Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles (22 page)

After she left, Akar remained where he was, until finally Dahlia stepped out from behind a statue of Milia where she had been hiding.

“You may have the rest of them fooled,” she snarled, “but not me.”

“If I am worthy of punishment, then I will accept it. I am a man, which means I am a barbarian and a savage. It is your sacred duty to civilize me.”

“Oh shut up!” she barked, her face twisting into a hideous scowl as she viciously kicked him in the head. The blow knocked him over onto his side. “I know you don’t believe a word of that!”

She drew her staff, ready for him to retaliate, but Akar only calmly returned to his submissive position, blood trickling down his ear.

“Now, who’s the coward?” she spat, before turning around and stomping away.

Only once he was truly alone did a wicked smile cross his lips.

* * *

Margaret was so excited she could barely stop herself from jumping over the side of the sloop as she sailed towards the familiar rocky mesa of Thesda rising up out of the roaring acidic seas. Hundreds of black navy ships clouded the skies around the island, but she paid them little heed. She was a Stretian, which in the League was tantamount to being a double-class citizen. She was also a Stormcaller, and now that she had a bit of practice under her belt, she had a rare and invaluable skill. No matter which side won this war, she was sure that the winning side would have enough need of her to grant her the freedom to do what she wished. In her mind, she was safe either way. Although she cared very much for the new friends she had made on the Dreadnaught, ultimately she knew in her heart that this was not her war.

“Like grandpa used to say: Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

Happily, she took one last opportunity to rummage through her bag of loot. Seed pistols, bags of enriched potting soil, curled stem light fixtures, shieldmaiden vases, rose-petal hairbrushes, and the leaf-embroidered hand towels from every restroom in the palace. But her pride and joy was an authentic Wysterian wedding gown from Athel’s aunt Silvervein, for which Margaret had left a really nice thank-you note behind for when she discovered it was missing.

Margaret sighed as she pulled out the miniature replica of Athel’s magic staff that Alder had carved for her from one of Deutzia’s old branches. Margaret had wanted it to be exactly like the real thing, but knowing that it would be on display for students, Alder had insisted on changing the carvings of adventure novel characters into traditional inscriptions of Wysterian poetry.

Summoning a nice little crosswind, she settled the ship into one of the smaller docks. Compared to blowing a full-sized navy patrol boat around, this felt effortless.

“Or is it that I’m actually starting to get good at this?” she boasted.

At that moment, Margaret tripped over the capstan and collapsed to the deck with an embarrassing yelp. A moment later, she peeked up to make sure no one saw that, then climbed over the gunwhale and down the rope ladder, her bag slung over her shoulder. As she tied up the mooring lines, she was a little surprised that there were no dock workers there to meet her or take her toll.

It didn’t take her long to realize that something was wrong. The filthy plaza streets were all but empty. Most of the shops had been boarded up. The banners on the balconies hung low and faded, drooping in the still air. Homeless and unemployed vagrants littered the alleyways, calling out to passersby for a bit of food, or a few coins so they could score a fresh hit of ruper spice. Around the capitol in the distance, she could make out black smoke rising into the air.

As she passed by a worn and dim accolade wheel, a pile of trash stirred slightly.

A golem poked her head out from underneath the refuse. Her clay skin was cracked, her blonde doll hair mostly burnt away. One of her button eyes hung down across her face, held on by only a thread.

Slowly she held up her rusted tray, two of her fingers breaking off and falling to the ground beneath her.

“Donation?” she wheezed, a plume of dust coming out from the coin slot on her forehead.

“Um…no thank you,” Margaret said softly.

For nostalgia’s sake, Margaret passed by the old shop where she used to work, Authentic Wysteria. She had never had a chance to revisit it since it had been rebuilt following the Eiria attack, and she was curious to see how it was doing. Maybe even say hi to some of her old coworkers.

What she found made her feel cold inside. Shattered windows, busted doors, and hateful graffiti littered the outside of the looted shop. ‘This is their fault,’ ‘Die Wysterians,’ ‘They started this,’ ‘Death to traitors,’ and a dozen other phrases too vulgar to repeat, written in just about every language she knew of. The inside was far worse, items shattered and smashed underfoot. Waste and animal droppings strewn about and smeared on the walls. Finally across the front entrance was an official notice, ‘Closed by order of the war department.’

“Everything’s destroyed…”

Some of the few passersby began staring at her. Not wanting to draw extra attention to herself, Margaret moved on.

The university was scarcely better. Students walked coldly from their dorm rooms to their classes without looking at one another or speaking. There was no music; there was no laughter. Most of the window shafts were closed, giving the place a feel of eerie twilight, even now, in the middle of the day.

“Okay, this is your new job,” Margaret said, trying to psyche herself up. “Time to make a good first impression. You’re a professor now.”

Margaret straightened her jacket, put her hand on her hip to hide the mustard stain she hadn’t noticed until just then, and walked up to the administration building. She smiled at everyone she passed, but no one smiled back.

“Margaret Gerstun, reporting for duty…er, teaching,” Margaret said to the receptionist, pleased at herself for having arrived exactly on time for once.

The receptionist looked up and gasped. “Oh…yes, you’ve been expected.” The receptionist looked around, as if she wasn’t sure what to do, then kind of motioned down one hallway. “First door on the right.”

“Okay,” Margaret said happily as she walked down the hall and entered the lavish office.

“Hi, I am Margaret Gerstun.” She held up her hand to salute, but then remembered that wasn’t necessary. “I am looking forward to being a professor here. I’ve brought a whole bunch of authentic heirlooms to show the students, many from the Wysterian Royal palace itself.”

She held up her bag of loot as if she meant to dump it upon the carved wooden desk before her. “Would you like to see some of it?”

“Margaret Gerstun. So nice to finally meet you,” came a dark voice from behind the desk. The chair swiveled around, revealing Queen Sotol, lounging with her legs crossed, her sharp fingers delicately fingering the Eye of the Storm necklace about her neck.

Margaret’s glasses slipped down to the tip of her nose. “Hey, you’re not the University Director.”

The humor drained away from the Queen’s face. “Yes, I know that.”

Margaret looked around in confusion. “So, why are you in his chair?”

A squad of Himitsu entered the room, surrounding Margaret and pointing rifles at her heart.

Her eyes went wide and a lock of blonde hair fell down in front of her face.

“…Oh.”

* * *

From the balcony of the Thesdan House of Parliament, Admiral Roapes looked down on the rising columns of smoke coming from the plazas below. It disgusted him to see how quickly military discipline had vanished among those who had remained in the navy following the second invasion of Wysteria. It truly seemed the best and the brightest were gone. The most honorable had left. What remained were the malcontents, the drunkards, the broken and the lost. Unfettered by expectation, they took on their new roles in the secret police with reckless abandon. Men and women who only months before had lived by a strict code were now dragging widows out into the street to beat them for some minor infraction, perceived offense, or just for kicks and giggles. The pockets of these former navy officers clanked and jingled with looted and pillaged goods. They stole anything they could lay hands on, as if it were nothing more than taking a free sample from a labeled tray.

“We are not a military anymore. We are just a lynch mob.”

Blair leaned his head back and breathed in deeply, as if savoring a scent. “I know; it’s beautiful isn’t it?”

“I find nothing beautiful about the screams of children in the street, kneeling over the bodies of their unconscious parents.”

“Then your eyes are not yet opened to the truth.”

Admiral Roapes scoffed. “What would someone like you know of truth?”

“I know that the veneer of civility that you so obsessively cling to is as thin and fragile as a perra egg shell. People are only kind to each other as long as it benefits them to do so. But, take away their food, deprive them of sleep, threaten them with pain and death over an extended period of time, and their true bloodthirsty nature will come out.”

“You speak as if they are nothing more than animals.”

“We are animals, all of us. We kill, we steal, we lie, we deceive, because that is exactly what the gods designed us to do. These people you see down there are free. For the first time in their lives they are being true to who they really are inside. When they are amused, they laugh. When they are angry, they fight. When they want something, they take it. They filter nothing. Their reactions are pure, honest, and beautiful, without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

Admiral Roapes snapped his eyes at Blair. “You make me sick.”

A cruel smile crossed Blair’s lips. “And yet, when you were offered to join the Wysterians, this is the side you chose.”

Admiral Roapes ground his teeth. “I want to speak to my family. I need to know that they are safe.”

“It is your continued cooperation that keeps them safe.”

“I need to see them with my own eyes.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Of course I don’t. You just finished explaining how beautiful it is to deceive.”

Blair took a second to mull that over, tapping his chin with a pointed black fingernail. “I see your point. I will arrange for you to have a visit with them. In the meantime, I believe we have business to attend to.”

Viscountess Ebbens walked out to meet them, her long black veil dragging behind her. From the puffy redness in her eyes, they could tell that she had been crying.

“Admiral Roapes, are you aware of what your soldiers are doing in my streets?”

“Yes, they are enforcing new federal laws. Ownership of weapons is no longer permitted to non-military personnel. We’ve already lost too many islands to betrayal; we can’t afford to have any more rise up. Keeping the population unarmed is the easiest way to keep them subservient.”

“Laws that were passed without our notice! Laws that were passed without my ratification! You cannot just show up here and treat my people as criminals without at least telling them about the new restrictions first. Without even giving them a chance to comply.”

“I have my orders, Ma’am.”

The Viscountess moved to the railing and pointed down to the smoke below. “Your brute squads are beating husbands to within an inch of their lives over letter openers and fireplace pokers! Has the Stone Council gone mad?”

“The jury’s still out on that one,” Blair snickered.

Admiral Roapes cleared his throat. “We are at war. Wartime requires special security measures…”

“Yes, we are at war, so why are you even here? My people stayed loyal. You should be out slaughtering Wysterians and Hoeunites!”

Admiral Roapes clasped his hands at the small of his back. “We are here precisely because we are at war. We need the additional manpower and resources to renew the offensive against the traitors. We’re closing down the federal facilities here, the prison, the insane asylum, the addiction treatment center.”

“…and the hospitals,” Blair added.

Both of them turned to gawk at him.

“Surely you jest.”

“Not at all, we’re moving all your patients to Boeth for treatment.”

Ebbens blinked, her mascara running into the lines of her face, making her appear even older. “You can’t be serious. The danger of transporting them would completely outweigh any benefit from an improved care facility.”

Blair slid up alongside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Oh, that is because you have not seen the new center on Boeth. It is incredible, better even than the healing pools of Advan.”

The Viscountess swatted his hand away. “But what of their families?”

“I would think their families would much prefer to greet them healthy and healed when they return rather than visit them sick in the hospital.”

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Admiral, you and I have known each other for a long time. My cousin Serill served under you during the Tomani uprising. You know me. Please tell me you are not going along with this wicked thing.”

Admiral Roapes twisted his lips in disgust. “I have no choice. My orders come from the Stone Council itself. With Advan announcing that it plans to switch sides to the Alliance, trained medical staff will be in short supply. We will need them at the front.”

* * *

The moon was already waning in the night sky as Akar lay on a small shredded cloth, the only thing that cushioned him from the hard cold floor. Without making a sound, his eyes opened, and he slipped his boots on. There, sitting in plain view, isle four, level two, slot thirty-seven, was the plain-looking potting jar that had spoke to him some weeks earlier. Biting into the flesh of his thumb, he rubbed a smear of blood around the rim. The materials soaked up the blood as if it were porous, and the pot began glowing dimly in the dark.

The surface rippled as if it were made of water, and then, out from what a moment before had been emptiness, a small black bud grew up out of the swirling pool within.

“Take this companion, that your heart may remain hidden,” came Queen Sotol’s dark voice emanating from within. The dark bud spun around as it grew, looking for something to grasp onto until finding Akar’s outstretched finger. His skin burned and sizzled at the touch of the stem, but he remained still as it coiled around him, running up his arm, then wrapping about his neck.