Patricia Wilson
Stories
10
Chapters
3,347
Words
163.4 K
Comments
0
Reading
13 h, 37 m
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Harmony was lying very still on the concrete floor. He was short one relative. Short one Sib. But it wasn’t time to panic yet. Death, as Truth knew better than most, was not always a clean cut thing. Alive and dead… weren’t we always dying? And when we ‘died,’ didn’t parts of us keep right on living? The soul was a tricky issue, certainly, but since Mr. Red and Ms. Black’s souls had hung around, presumably Har’s had as well. The spell sank into the young man’s body. He would be……-
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Truth wasn’t a simple man, but he liked to think he was. Confront complexity with simplicity, defeat magic with beatings. All he had to do was sort out the order of beatings. There were dozens of active spell effects in the room, but only a few Truth actually cared about. There was the main ritual, which could be considered a strategic level threat. The curse that Mr. Red and Ms. Black just sacrificed their acolytes to power could be considered the tactical threat. Then there were the personal…
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Thorough preparation means swift execution. The ritualists were met in the hallway by seven costumed acolytes, each carrying a beeswax taper emitting a terrifying white light and a musky, piney gray smoke. “Now is the hour.” Mr. Red and Ms. Black chanted. “Now is the hour. Justice is at hand.” The acolytes chanted back. “The stars align.” “Darkness falls on the evildoers.” “The stars align.” “Enlightening the wise.” “Now is the hour.” “Now is the hour. Now is the…
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Nothing more needed to be said. Harmony was resolved. Truth could see it in his eyes. His body would break and his soul would shatter before he quit. The System had been working on Harmony for almost six years now. Truth was brainwashed to near suicidal fanaticism in one. Admittedly, in both cases, Starbrite had been pushing on an open door. With that little motivational speech, Mr. Red had ensured the perfect sacrifice. Truth flexed his fingers. Mr. Red was a superb ritualist. Best he had ever seen.…
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3 •
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Truth’s immediate thought was to smash up the room. If the ritual space was destroyed, then there could be no ritual, and no danger from the ritual. This thought was followed almost immediately by the thought of what two Tier Eights (or possibly Tier Nines) could accomplish in an environment where they supremely did not care about taking prisoners. This smoothly transitioned his first thought into sabotage, somehow reversing the spell so it landed on the casters, but he had no idea how he could actually…
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The room Harmony was in looked like it was cut out of a roadside motel and dropped straight into the base. Not some mom and pop operation. A big, national chain, where all the furniture was standardized and had to be bought from the head company. Pale pinewood furniture, gray curtains over an enchanted picture window, gray blanket lying over crisp white sheets. All neatly cleaned and made by the built in housekeeping enchantments on the bed. Safe, inoffensive art on the wall. A small scryball. A little…
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Truth’s hand slammed backwards before the door could close. Incisive was being very insistent. The more the door closed, the more danger he was in. Which was a hell of a take about an empty, concrete stairwell. The stairs were even designed to be no-slip, with a sensible, sturdy handrail. It was well lit, and there was even an illuminated EXIT sign above the door. Sensible safety innovation right there. This was a ten out of ten stairwell. And he was quite sure he would die if he closed the door. He…
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The sky was as blue as it ever was. But it wasn’t. The sky was clear as night, filled with a billion billion billion stars. But it wasn’t. The sky was red, the color of cold flames and hot blood, filled with screaming ghosts and raging demons. But it wasn’t. It was a beautiful blue sky today. The Green Sea was warm as a mother’s love, or as cold as a mother’s contempt. It was hydrogen, oxygen, sodium and other trace minerals. It was one of the four elements, mixed, as all material things are,…
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The rock was not cooperative. In addition to being invisible, it kept trying to slip out of his memory. As a result, he found himself struggling to keep his balance. Truth could have balanced on a razor’s edge, balanced on another razor’s edge, on the edge of a monofilament wire, in a moderate windstorm. So being unable to keep balanced on a roughly foot sized rock in calm seas inspired a lively hate in him. He fell off. Twice. Truth had already decided to murder anyone who looked to get froggy in…
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Truth indulged in a little self pity. He ordered the Fire Bird to start sweeping up and down the coastline, to keep the base from figuring out they had been spotted. Except, of course, they hadn’t been spotted. They had just been inferred with a high degree of probability. But even that wasn’t the source of his misery. It was the fact that they were almost a hundred kilometers off-shore. A big, seemingly impassable wall wasn’t scary. Any fixed defense can be overcome. It’s not having anywhere to…
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