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A Creature of War, Book 6, CH01
🕑 Added 2025-05-18 13:00:05 +0000 UTCWhere did I leave off?
Oh yes. The temple.
Let’s start there, so you get a sense of how things went until the next time our Lord’s intervention needs to be recounted.
* * * * *
He traveled west out of the city, following the road. His plan was to head to the other side of the continent directly and without stopping, but when he walked through the next town, the Keeper there was already ranting about the destruction of the temple, how demons were everywhere, how they all had to be vigilant, how even their best friend could be one of them. That they shouldn’t take any chances and tell her, so the Celeste would judge them.
The way everyone looked at each other with suspicion made LRK’s stomach turn. These were neighbors, families and friends. If the Keeper had them acting this way toward each other, what were they going to do to any stranger staying the night?
He left the town, wishing he could just end the woman there, but even if no one would know it was him, the panic her public death would cause would add too many casualties, and he wouldn’t be able to leave his message.
He left the road an hour away and doubled back through the woods, where he waited for nightfall.
He considered killing her at a distance, and continuing with his trip, but without his message, how would they know this wasn’t a random killing? There was no temple in this small town to destroy as his calling card.
Sneaking in was simple when he could muffle any sound he made and locks were something only cities needed. He was in her house, broke her neck, wrote his message and out within a few minutes. He even posed her with her legs together and arms spread, in a cross, a position he remembered from some old religious figure. The message was simply ‘The Celeste Spreads Hate’.
In the next village, he heard about the temple’s destruction in their inn. The story included some black creature that had been seen lurking around before the destruction. Another story was about a town north of them, where a demon had been recently burned.
While he ate and listened, he observed how everyone looked not only at him with suspicion, but each other. That night, he killed the Keeper and left him impaled on a spike of stone with his message. ‘The Celeste Spreads hate,’ over this one too, before heading north.
When he reached the town, the mood was subdued and people avoided the center, where the remains of the pyre, and the blackened bones, were still smoking.
A beaver stopped next to him and spat on the ground. “A good thing that was,” he said.
LRK glanced at him, wondering how long the fire had burned for it to still be smoking. It would have taken days for news to reach the tavern.
“How did you know they were a demon?” LRK asked. Someone else had died at the hand of the Celeste. How many of them would he be unable to save?
“Was run over by a carriage. Got up like it had been nothing. Would have been better playing dead. He tried to run, but we caught him and brought him to the Keeper for judgment. He burned for days and days before he stopped screaming. That was an awful evil sound. Was happy when it was finally over.”
LRK closed his eyes. Regenerative abilities fast enough to keep the fire from killing him for multiple days. What kind of hell had that been? He left town to ensure no one could tell him how good of a thing this death had been. He didn’t think he could keep himself from destroying it entirely if that happened, even if they were just brainwashed victims.
That night, he beat the Keeper to death with his own fists. He wanted to burn him over multiple days, let him experience what that poor Anthro had, but he didn’t have the time, so a night of pain had to suffice. He left the body on the floor of his house and wrote ‘The Celeste Kills The Innocent,’ next to it.
* * * * *
In this way, LRK made slow progress in nothing resembling a straight line. He tried to head west, but he’d hear of a demon to the south, the north or even back east, and go there. Soon, more stories of the Keepers he killed found their ways back to him.
Some stories were extensive, describing the Keeper’s deals with demons and how it had turned bad. Others spoke of the Celeste coming down and punishing them himself. Most stories were simple recounting of how the body had been found. Sometimes he heard about the message he left, but rarely enough he suspected there was active work to keep them from spreading.
The story that amused him the most, or rather the awe with which it was told, was the one about the Keeper killed in a locked room. How the demon had emerged out of the earth to strangle him before bringing down the temple, leaving only that room standing.
He’d actually come in through a high window.
Making hand and footholds in the stone was simpler than walking through the earth, and less exhausting. If he’d done as they claimed, he wouldn’t have had the energy to kill anyone when he emerged from it. He also hadn’t strangled her. She’d been wary and had fought back. He made a sword of stone and ran that through her heart, then hung her on the wall. He didn’t remember what message he left.
Because of those stories, few Keepers moved about unprotected now. Many wore visible symbols of their faith, as if it could ward him away; most used bodyguards. LRK smiled. If nothing else, his work was giving the town and city’s less savory elements a chance to earn an honest living. Not that they could stop him.
Many Keepers also went armed now, not that any of them carried themselves with the confidence that first armed one had. He saw her again months later in a city to the southwest. He’d destroyed one of the temples there a few days before, but had hung around to replenish his purse. His quest of vengeance didn’t help with supplies since he refused to plunder the temples’ coffers. Both because he didn’t want to touch the Celeste’s coins and because the cities’ inhabitants could use it more than he. So he fell back on hunting criminals for a few weeks. Once he had enough to move on he’d destroy the second temple.
He didn’t recognize her immediately. She was simply another Keeper looking over the wreckage he’d left, but instead of cursing demons or swearing to avenge the dead by destroying all of them, she asked pertinent questions. Had any strangers been seen, had anyone taken special interest in the temple. One of the guards ask why she was interested, and she answered she was tracking this demon since the first temple he’d destroyed.
LRK studied her then. She was older, but still fit. Her brown hair was graying, the black robes dirty and showed the wear of travels. And there was the sword, and the way she carried herself as if it was a weight she was used to.
The guards and shopkeepers around the temple told her any and all stories they’d heard about the demon, and by now they were so far from the truth even LRK couldn’t tell which spoke of something he’d done or something entirely made up.
She asked for descriptions, then gave some of her own, to see if any matched, most were Furrians of various species with a few humans thrown in. She even described a lynx, but the fur coloring was too dark, his body too lean, to match LRK. All the descriptions were generic enough they fit any of the travelers passing through a city.
He followed her to an inn where she took a room, instead of residing in the second temple the city had. Did this mean she knew what the fate of that temple would be? Did she suspect he was still here? Her presence almost made him leave even if he wasn’t ready, but the idea he was under her nose and she couldn’t tell gave him a thrill.
He followed her for a day, watching her talk to people, warn the city’s Keepers to be careful. She even told them to sleep in inns, rather than the temple, but they confidently told her the Celeste would see to their safety.
When she returned to the inn that evening she looked worried, and LRK had made his decision. As soon as she retired to her room, he headed for the small temple. If he waited as he’d intended, she would either increase the security on the temple which would make his work more difficult, or leave, and she wouldn’t be there to see the result first hand.
Slipping by the two guards at the door was easy; they’d fallen asleep on their stools. Vee never allowed guards to sit exactly for that reason. Falling asleep while standing was more painful, and a good reminder it was time for someone to take their place.
The door wasn’t locked. This was the Celeste’s temple after all, who would dare enter when it was closed. Who, indeed, other than a demon? He kept the hinges from making sound so the guards could keep on sleeping.
This temple consisted of the worshiping room, large enough to host two dozen of the faithful at a time, and the adjacent living quarters. He found the Keeper there, in his bed with a young woman. He was Furrian, a species LRK didn’t recognize. Long dirty gray fur, long arms and fingers. Almost Simian, but not quite. The face looked nothing like that of an ape. The acolyte was human, much younger, barely a woman.
Both were naked, and clearly had ignored the edict that members of the clergy weren’t supposed to engage in sex with one another. He could still smell it on the air.
The woman’s presence didn’t worry him. Both robes were the black of the Keepers, so they were both guilty. Having them in the same room did mean one could wake before he was done with the other, so he cut their air until they passed out. Both woke, panicking as they tried to breathe, then fell still.
He decided to be clement toward the young woman and broke her neck. She couldn’t have been part of the religion for long enough to have engaged in the kind horrors he knew the older Keeper had.
Him he kept alive until close to morning, questioning, torturing, asking about each and every ‘demon’ he’d cleansed. Of their crimes, of how he’d gone about trying to verify them. He hadn’t, of course, too certain in his beliefs that the Celeste would see to their spirits to care about the bodies.
LRK’s questions were perfunctory by now. He only listened to the answer, so he knew what to ask next, but he didn’t care. The Keepers were all the same, more monstrous than the demons they claimed to cleanse. When the man was nothing more than a broken body, he hung him on the stone wall and took out the brush and red paste he now used instead of blood.
‘The Celeste Will Die,’ he wrote over him, then added, ‘You Can’t Stop Me.’ He smiled as he imagined her anger that he’d known she was here, had done this specifically to spite her.
The paste looked like blood, but was a mixture of berries he’d seen used by a troupe of performers so they could bleed out while not putting their lives at risk.
He left by the back door, which wasn’t guarded, and waited until he was well away before bringing it down, making sure the guards weren’t hurt in the process
* * * * *
He saw that Keeper a few months later, but this time she was in the town before him, already asking questions. It could be a coincidence, but the stories of the demon destroying temples now came with those of the Keeper, chosen by the Celeste to hunt and kill that demon. He didn’t believe everything they said about her. After all, humans didn’t have powers unless they were wizards, and she didn’t have any devices that could do what the stories claimed the Celeste had empowered her with. It also had been decades since he’s met any wizards who were sane enough to stay with a hunt.
He followed her to the inn she stayed at, discreetly watched as she ate, reading through parchments. He considered sitting at her table, talking to her. The idea of her not knowing who he was while they talk sent a thrill through him, but he clamped down on it. His pride might get him killed, if he let it, or at least complicate things.
He hesitated before leaving. She wasn’t an ordinary Keeper, her ease with the weight of the sword at her hip indicated that. Maybe she had information he could use, like who was at the leader of the whole religion. That could be worth prying out of her.
He looked around the inn. But what if she wasn’t alone? What if she did know he was here, and this was a trap? If he wanted to capture someone who was hunting him, he’d make himself visible while the rest of his team blended in, waiting for the hunter to make their move.
He didn’t see anyone suspicious, but if they were professionals, he wouldn’t. Maybe she even had access to a wizard, a weak one, but still sane. The Celeste had nothing against them, so she could have instructed them to make her something. She wouldn’t have it here. The wizard needed to be close for their device to work, and even the sanest wizard would stand out in this crowd.
He was over complicating things. He’d been following the main road west for months now, destroying every temple along the way, killing every Keeper in towns that didn’t have temples. He was on foot. If she had a horse, she could have passed him while he was among a caravan, or in the night, if she was trying to get ahead of him. This could simply be her testing her theory.
He hadn’t been able to confirm how long she’d been here. She’d been at this inn for a few days, but he’d overheard guards say she’d been asking questions for over a week now, so she changed where she slept; to keep him from figuring out where she was?
He’d planned to stop here because this was the largest city in the region and had the sole temple.
LRK couldn’t let it stand.
She would know that. She would have worked out his methods, if not his schedule. She also explained the extra security around the temple. Not guards at the doors, but soldiers in the alleys around it. He didn’t mind; added complications were things he was used to dealing with.
He subdued the soldiers who were in his way, making sure they didn’t see him, as he got into the temple. The five acolytes and the Keeper there he dispatched with prejudice, leaving the nave covered in so much blood he had trouble finding a space for his message.
He didn’t bother with some vague ominous threat. This one he directed at her. ‘You can’t keep them safe. They will all pay for the lives they have taken. Each and every one of them.’
He brought the temple down as he walked away. Once out of the city he headed north instead of west. As much as he wanted to put an end to the Celeste’s church quickly, he couldn’t afford to become so predictable she could guess where he was going.
He had time. He had little more than time at this point.
* * * * *
The village barely qualified as that; a collection of houses, closes to huts. Farmers, most of them, and a Keeper, of course. Those had a knack for finding even the smallest settlement and taking control of them.
This was the first time he arrived just as they were about to burn a ‘demon.’ A boy, human, who couldn’t be more than twelve. LRK watched as two of the larger men dragged him to the pyre. The boy fought them, screamed he had done nothing, but the Keeper spoke over him, her words calling for the small crowd to close their ears to the demon’s lies and listen with their hearts to the truth the Celeste spoke.
He could kill them all.
It would even be easy; he didn’t need his powers. No one here was a trained soldier. They would die before they even knew he’d started.
But they didn’t deserve death. Not the farmers. They were as much victims as the young boy; they were going to keep on living, even without his intervention.
He brought storm clouds over the town as they tied the boy to the post. He stirred winds as the crowd looked up and around. Even the Keeper looked up, concern on her face, then at the boy who was still screaming and crying.
The early afternoon felt like dusk by the time the thugs walked away from the pyre and the Keeper spoke. She had to raise her voice over the winds that were becoming more violent. She proclaimed the Celeste’s virtue, the protection He brought to those who obeyed His words. She was yelling by the time she reached the part about the danger demons posed to their community.
LRK smiled. She should have moved to burning the boy the moment she sensed something was happening, instead of giving him time to stoke the storm to this level of fury. When she took the torch, the flame barely visible, whipped by the wind, and put it to the pyre, he unleashed it.
Water fell from the sky in sheets. The wind turned it into something that slapped people around painfully. The torch went out as people screamed and panicked. LRK walked to the pyre, unimpeded by water or wind. When he reached the boy, the water fled him, drying him. LRK didn’t answer the questions in his eyes as he cut him down.
LRK led the boy away from the pyre, away from the town, and stayed silent when the human found his voice and asked questions. Within minutes they were out of the storm centered on the town, but LRK kept going, the boy at his side.
Once they were far enough that the storm’s wind wasn’t felt, he stopped. Thunder rang over the town. He looked at the boy, who squirmed under the gaze.
“What did you do?”
“Who are you?” the boy searched his face. It was still dark and the human’s eyesight wasn’t as good as LRK’s. “Are you a demon?”
LRK snorted. “No more than you are. What did you do to be put to the fire?”
“Nothing,” the boy answered, but he’d hesitated.
“You’re human, so you don’t have powers. Who did you anger? Who in the village accused you of being a demon?”
“Melanie.”
“Who is she?” LRK dreaded the answer. He’d said the name with a familiarity that could make her family. It wouldn’t be the first time an accusation was made in anger, overheard, and couldn’t be taken back.
“She’s the Keeper.”
LRK frowned. “Why did she accuse you?” He was too young to be friends with a woman her age, let alone a Keeper. The boy fidgeted, but stayed silent. “Kid, I don’t care what you did, no one deserves—”
“I didn’t do nothing!” the boy exclaimed. “That’s why.”
LRK waited, but the boy didn’t add anything. “Explain.”
“She was my friend. She said I was special, that she wanted to be sure I was more protected than the others against demons, so she was going to do a special ceremony with me.” He stopped and LRK could already see where this was going. “She said I had to undress, she had me lie down, and she touched me. At first it was fine, but then she touched me where no one should and I didn’t like it. I told her I didn’t want to do it anymore. She said I had to, that I’d agreed to do it and I had to continue or demons would find me. I got scared of her. She didn’t sound like my friend anymore. She hurt my hand when I tried to leave. I screamed I’d tell my pa what she was doing. She let me go, but before I got home, she was telling everyone I was possessed that I’d tried to do things with her. I’m not a demon!” He was crying.
“No, kid, you’re not. She’s the monster.” He turned the boy away from the town. “You’re going to walk. Walk in a straight line and don’t turn back. Eventually you’re going to reach water. Follow the shore. When you reach a village or a town, tell them you got lost during a storm. Don’t tell them what happened to you here. Don’t tell them about being accused or me saving you. You got separated from your family during the storm.”
“Why can’t I tell them? What she did wasn’t right.”
“No, it wasn’t, but odds are there’s going to be a Keeper there, and he isn’t going to care. You have to put all of this out of your head. Forget it happened. If you want to stay alive, you need to be someone new.”
The boy nodded, nibbling on his lower lip. “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to go kill a monster.” LRK headed to the village, leaving the boy there. He’d told him what to do. What he did with that information was up to him.
He released the storm once the village was in sight, and the sky turned blue and sunny almost immediately. He watched as the villagers cleared the damage the storm caused, while she preached to them. He only heard the occasional words, but he made out enough to understand she was telling them only she could protect them. That only she had the power to keep demons at bay and that they had to do as she said.
He wanted to burn her where she stood. What a message that would be to those there, but he wouldn’t be able to make her suffer long enough for what she’d attempted to do to the boy, what she had probably done to some of the other children here.
He reentered the town along with the night, found her and dragged her unconscious body far into the forest. This wasn’t for the villagers to see, not even the end results. This was for her and her alone. Her punishment for taking her position of power and abusing it even more than Keepers did.
He didn’t say one word to her as she screamed and pleaded, as she promised him power and safety, riches beyond anything he could imagine, beyond anything she could provide.
When he was done, when there was nothing left of her but a bloody, broken, rag, he was exhausted.
She was still alive, whimpering, trying to form words the lack of a tongue kept from being realized. She wanted mercy, she wanted the pain to end. LRK had no mercy left. He walked away from her, abandoning her to nature, to be judged by those who might still be capable of showing mercy.
Regardless, death was the only thing she had to look forward to now
* * * * *
He traveled for months, in all directions other than west. He killed the Keepers he found, but didn’t bother leaving messages, except on those where the Keepers established themselves as rulers. With those dead bodies he left ‘The Celeste doesn’t Rule’, next to them.
The temples he still destroyed and left one of his usual messages, along with the dead Keeper.
When he reached an Inland sea, the locals called ‘the Strange Sea’, although no one he asked knew why, he crossed it on the barge that took passengers to the other side, to the large city that stood there.
LRK tried to figure out where he was, he was still somewhere east of the Mississippi, he’d forgotten what it was now called, and in what had been the United States. But without a map, he had no way of being more precise.
He destroyed that temple and headed east; on another barge. After weeks of a mix of walking and traveling on the water, he reached another large city. This one had a tall structure he saw long before he saw the city’s wall. It towered over them with a bulb on the top.
It was familiar to him.
Something Chem had described after she’d returned from fighting one of their enemies. He hadn’t remembered the name of the tower or even the city it was in, but now he knew where he was. He was in what had once been called Canada.
The Freak Lab had been closed to it, but further east. They had been allies, at one time, but even then, Death had called the relationship ‘frenemy’. She enjoyed paying attention to politics when not busy fighting a war. And loved regaling them with how much Canada and the United States disagreed on so many things, it was a surprise they weren’t outright enemies. In time, they became such.
LRK hadn’t cared about politics, but he remembered the time Canada tried to invade, a few decades before the world changed. He hadn’t fought in that war. He and Vee had been deployed in another country, but they returned to the aftermath. The lab was a mess, most scientist dead, but the Canadians had been pushed back.
Eek had been livid when the orders to stand down came. He wanted to go north and avenge their dead friends. The lab was their home, and it had been attacked. He’d screamed at the officer who came to take over, but Eek was a soldier, and had followed orders.
LRK wondered why the tower still stood. Why no one had broken it down for material in the early decades of the new world, when people still hoped they would weather the change and go back to the society they’d known. What kind of symbolism had it held for the people who’d lived here? Those who still did.
He had to disembark the barge outside the city and walk to it. There was a port and boats there, but people needed to enter through the city gate.
The city was crowded, with city guards in shining armor doing their best to keep the flow of traffic moving, to keep fights from erupting, but their success at either were few.
LRK kept to smaller alleys, trading his apparent safety for being able to breathe. He was accosted twice before he reached a part of the town less frequented. This square was quieter, with mostly locals shopping at the stores.
He was heading out of the square when words scrawled over a door made him stop. Wizardries. The windows were shuttered shut, but the wall around them had burn marks, and he could hear someone talking inside.
LRK didn’t like wizards; they were dangerous. It had been an initial surprise to find they could still build devices, since most depended on electricity and that no longer worked, but after reflection, it made sense. Wizard’s creation might have a basis in physics, but very few of them obeyed those laws.
Curious as to how such a dangerous person was allowed to stay in the city, he entered.
She stopped talking and looked at him. She was the only one in the room. She wore a gray robe with scorch marks over it.
“Hello, far traveler, welcome to Humble Wizard Wilma’s shop. How can I help you on your quest?” She smiled and took something that looked very much like a gun, except for the wires that came in and out of it. “Are you looking for something to turn your enemies to dust?” She put it down on the counter before he could answer and took something that looked like a large clock face. It had blocky things underneath it. “Or possibly you are looking to find something lost?”
LRK didn’t even try to work out how either might work. “Can I use those?”
She beamed. “Oh yes, Humble Wilma makes wizardries all can use.”
He indicated the clock face. “Can I?”
She frowned. “Can you what?”
“Can I test it?” yeah, she wasn’t all there, just like any other wizard he’d encountered.
“Oh, yes, yes. Take it and think of what you are looking for. The arrows will point you the right way.”
It was a foot and a half in diameter and much heavier than he expected, needing two hands to hold it up. He turned it over. The cube were made of wood, held in place with small nails.
“It works better if you can see the arrows,” she commented.
He studied the face, looking for any indications the nails went through, but no matter how shallow or deep the nails were in, none pierced the face. That, if nothing else, proved she was an actual wizard. It made no sense.
They never did.
He thought of Vee, wondered where he was now. He’d heard of a war to the south and expected he was there. The bull loved fighting, and it had to be a big one for news to reach this far north. LRK missed him still, missed his strong arms holding him, his body heat on cold nights, the passion they shared.
The arrows on the clock’s face moved, spun and lined up, both of them in the same direction. He oriented himself. Almost exactly due west.
What could be happening west that took Vee there? For an instant LRK wondered if he’d reach the main temple of the Celeste only to find it already destroyed. Vee hadn’t been as bothered by the religion as LRK was, but even he might draw the line at Anthros being indiscriminately executed.
Whatever it was, he’d find out about it, eventually.
“That’s where it is.” She pointed to the arms.
“How far?” he asked.
She looked at him, confused.
“Who I’m thinking about. How for is he?”
She opened her mouth, closed it. Did that a few times before something finally came out. “I don’t know,” she said, perplexed. “No one ever asked for that. They just want to know where. I can make you something.”
“Don’t bother.” He put the clock down.
“But you want him.”
“I was just testing it. How far do they work?”
She was confused again.
“How far from you will it work?”
Still confused.
He hated dealing with wizards. “Do many people buy this?”
“Oh, yes.” Her head bobbed energetically. “Many use Humble Wilma’s Wizardries.”
“Locals or travelers.”
“Both,” she answered with pride.
She could be lying. She might not even know she was lying; wizards were insane, after all. It was why most of them lived in the middle of nowhere, so their invention only hurt them when they exploded.
If she wasn’t lying, it meant they worked throughout the city, which was an impressive range in and of itself, and far enough outside it that any traveler felt it wasn’t worth returning to get their money back. He’d never heard of a wizard with that kind of range before.
He hadn’t worked with many of them, but because of one, he’d read up on them, back when he was in the army, back when wizards were called Crazies. The most powerful one he’d known had a range of two dozen meters. Outside that his creations ceased to work. None of the research he’d read had pointed to another Crazy having even close to that range. Maybe this was something which had also changed with the laws of physics.
“It’s fifteen shynnes,” she said.
He shook his head, looking around. The floors and walls were clean, with only a rare scorch mark to indicate a wizard lived here. In his experience, the more powerful the wizard, the more explosions occurred, so she wasn’t that powerful.
“Thirteen?”
“I’m not interested. I just wanted to see if it worked.”
“I’ll give it to you for eleven, but that’s final.”
“Have you lived here long?” Changing the subject was the only way he’d get her off trying to sell it to him.
“All my life.”
LRK tilted an ear. Maybe that was why they hadn’t kicked her out? She was a daughter of the city and since she hadn’t destroyed a building yet, it was fine for her to stay? Maybe her family had some political power too.
“You know the city well?”
“Oh yes, I know it better than all.”
LRK looked at the clock face, an idea occurring to him. He picked it up and thought of the Celeste, or whoever might be in charge. The arrows spun and kept on spinning. After a minute, they were still going. Stopping only when he put it down.
“It never did that before,” she exclaimed, perplexed. “What were you looking for?”
“The Celeste.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, that explains it. The Celeste is everywhere.”
He shook his head. “But there has to be someone in charge of it, of the church. Who’s that?”
She pursed her lips. “I guess that would be one of the Keepers in the temples.”
“Temples? Plural? Are you including all temples, or is there more than one in the city?”
“Oh yes, the King’s Town had three temples. We are very fortunate. No city has more.”
“Where are they?”
“In the city.”
“Yes, but where in the city?”
She considered his question, then motioned for him to follow. In the backroom she walked around a large wooden table in the center. The walls were lined with thinner tables with a variety of incomplete items. The central table had nothing on it. She touched the edge and lights appeared over it.
LRK froze, amazed. He watched as the lights resolved themselves into buildings. He looked under the table, nothing he could see. He looked at the ceiling, nothing there either. How was she doing this? This went beyond wizard stuff, there had to be some sort of mechanism for those to work, no matter how little sense they made. There was no way this could be just a wooden table.
He studied the surface, the images didn’t touch it, and noticed that sections could be removed. He didn’t attempt it, not without knowing what it might cause, but at least now he knew where whatever it was that created the image was located. Still, that she’s managed to recreate technology not seen since the world change spoke of how powerful she was. Clearly the rules governing wizards had changed.
“This is a map,” he said in awe.
“No, this is the King’s Town,” she stated.
“Not all of it.” He thought he recognized the square outside the door, as viewed from above, as well as the alley he’d taken, but the map only showed a few blocks around it.
She made a gesture over the map and everything shrank until he was looking at a dot with water on one side and wilderness everywhere else. She made another gesture as he tried to understand what had happened and now he watched the whole of the city, with only a bit of the surrounding area.
Could the satellites still work? Could they have been spared whatever caused this and she was somehow tapping their systems? He was no physicist, but he didn’t think the laws of physics could be changed on a local scale. If they had changed here, they had changed in space too.
Then how was she doing this?
She didn’t pay him any attention. She looked at the map, pointed to a spot, dragged it to the center, and zoomed in. Now he could see the docks, with boats and crates. He noticed a half-finished building. Was this a real-time map? He’d expected this to be representative, but now he wondered if he was looking at the actual buildings outside, minus the people.
He watched her move the map, fully focused on it, studying one detail, then another, before moving to another location. Was she average for a wizard? Had he somehow come across the most powerful one by accident? He’d heard plenty of stories of wizards leveling mountains, but stories also claimed he was twenty feet tall. He’d never bothered with stories, but what if they were true? What if wizards were that powerful now?
He was going to have to be careful not to make enemies of them.
He watched the map and a large building reminded him of why he was in the city. “Can you show me the temples?”
With a few gestures, she zoomed out, and he identified them before she pointed. Other than the castle, in the center of the city, they were the three largest structures, forming an almost perfect equilateral triangle around the castle. Someone thought he was getting extra protection this way.
He tried one of the gesture she’d used and the map zoomed in. It was the wrong location, wooden houses as far as he could tell, but having confirmed he too could control the hologram, he brought it back to one of the temple, studied it, moved to the next one, and the other.
All three were impressive stone structure. Destroying them wouldn’t be a problem, but first he had to kill the Keepers, leave his message. That meant he needed to do it in one night, otherwise the alarm would sound and he’d have to go through the city guards. He might already have to do so. He couldn’t expect to be lucky enough for stories of other temples not to have reached this city, not with the amount of travelers coming here.
“How do you know how to use it?” she asked, astonished.
He hesitated. “I watched you,” he said, which was true, but her motions had been the same ones he’d been trained with when using a military holographic table.
She nodded, as if that made sense. One good thing about crazy wizard; they accepted just about any explanation you gave them.
He looked through his pouch and pulled a gold ring, handing it to her.
“I can’t sell it to you.”
He looked at the table. Something like this could make his life easier, not just getting maps of the cities he traveled through, but studying routes, terrain. But how would he even carry something like this, not to mention handle having a wizard with him all the time?
“This is for letting me use it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t that much, not worth a bright.”
He placed the ring on the edge of the table. “It was worth one for me. Thank you.”
She snatched it as soon as he let go of it and examined it. LRK left the room, and she called after him “Thank you for shopping at Humble Wilma’s!”
Oh yes. The temple.
Let’s start there, so you get a sense of how things went until the next time our Lord’s intervention needs to be recounted.
* * * * *
He traveled west out of the city, following the road. His plan was to head to the other side of the continent directly and without stopping, but when he walked through the next town, the Keeper there was already ranting about the destruction of the temple, how demons were everywhere, how they all had to be vigilant, how even their best friend could be one of them. That they shouldn’t take any chances and tell her, so the Celeste would judge them.
The way everyone looked at each other with suspicion made LRK’s stomach turn. These were neighbors, families and friends. If the Keeper had them acting this way toward each other, what were they going to do to any stranger staying the night?
He left the town, wishing he could just end the woman there, but even if no one would know it was him, the panic her public death would cause would add too many casualties, and he wouldn’t be able to leave his message.
He left the road an hour away and doubled back through the woods, where he waited for nightfall.
He considered killing her at a distance, and continuing with his trip, but without his message, how would they know this wasn’t a random killing? There was no temple in this small town to destroy as his calling card.
Sneaking in was simple when he could muffle any sound he made and locks were something only cities needed. He was in her house, broke her neck, wrote his message and out within a few minutes. He even posed her with her legs together and arms spread, in a cross, a position he remembered from some old religious figure. The message was simply ‘The Celeste Spreads Hate’.
In the next village, he heard about the temple’s destruction in their inn. The story included some black creature that had been seen lurking around before the destruction. Another story was about a town north of them, where a demon had been recently burned.
While he ate and listened, he observed how everyone looked not only at him with suspicion, but each other. That night, he killed the Keeper and left him impaled on a spike of stone with his message. ‘The Celeste Spreads hate,’ over this one too, before heading north.
When he reached the town, the mood was subdued and people avoided the center, where the remains of the pyre, and the blackened bones, were still smoking.
A beaver stopped next to him and spat on the ground. “A good thing that was,” he said.
LRK glanced at him, wondering how long the fire had burned for it to still be smoking. It would have taken days for news to reach the tavern.
“How did you know they were a demon?” LRK asked. Someone else had died at the hand of the Celeste. How many of them would he be unable to save?
“Was run over by a carriage. Got up like it had been nothing. Would have been better playing dead. He tried to run, but we caught him and brought him to the Keeper for judgment. He burned for days and days before he stopped screaming. That was an awful evil sound. Was happy when it was finally over.”
LRK closed his eyes. Regenerative abilities fast enough to keep the fire from killing him for multiple days. What kind of hell had that been? He left town to ensure no one could tell him how good of a thing this death had been. He didn’t think he could keep himself from destroying it entirely if that happened, even if they were just brainwashed victims.
That night, he beat the Keeper to death with his own fists. He wanted to burn him over multiple days, let him experience what that poor Anthro had, but he didn’t have the time, so a night of pain had to suffice. He left the body on the floor of his house and wrote ‘The Celeste Kills The Innocent,’ next to it.
* * * * *
In this way, LRK made slow progress in nothing resembling a straight line. He tried to head west, but he’d hear of a demon to the south, the north or even back east, and go there. Soon, more stories of the Keepers he killed found their ways back to him.
Some stories were extensive, describing the Keeper’s deals with demons and how it had turned bad. Others spoke of the Celeste coming down and punishing them himself. Most stories were simple recounting of how the body had been found. Sometimes he heard about the message he left, but rarely enough he suspected there was active work to keep them from spreading.
The story that amused him the most, or rather the awe with which it was told, was the one about the Keeper killed in a locked room. How the demon had emerged out of the earth to strangle him before bringing down the temple, leaving only that room standing.
He’d actually come in through a high window.
Making hand and footholds in the stone was simpler than walking through the earth, and less exhausting. If he’d done as they claimed, he wouldn’t have had the energy to kill anyone when he emerged from it. He also hadn’t strangled her. She’d been wary and had fought back. He made a sword of stone and ran that through her heart, then hung her on the wall. He didn’t remember what message he left.
Because of those stories, few Keepers moved about unprotected now. Many wore visible symbols of their faith, as if it could ward him away; most used bodyguards. LRK smiled. If nothing else, his work was giving the town and city’s less savory elements a chance to earn an honest living. Not that they could stop him.
Many Keepers also went armed now, not that any of them carried themselves with the confidence that first armed one had. He saw her again months later in a city to the southwest. He’d destroyed one of the temples there a few days before, but had hung around to replenish his purse. His quest of vengeance didn’t help with supplies since he refused to plunder the temples’ coffers. Both because he didn’t want to touch the Celeste’s coins and because the cities’ inhabitants could use it more than he. So he fell back on hunting criminals for a few weeks. Once he had enough to move on he’d destroy the second temple.
He didn’t recognize her immediately. She was simply another Keeper looking over the wreckage he’d left, but instead of cursing demons or swearing to avenge the dead by destroying all of them, she asked pertinent questions. Had any strangers been seen, had anyone taken special interest in the temple. One of the guards ask why she was interested, and she answered she was tracking this demon since the first temple he’d destroyed.
LRK studied her then. She was older, but still fit. Her brown hair was graying, the black robes dirty and showed the wear of travels. And there was the sword, and the way she carried herself as if it was a weight she was used to.
The guards and shopkeepers around the temple told her any and all stories they’d heard about the demon, and by now they were so far from the truth even LRK couldn’t tell which spoke of something he’d done or something entirely made up.
She asked for descriptions, then gave some of her own, to see if any matched, most were Furrians of various species with a few humans thrown in. She even described a lynx, but the fur coloring was too dark, his body too lean, to match LRK. All the descriptions were generic enough they fit any of the travelers passing through a city.
He followed her to an inn where she took a room, instead of residing in the second temple the city had. Did this mean she knew what the fate of that temple would be? Did she suspect he was still here? Her presence almost made him leave even if he wasn’t ready, but the idea he was under her nose and she couldn’t tell gave him a thrill.
He followed her for a day, watching her talk to people, warn the city’s Keepers to be careful. She even told them to sleep in inns, rather than the temple, but they confidently told her the Celeste would see to their safety.
When she returned to the inn that evening she looked worried, and LRK had made his decision. As soon as she retired to her room, he headed for the small temple. If he waited as he’d intended, she would either increase the security on the temple which would make his work more difficult, or leave, and she wouldn’t be there to see the result first hand.
Slipping by the two guards at the door was easy; they’d fallen asleep on their stools. Vee never allowed guards to sit exactly for that reason. Falling asleep while standing was more painful, and a good reminder it was time for someone to take their place.
The door wasn’t locked. This was the Celeste’s temple after all, who would dare enter when it was closed. Who, indeed, other than a demon? He kept the hinges from making sound so the guards could keep on sleeping.
This temple consisted of the worshiping room, large enough to host two dozen of the faithful at a time, and the adjacent living quarters. He found the Keeper there, in his bed with a young woman. He was Furrian, a species LRK didn’t recognize. Long dirty gray fur, long arms and fingers. Almost Simian, but not quite. The face looked nothing like that of an ape. The acolyte was human, much younger, barely a woman.
Both were naked, and clearly had ignored the edict that members of the clergy weren’t supposed to engage in sex with one another. He could still smell it on the air.
The woman’s presence didn’t worry him. Both robes were the black of the Keepers, so they were both guilty. Having them in the same room did mean one could wake before he was done with the other, so he cut their air until they passed out. Both woke, panicking as they tried to breathe, then fell still.
He decided to be clement toward the young woman and broke her neck. She couldn’t have been part of the religion for long enough to have engaged in the kind horrors he knew the older Keeper had.
Him he kept alive until close to morning, questioning, torturing, asking about each and every ‘demon’ he’d cleansed. Of their crimes, of how he’d gone about trying to verify them. He hadn’t, of course, too certain in his beliefs that the Celeste would see to their spirits to care about the bodies.
LRK’s questions were perfunctory by now. He only listened to the answer, so he knew what to ask next, but he didn’t care. The Keepers were all the same, more monstrous than the demons they claimed to cleanse. When the man was nothing more than a broken body, he hung him on the stone wall and took out the brush and red paste he now used instead of blood.
‘The Celeste Will Die,’ he wrote over him, then added, ‘You Can’t Stop Me.’ He smiled as he imagined her anger that he’d known she was here, had done this specifically to spite her.
The paste looked like blood, but was a mixture of berries he’d seen used by a troupe of performers so they could bleed out while not putting their lives at risk.
He left by the back door, which wasn’t guarded, and waited until he was well away before bringing it down, making sure the guards weren’t hurt in the process
* * * * *
He saw that Keeper a few months later, but this time she was in the town before him, already asking questions. It could be a coincidence, but the stories of the demon destroying temples now came with those of the Keeper, chosen by the Celeste to hunt and kill that demon. He didn’t believe everything they said about her. After all, humans didn’t have powers unless they were wizards, and she didn’t have any devices that could do what the stories claimed the Celeste had empowered her with. It also had been decades since he’s met any wizards who were sane enough to stay with a hunt.
He followed her to the inn she stayed at, discreetly watched as she ate, reading through parchments. He considered sitting at her table, talking to her. The idea of her not knowing who he was while they talk sent a thrill through him, but he clamped down on it. His pride might get him killed, if he let it, or at least complicate things.
He hesitated before leaving. She wasn’t an ordinary Keeper, her ease with the weight of the sword at her hip indicated that. Maybe she had information he could use, like who was at the leader of the whole religion. That could be worth prying out of her.
He looked around the inn. But what if she wasn’t alone? What if she did know he was here, and this was a trap? If he wanted to capture someone who was hunting him, he’d make himself visible while the rest of his team blended in, waiting for the hunter to make their move.
He didn’t see anyone suspicious, but if they were professionals, he wouldn’t. Maybe she even had access to a wizard, a weak one, but still sane. The Celeste had nothing against them, so she could have instructed them to make her something. She wouldn’t have it here. The wizard needed to be close for their device to work, and even the sanest wizard would stand out in this crowd.
He was over complicating things. He’d been following the main road west for months now, destroying every temple along the way, killing every Keeper in towns that didn’t have temples. He was on foot. If she had a horse, she could have passed him while he was among a caravan, or in the night, if she was trying to get ahead of him. This could simply be her testing her theory.
He hadn’t been able to confirm how long she’d been here. She’d been at this inn for a few days, but he’d overheard guards say she’d been asking questions for over a week now, so she changed where she slept; to keep him from figuring out where she was?
He’d planned to stop here because this was the largest city in the region and had the sole temple.
LRK couldn’t let it stand.
She would know that. She would have worked out his methods, if not his schedule. She also explained the extra security around the temple. Not guards at the doors, but soldiers in the alleys around it. He didn’t mind; added complications were things he was used to dealing with.
He subdued the soldiers who were in his way, making sure they didn’t see him, as he got into the temple. The five acolytes and the Keeper there he dispatched with prejudice, leaving the nave covered in so much blood he had trouble finding a space for his message.
He didn’t bother with some vague ominous threat. This one he directed at her. ‘You can’t keep them safe. They will all pay for the lives they have taken. Each and every one of them.’
He brought the temple down as he walked away. Once out of the city he headed north instead of west. As much as he wanted to put an end to the Celeste’s church quickly, he couldn’t afford to become so predictable she could guess where he was going.
He had time. He had little more than time at this point.
* * * * *
The village barely qualified as that; a collection of houses, closes to huts. Farmers, most of them, and a Keeper, of course. Those had a knack for finding even the smallest settlement and taking control of them.
This was the first time he arrived just as they were about to burn a ‘demon.’ A boy, human, who couldn’t be more than twelve. LRK watched as two of the larger men dragged him to the pyre. The boy fought them, screamed he had done nothing, but the Keeper spoke over him, her words calling for the small crowd to close their ears to the demon’s lies and listen with their hearts to the truth the Celeste spoke.
He could kill them all.
It would even be easy; he didn’t need his powers. No one here was a trained soldier. They would die before they even knew he’d started.
But they didn’t deserve death. Not the farmers. They were as much victims as the young boy; they were going to keep on living, even without his intervention.
He brought storm clouds over the town as they tied the boy to the post. He stirred winds as the crowd looked up and around. Even the Keeper looked up, concern on her face, then at the boy who was still screaming and crying.
The early afternoon felt like dusk by the time the thugs walked away from the pyre and the Keeper spoke. She had to raise her voice over the winds that were becoming more violent. She proclaimed the Celeste’s virtue, the protection He brought to those who obeyed His words. She was yelling by the time she reached the part about the danger demons posed to their community.
LRK smiled. She should have moved to burning the boy the moment she sensed something was happening, instead of giving him time to stoke the storm to this level of fury. When she took the torch, the flame barely visible, whipped by the wind, and put it to the pyre, he unleashed it.
Water fell from the sky in sheets. The wind turned it into something that slapped people around painfully. The torch went out as people screamed and panicked. LRK walked to the pyre, unimpeded by water or wind. When he reached the boy, the water fled him, drying him. LRK didn’t answer the questions in his eyes as he cut him down.
LRK led the boy away from the pyre, away from the town, and stayed silent when the human found his voice and asked questions. Within minutes they were out of the storm centered on the town, but LRK kept going, the boy at his side.
Once they were far enough that the storm’s wind wasn’t felt, he stopped. Thunder rang over the town. He looked at the boy, who squirmed under the gaze.
“What did you do?”
“Who are you?” the boy searched his face. It was still dark and the human’s eyesight wasn’t as good as LRK’s. “Are you a demon?”
LRK snorted. “No more than you are. What did you do to be put to the fire?”
“Nothing,” the boy answered, but he’d hesitated.
“You’re human, so you don’t have powers. Who did you anger? Who in the village accused you of being a demon?”
“Melanie.”
“Who is she?” LRK dreaded the answer. He’d said the name with a familiarity that could make her family. It wouldn’t be the first time an accusation was made in anger, overheard, and couldn’t be taken back.
“She’s the Keeper.”
LRK frowned. “Why did she accuse you?” He was too young to be friends with a woman her age, let alone a Keeper. The boy fidgeted, but stayed silent. “Kid, I don’t care what you did, no one deserves—”
“I didn’t do nothing!” the boy exclaimed. “That’s why.”
LRK waited, but the boy didn’t add anything. “Explain.”
“She was my friend. She said I was special, that she wanted to be sure I was more protected than the others against demons, so she was going to do a special ceremony with me.” He stopped and LRK could already see where this was going. “She said I had to undress, she had me lie down, and she touched me. At first it was fine, but then she touched me where no one should and I didn’t like it. I told her I didn’t want to do it anymore. She said I had to, that I’d agreed to do it and I had to continue or demons would find me. I got scared of her. She didn’t sound like my friend anymore. She hurt my hand when I tried to leave. I screamed I’d tell my pa what she was doing. She let me go, but before I got home, she was telling everyone I was possessed that I’d tried to do things with her. I’m not a demon!” He was crying.
“No, kid, you’re not. She’s the monster.” He turned the boy away from the town. “You’re going to walk. Walk in a straight line and don’t turn back. Eventually you’re going to reach water. Follow the shore. When you reach a village or a town, tell them you got lost during a storm. Don’t tell them what happened to you here. Don’t tell them about being accused or me saving you. You got separated from your family during the storm.”
“Why can’t I tell them? What she did wasn’t right.”
“No, it wasn’t, but odds are there’s going to be a Keeper there, and he isn’t going to care. You have to put all of this out of your head. Forget it happened. If you want to stay alive, you need to be someone new.”
The boy nodded, nibbling on his lower lip. “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to go kill a monster.” LRK headed to the village, leaving the boy there. He’d told him what to do. What he did with that information was up to him.
He released the storm once the village was in sight, and the sky turned blue and sunny almost immediately. He watched as the villagers cleared the damage the storm caused, while she preached to them. He only heard the occasional words, but he made out enough to understand she was telling them only she could protect them. That only she had the power to keep demons at bay and that they had to do as she said.
He wanted to burn her where she stood. What a message that would be to those there, but he wouldn’t be able to make her suffer long enough for what she’d attempted to do to the boy, what she had probably done to some of the other children here.
He reentered the town along with the night, found her and dragged her unconscious body far into the forest. This wasn’t for the villagers to see, not even the end results. This was for her and her alone. Her punishment for taking her position of power and abusing it even more than Keepers did.
He didn’t say one word to her as she screamed and pleaded, as she promised him power and safety, riches beyond anything he could imagine, beyond anything she could provide.
When he was done, when there was nothing left of her but a bloody, broken, rag, he was exhausted.
She was still alive, whimpering, trying to form words the lack of a tongue kept from being realized. She wanted mercy, she wanted the pain to end. LRK had no mercy left. He walked away from her, abandoning her to nature, to be judged by those who might still be capable of showing mercy.
Regardless, death was the only thing she had to look forward to now
* * * * *
He traveled for months, in all directions other than west. He killed the Keepers he found, but didn’t bother leaving messages, except on those where the Keepers established themselves as rulers. With those dead bodies he left ‘The Celeste doesn’t Rule’, next to them.
The temples he still destroyed and left one of his usual messages, along with the dead Keeper.
When he reached an Inland sea, the locals called ‘the Strange Sea’, although no one he asked knew why, he crossed it on the barge that took passengers to the other side, to the large city that stood there.
LRK tried to figure out where he was, he was still somewhere east of the Mississippi, he’d forgotten what it was now called, and in what had been the United States. But without a map, he had no way of being more precise.
He destroyed that temple and headed east; on another barge. After weeks of a mix of walking and traveling on the water, he reached another large city. This one had a tall structure he saw long before he saw the city’s wall. It towered over them with a bulb on the top.
It was familiar to him.
Something Chem had described after she’d returned from fighting one of their enemies. He hadn’t remembered the name of the tower or even the city it was in, but now he knew where he was. He was in what had once been called Canada.
The Freak Lab had been closed to it, but further east. They had been allies, at one time, but even then, Death had called the relationship ‘frenemy’. She enjoyed paying attention to politics when not busy fighting a war. And loved regaling them with how much Canada and the United States disagreed on so many things, it was a surprise they weren’t outright enemies. In time, they became such.
LRK hadn’t cared about politics, but he remembered the time Canada tried to invade, a few decades before the world changed. He hadn’t fought in that war. He and Vee had been deployed in another country, but they returned to the aftermath. The lab was a mess, most scientist dead, but the Canadians had been pushed back.
Eek had been livid when the orders to stand down came. He wanted to go north and avenge their dead friends. The lab was their home, and it had been attacked. He’d screamed at the officer who came to take over, but Eek was a soldier, and had followed orders.
LRK wondered why the tower still stood. Why no one had broken it down for material in the early decades of the new world, when people still hoped they would weather the change and go back to the society they’d known. What kind of symbolism had it held for the people who’d lived here? Those who still did.
He had to disembark the barge outside the city and walk to it. There was a port and boats there, but people needed to enter through the city gate.
The city was crowded, with city guards in shining armor doing their best to keep the flow of traffic moving, to keep fights from erupting, but their success at either were few.
LRK kept to smaller alleys, trading his apparent safety for being able to breathe. He was accosted twice before he reached a part of the town less frequented. This square was quieter, with mostly locals shopping at the stores.
He was heading out of the square when words scrawled over a door made him stop. Wizardries. The windows were shuttered shut, but the wall around them had burn marks, and he could hear someone talking inside.
LRK didn’t like wizards; they were dangerous. It had been an initial surprise to find they could still build devices, since most depended on electricity and that no longer worked, but after reflection, it made sense. Wizard’s creation might have a basis in physics, but very few of them obeyed those laws.
Curious as to how such a dangerous person was allowed to stay in the city, he entered.
She stopped talking and looked at him. She was the only one in the room. She wore a gray robe with scorch marks over it.
“Hello, far traveler, welcome to Humble Wizard Wilma’s shop. How can I help you on your quest?” She smiled and took something that looked very much like a gun, except for the wires that came in and out of it. “Are you looking for something to turn your enemies to dust?” She put it down on the counter before he could answer and took something that looked like a large clock face. It had blocky things underneath it. “Or possibly you are looking to find something lost?”
LRK didn’t even try to work out how either might work. “Can I use those?”
She beamed. “Oh yes, Humble Wilma makes wizardries all can use.”
He indicated the clock face. “Can I?”
She frowned. “Can you what?”
“Can I test it?” yeah, she wasn’t all there, just like any other wizard he’d encountered.
“Oh, yes, yes. Take it and think of what you are looking for. The arrows will point you the right way.”
It was a foot and a half in diameter and much heavier than he expected, needing two hands to hold it up. He turned it over. The cube were made of wood, held in place with small nails.
“It works better if you can see the arrows,” she commented.
He studied the face, looking for any indications the nails went through, but no matter how shallow or deep the nails were in, none pierced the face. That, if nothing else, proved she was an actual wizard. It made no sense.
They never did.
He thought of Vee, wondered where he was now. He’d heard of a war to the south and expected he was there. The bull loved fighting, and it had to be a big one for news to reach this far north. LRK missed him still, missed his strong arms holding him, his body heat on cold nights, the passion they shared.
The arrows on the clock’s face moved, spun and lined up, both of them in the same direction. He oriented himself. Almost exactly due west.
What could be happening west that took Vee there? For an instant LRK wondered if he’d reach the main temple of the Celeste only to find it already destroyed. Vee hadn’t been as bothered by the religion as LRK was, but even he might draw the line at Anthros being indiscriminately executed.
Whatever it was, he’d find out about it, eventually.
“That’s where it is.” She pointed to the arms.
“How far?” he asked.
She looked at him, confused.
“Who I’m thinking about. How for is he?”
She opened her mouth, closed it. Did that a few times before something finally came out. “I don’t know,” she said, perplexed. “No one ever asked for that. They just want to know where. I can make you something.”
“Don’t bother.” He put the clock down.
“But you want him.”
“I was just testing it. How far do they work?”
She was confused again.
“How far from you will it work?”
Still confused.
He hated dealing with wizards. “Do many people buy this?”
“Oh, yes.” Her head bobbed energetically. “Many use Humble Wilma’s Wizardries.”
“Locals or travelers.”
“Both,” she answered with pride.
She could be lying. She might not even know she was lying; wizards were insane, after all. It was why most of them lived in the middle of nowhere, so their invention only hurt them when they exploded.
If she wasn’t lying, it meant they worked throughout the city, which was an impressive range in and of itself, and far enough outside it that any traveler felt it wasn’t worth returning to get their money back. He’d never heard of a wizard with that kind of range before.
He hadn’t worked with many of them, but because of one, he’d read up on them, back when he was in the army, back when wizards were called Crazies. The most powerful one he’d known had a range of two dozen meters. Outside that his creations ceased to work. None of the research he’d read had pointed to another Crazy having even close to that range. Maybe this was something which had also changed with the laws of physics.
“It’s fifteen shynnes,” she said.
He shook his head, looking around. The floors and walls were clean, with only a rare scorch mark to indicate a wizard lived here. In his experience, the more powerful the wizard, the more explosions occurred, so she wasn’t that powerful.
“Thirteen?”
“I’m not interested. I just wanted to see if it worked.”
“I’ll give it to you for eleven, but that’s final.”
“Have you lived here long?” Changing the subject was the only way he’d get her off trying to sell it to him.
“All my life.”
LRK tilted an ear. Maybe that was why they hadn’t kicked her out? She was a daughter of the city and since she hadn’t destroyed a building yet, it was fine for her to stay? Maybe her family had some political power too.
“You know the city well?”
“Oh yes, I know it better than all.”
LRK looked at the clock face, an idea occurring to him. He picked it up and thought of the Celeste, or whoever might be in charge. The arrows spun and kept on spinning. After a minute, they were still going. Stopping only when he put it down.
“It never did that before,” she exclaimed, perplexed. “What were you looking for?”
“The Celeste.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, that explains it. The Celeste is everywhere.”
He shook his head. “But there has to be someone in charge of it, of the church. Who’s that?”
She pursed her lips. “I guess that would be one of the Keepers in the temples.”
“Temples? Plural? Are you including all temples, or is there more than one in the city?”
“Oh yes, the King’s Town had three temples. We are very fortunate. No city has more.”
“Where are they?”
“In the city.”
“Yes, but where in the city?”
She considered his question, then motioned for him to follow. In the backroom she walked around a large wooden table in the center. The walls were lined with thinner tables with a variety of incomplete items. The central table had nothing on it. She touched the edge and lights appeared over it.
LRK froze, amazed. He watched as the lights resolved themselves into buildings. He looked under the table, nothing he could see. He looked at the ceiling, nothing there either. How was she doing this? This went beyond wizard stuff, there had to be some sort of mechanism for those to work, no matter how little sense they made. There was no way this could be just a wooden table.
He studied the surface, the images didn’t touch it, and noticed that sections could be removed. He didn’t attempt it, not without knowing what it might cause, but at least now he knew where whatever it was that created the image was located. Still, that she’s managed to recreate technology not seen since the world change spoke of how powerful she was. Clearly the rules governing wizards had changed.
“This is a map,” he said in awe.
“No, this is the King’s Town,” she stated.
“Not all of it.” He thought he recognized the square outside the door, as viewed from above, as well as the alley he’d taken, but the map only showed a few blocks around it.
She made a gesture over the map and everything shrank until he was looking at a dot with water on one side and wilderness everywhere else. She made another gesture as he tried to understand what had happened and now he watched the whole of the city, with only a bit of the surrounding area.
Could the satellites still work? Could they have been spared whatever caused this and she was somehow tapping their systems? He was no physicist, but he didn’t think the laws of physics could be changed on a local scale. If they had changed here, they had changed in space too.
Then how was she doing this?
She didn’t pay him any attention. She looked at the map, pointed to a spot, dragged it to the center, and zoomed in. Now he could see the docks, with boats and crates. He noticed a half-finished building. Was this a real-time map? He’d expected this to be representative, but now he wondered if he was looking at the actual buildings outside, minus the people.
He watched her move the map, fully focused on it, studying one detail, then another, before moving to another location. Was she average for a wizard? Had he somehow come across the most powerful one by accident? He’d heard plenty of stories of wizards leveling mountains, but stories also claimed he was twenty feet tall. He’d never bothered with stories, but what if they were true? What if wizards were that powerful now?
He was going to have to be careful not to make enemies of them.
He watched the map and a large building reminded him of why he was in the city. “Can you show me the temples?”
With a few gestures, she zoomed out, and he identified them before she pointed. Other than the castle, in the center of the city, they were the three largest structures, forming an almost perfect equilateral triangle around the castle. Someone thought he was getting extra protection this way.
He tried one of the gesture she’d used and the map zoomed in. It was the wrong location, wooden houses as far as he could tell, but having confirmed he too could control the hologram, he brought it back to one of the temple, studied it, moved to the next one, and the other.
All three were impressive stone structure. Destroying them wouldn’t be a problem, but first he had to kill the Keepers, leave his message. That meant he needed to do it in one night, otherwise the alarm would sound and he’d have to go through the city guards. He might already have to do so. He couldn’t expect to be lucky enough for stories of other temples not to have reached this city, not with the amount of travelers coming here.
“How do you know how to use it?” she asked, astonished.
He hesitated. “I watched you,” he said, which was true, but her motions had been the same ones he’d been trained with when using a military holographic table.
She nodded, as if that made sense. One good thing about crazy wizard; they accepted just about any explanation you gave them.
He looked through his pouch and pulled a gold ring, handing it to her.
“I can’t sell it to you.”
He looked at the table. Something like this could make his life easier, not just getting maps of the cities he traveled through, but studying routes, terrain. But how would he even carry something like this, not to mention handle having a wizard with him all the time?
“This is for letting me use it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t that much, not worth a bright.”
He placed the ring on the edge of the table. “It was worth one for me. Thank you.”
She snatched it as soon as he let go of it and examined it. LRK left the room, and she called after him “Thank you for shopping at Humble Wilma’s!”
Comments
Marcwolf
LRK is on along quest. I hope he finds peace when he destroys the last temple.
