a bit less balanced in those days," Daggeuro said as his companions gasped. "I spent some time in a very dark place in my heart after that. But I quickly turned that hurt into a fire, one with which I further honed my dedication to my duties."
When their meal was finished, he concluded his storytelling with a brief tale about his first encounter with a dragon, a great yellow wyrm named Kelbrock who lived in the Alep Hills in Amermidst's southwestern provinces. He had come upon the dragon in the form of a sickly old man squatting in the ruins of a broken-down shack alongside a trade road. Daggeuro offered the man food, and declared that he would nurse him back to health. Five days he spent tending to the frail old man.
On the fifth day, when he went out to fetch plants to mix into a salve for the old timer's cough, he returned to find the shack gone, a massive yellow dragon standing in its place. "Your heart is true, Sir Daggeuro," the dragon had boomed. "Behold, I am Kelbrock, the man you've been caring for these few days!" Daggeuro dropped the pouch of plants he'd been gathering, too frightened to move. "Fear me not, kennin, for you, unlike the seventeen men who passed me by before you, are a good man. I would never harm such as you."
The dragon gave to Daggeuro then a pair of fine platinum gauntlets, endowed with an enchantment that would allow him to repel sickness. Holding these with wide, wondering eyes, he had watched the dragon take wing, flying off to who knew where.
"Are those the ones you still wear today," Kathy asked, snared by his tale.
"They are," said Daggeuro. He paid for their meal and guided his compatriots back to the hotel, where they went to their separate rooms. Sitting on his bed in the dark, the kennin silently hoped they would open to him as he had to them. It might be nice, after all, to know more about two of the only friends he had.
The Chained One sat at the base of his tree, general Quintus standing a few paces away, hands folded behind his back, his new armor shining in the moonlight. Their newest soldiers would be back soon, having been sent to a woodland not far south of Parik to test their mettle against two groups of warring goblins.
Quintus spotted his lieutenant, a hulking minotaur huntsman, leading his troops into town, greeted by their fellow followers of The Chained One. Even the dogs and cats gave warm welcome to them, since they were not naturally frightening like the specters camped in a ring around the town's perimeter.
Chains had been fused to the minotaur's wrists, and like general Quintus, he had been granted a new name, Darius. He marched up to Quintus, and the two men embraced, clapping one another roughly on the back. "You return to us, lieutenant Darius, whole and in good spirit! Tell me, how went the battle?"
"A proper rout, sir," Darius replied, his voice thunderous. "The hook noses fled before us, and all who could not escape were butchered."
"For the glory of the Chains," Quintus exclaimed, raising his fist over his heart.
"Glory of the Chains," Darius repeated, his soldiers echoing this victory cry. "Does our master wish to speak with us?" Quintus looked back at The Chained One, who remained motionless.
"Not at this time, brother," Quintus said. "Go now to your homes and tents, friends. Take food and drink, and rest well. On the morrow, we begin the work of expanding this township, that we may have proper shelter for all." Darius bowed to him and barked orders at his men to be at ease for the evening. Quintus walked over to his master in the town square's central garden, sitting down in the dirt with his legs folded in like The Chained One. "Master, what think you of Darius?"
"He will do," the creature snapped sharply.
"Master, does something ail you?"
"It does indeed," said The Chained One, his breath rattling loudly. "One of the Awakened whose blood and power I attempted to take. His power was not born of this world. I cannot use it. This is a shame, for his power is intriguing to me." The creature clacked its teeth together loudly several times, thinking. "But that is not your concern, Quintus. Go you out among the specters, find one that is intelligent and that seems worthy of rank. You need another lieutenant."
"Aye, my master, I shall." Quintus stalked away, leaving the malign apparition to its musings.
The hotel the trio from Celia were staying at sported its own small diner for breakfast and lunch, a convenience its guests kept coming back for according to their waitress, a cheerful gotrin woman in a blue blouse and long black skirt. She poured them all coffee and took their orders, then shuffled away.
Kathy held Byron's hand atop the table, his free right hand tapping ashes into a glass tray as he smoked. "I've been thinking about my own adolescence since dinner last night, Dag," she said. "And you know what? It may not have involved magic and monsters, but I had my own adventures, too."
"Everyone does," Daggeuro said brightly. "Share some with us." Kathy began by telling them (Byron had heard this bit already) about being born in Iowa, and how she'd moved north to Minnesota with her mother and brothers when she was still young. Daggeuro understood the concept of divorce, though he had known only a handful of people in his life who'd used that legal tool.
When she was just ten years old, she lived in an apartment complex in a suburb of Minneapolis, and it was there that she discovered the meaning of terror. Her brother Jacob, younger of the two boys, had taken to locking her in her bedroom closet without light or noise to let her know what was going on. It was in those long stretches, alone in the dark silence, that her mind conjured up the worst nightmares of her imagination. When her mother found out about what Jacob had been doing to her, she'd gone ballistic.
At eleven, her father had remarried, hitching himself with an Irish woman who, as Kathy put it, resembled what she imagined the Wicked Witch of the West would be like on her period. Daggeuro chuckled.
"You get that," Byron asked.
"Selena brought over a television and DVD player from your world. We run them with magic now and again as a hobby. I find your tale of Oz enchanting."
"She was spiteful, hateful, and treated me like a virus with shoes every time I went down to visit during the summer. My mom used to joke that Theresa had to give the best blowjobs in the world, because she couldn't think of any other reason for my dad to be with her." Byron and Daggeuro both chuckled at this jape, and Kathy continued her tale weaving.
At twelve, she attended a Bible Camp promoted and run by her church group, the mention of which made Byron cringe. "I know, I know, bear with me here," she said, pressing her hands in the air downward. It was during that summer that she learned about the damage firecrackers could do. Billy Warrick, one of the boys from her age group, lit a firecracker and held it too long, blowing his hand to hell and breakfast. She recalled the screaming, the blood, and the dark laughter that she'd had to push down at the sight of it all.
"That's enough for me for now," she said as their breakfast arrived. The trio ate, comparing notes on their separate childhood pasttimes. Kathy was pleased to discover that she and Byron, only a few years apart, had grown up on a lot of the same media influences, though the clearly diverted when it came to about the age of ten or eleven. Where Kathy remained involved for years in church and upbeat, positive family interactions, Byron leaned hard into the darker, nastier aspects of entertainment and home life. He had become the black sheep of his family, used as a punchline by his brothers and largely ignored or reprimanded for any overt infraction by his parents. It seemed, from how he spoke of them, that the only surefire way to get their attention had been by doing something so big that they couldn't help but notice.
He had, for instance, been a steady honor roll student throughout his youth. This was praised until he was about eleven, at which point it seemed to be taken for granted as a given. When his grades dipped, though, in his junior year, his mother and father took note, laying into him with lectures or screaming fits about 'towing the line' and 'fucking up a decent future'. When he pulled himself back up, the silence had returned. He found it oddly preferable.
Kathy was glad to have the food and talk of preparations to cut into Byron's recollections. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear more detailed accounts of his family life; where she'd always enjoyed her family's company, at least for the most part, it sounded from the snippets Byron offered like his family was a nest of sarcastic, smarmy cobras.
Daggeuro finished their chatter by instructing them both to split up and spend the day walking the town of Craeton's Bay. "Use your creativity to come up with ways to defend this town when The Chained One comes. Remember, this is Engelesh; our ranks mean nothing here. We all have to come up with solutions for an attack."
"Are you going to warn the town leadership," Byron asked as they stepped outside.
"Yes. I'll handle the straight militia and political angle. That's where I have experience and skill. We'll meet back here at three o'clock this afternoon. Agreed?" Kathy and Byron agreed, and all three set about seeing to the defense of Craeton's Bay.
The specter that had been brought before The Chained One groaned, trying to raise its head off of the floor. With a bullet-shaped head and bulbous body, covered in small orbs of gray flesh, the rest of its skin a slimy black substance like leather, it had stood out from its fellow specters under Quintus's careful eye. Tall and broad, its left arm was a massively muscular thing ending in a six-clawed hand, each finger six inches long. Its right arm, a multijointed, thin appendage, forked at it last bend into three sucker-covered tentacles. A giant, prehensile scorpion's stinger sat midway down its back, swishing drowsily as it awoke.
Terekos, its kind were once called, fairy for 'devourers'. Centuries before, there had been thousands of them across the Ether. Now, there were perhaps three-hundred in the known world. This one had been brought before The Chained One by Quintus, and it had followed him willingly enough. But as soon as it stood before the apparition, it had loosed a roar from its long, wide mouth, leaping at him with claws ready to strike.
The Chained One had slapped it into the ground with a magical wall of water, pulverizing it with hovering ice hammers when it landed. Now it was waking up, a brace of some kind around its thick throat.
"What is this," the specter growled, sitting up, clutching at the metal band. Quintus, sitting on a stool a few yards away in the barn, couldn't see any eyes of any sort, but he knew the creature could see him. It aimed its rounded head at him. "You, elf! What manner of binding is this?"
"I haven't a clue," Quintus said, which was the truth. He wore that morning a studded leather kilt, crafted by one of the town's smithies at his master's request. The armor he wore, emblazoned with a crest showing a length of chain, had been put on over a simple red cotton shirt. The Chained One had commented that it reminded him of his first days in Ether, when he was but an Awakened human soldier from somewhere called Rome. Quintus continued, "All I know is that the master had it made last night." He got up off of the stool, and the tereko lunged at him from a crouch.
When it was four feet from him, the collar flashed, and he was driven down with a crash into the barn floor. He got up onto his bizarre hands and dense, knobby knees. "Sorcery to hold me back," the tereko snarled. "Cowardice!"
"You call it cowardice, I call it genius," said Quintus airily. He folded his hands behind his back and strutted right up to the tereko. "You needn't be so hostile. Weren't you drawn to us?"
"Against my will, by other sorcery," it snapped, standing upright swiftly. "Though it smelled similar to this collar."
"Look, I chose you because I knew you were different than the other specters," said Quintus, pacing. "That you could speak I already knew. I'd overheard you several times while walking among your kin. I'd seen the way many of them shied from you. They fear you."
"And for good reason," said the tereko. "The tereko of my bloodline have developed a resistance to the sacred magics that once destroyed us with barely an effort. We breed only the mightiest!"
"And the most cunning, no doubt," said Quintus. "Talking terekos didn't exist three generations ago. You're evolving."
"I know not this word. It matters not," the tereko spat, flashing out his claws. The collar activated, pushing him away from Quintus by an unseen force. "Draw your weapon and kill me! I would rather be dead than enslaved!"
"You are no slave," said Quintus softly. "The collar isn't permanent. You are being asked to serve as one of my two lieutenants under the master's leadership. See this not as punishment, but for what it is, specter; an honor." The creature turned away, dragging its taloned feet as it paced the floor several times. Finally, it offered a reply.
"Will the faerie beneath me obey my commands?"
"So long as you don't order them to kill themselves or one another, and you don't contradict myself of the master."
"Go, then," it snarled, pointing one long claw at Quintus. "Tell our master that I will serve him as your lieutenant, but only on one condition."
"And that is?"
"I want food," the specter said. "Prepared meals, not the wild game I have hunted all my life. If I am to be treated as faerie," it said, folding its strange arms over its broad chest, "I'm going to eat like one."