Hot Obsidian

“I’ll tell you one thing, sis,” Lar finally broke the silence. “I taught my Orion that he’s a free man and that once his education is finished, he can decide whether he stays in the Order or not. I think you should talk to your Jarmin about this as well.”

“I will,” nodded Eugenia and hugged her brother again. “And now,” she smiled shyly, as if being afraid of scaring the new hope away, “let’s hope that our boys won’t do anything stupid or…”

“Dangerous?” Lar sniffed. “C’mon, sis, you’re an ambasiath yourself. You well know they have a right to their own adventures. And that they need some danger and mistakes in their lives to grow up…”

***

They were paying their rent in copper instead of gold now that they moved out of the inn, but that was fine with everyone: both the landlady and the Lifekeepers’ team. The flat the boys now lived in was in a crooked building clinging to the inner side of the city wall like a swallow’s nest. Only one of their rooms had a window and that window opened into a small enclosed pocket of space between the house and the wall. A tiny balcony bridged the gap. You wouldn’t fall from it even if you wanted to so no one minded Jarmin sitting there for hours, busy with his painting.

Slowly, one small patch at a time, the boy was filling the grey canvas of the wall with beautiful things, weaving a tale of an alien world. There were immense towers of glass and steel, each as tall as Vlada’s or Sereg’s, metallic, machine-like birds with angular wings, and a maze of bridges and roads.

Jarmin bought his paints and brushes himself, using the pocket money Kangassk Eugenia had given him. Juel scolded the little boy at first but even he came to like the alien landscape eventually. He didn’t take his words back, though, for the paints were expensive and the team was on a limited budget.

Jarmin knew what he was doing when he chose the best paints that Firaska could offer: with the paints of such quality, his alien landscape was going to stay there forever and neither rain nor sunlight, neither time nor flames would be able to ruin it. It was going to stay there no matter what, outliving its master for centuries to come.

Ambassa makes any talent shine and Jarmin’s was no exception. But, unlike his brethren, he was the quietest of the ambasiaths around.

Time passed slowly. While Pai and Milian were busy with learning Transvolo, the rest of the boys found something to occupy themselves as well. Oasis dived into Firaskian urban life, making friends and enemies, breaking old street rules and establishing his own. After Lainuver, who was older and more experienced in the way of shadows, had joined him, the duo turned into a force to be reckoned with.

Juel and Irin spent most of their days training with young Crimson Guardians. All Lifekeepers are skilled warriors, often being taught to fight since turning three, so the boys’ guidance was very welcome at the college training grounds. Several young mages, impressed with Juel’s swordplay, removed the handguards from their swords. Several days later, they were already calling the Faizul “master” and followed him everywhere like ducklings, eager to learn anything he was willing to teach them.

Irin became a regular at the college shooting gallery. He gained some fans – but not “apprentices” like Juel – as well. Every Crimson Guardian, young and old, wanted to see him shoot. Irin never missed. Wind, fog, darkness – nothing could stop him from hitting his target. But, despite his shining talent, no one liked the grim boy. Ambassa makes many things shine, and some of them are not nice. There was an aura of cold, menacing danger around Irin and people subconsciously felt it.

While most of the team kept their activities consistent, Orion, Bala, and Kosta didn’t. Orion could join Juel and Irin at the training grounds (young Crimson Guardians enjoyed his company) or Oasis and Lainuver at their shadow “business”, or Pai and Milian in the library. Sometimes, his wanderer’s spirit became so infectious that the other boys followed his example. Then you could see Pai and Milian spar with the college students or Juel and Lainuver spend a day in the library (Einar Sharlou gave them his permission to do so). Those two always sat in opposite corners of the reading hall but borrowed the same books from time to time.

Bala and Kosta spent their days differently from the rest of the group.

Bala, who was always hungry for stories, dedicated his time to gathering all the stories Firaska could offer. Since he always valued listening to stories over reading them, his main hunting grounds were Firaskian taverns. Soon all the tavern regulars, travellers, and barkeepers knew and welcomed the cheerful dark-skinned boy. Bala had little money to spend but was always generous and irresistibly charming when it came to sharing stories. He told people of his travels with his master, of North and South, of Ebony Islands and Chermasan Sea; he sang foreign songs and narrated foreign legends; he knew a good number of teasing verses too, both from Mirumir and Adjaen. Whenever Bala Maraskaran visited a tavern, curious folks followed him and the tavern owner’s business got a pleasant boost because of all the drinks and food they bought.

Kosta’s case was more complicated.

At first, hungry for knowledge, young Ollardian used to spend his days in the college library with Pai and Milian but then his illness got worse. On his last visit to the library, he borrowed a book titled “Tome of Dark Creatures”. That was how he spent his time now: bedridden, coughing, and reading the darkest textbook imaginable. Kosta’s breath was wheezy, superficial, difficult; if he tried to breathe deeply, his cough returned, making the boy painfully bent double in his bed. It seemed that his lungs were slowly filling with liquid with every passing day.

Kosta’s teammates, concerned with his condition, didn’t hear a single complaint from the stoic boy.

“It’s all right,” he always said. “It happens to me sometimes but it will pass.”

One can only guess how painful his life must have been that he had learned to accept such suffering as normal.

Kosta's condition worsened with each passing day. First, he put his book of horrors aside because even reading became too difficult for him, and then he stopped talking.

Bala brought a foreign healer to him once, a powerful mage who had happened to visit the city tavern Bala was a regular at. After examining the patient, the mage healer said, perplexed,

“Physically, he's fine. His illness resembles a severe case of magical addiction but it’s unlike any case I’ve seen.” He turned to Kosta. “Tell me, my boy, have you ever been to the No Man’s Land or the No Man’s Waters?”

Kosta nodded. He indeed had travelled with his father a lot.

“Did you enter any anomalies? Handled magical objects beyond the stable territory?”

Kosta shook his head.

The healer asked him many more other questions after that but failed to determine the source of his magical addiction. In the end, the mage had to give up. He chose to be honest with the brave boy.

“There is no cure…” he began and wanted to add something hopeful and soothing, but stopped when Kosta just nodded knowingly.

The powerful mage and renowned healer, Bala’s guest left the dark apartment deeply sad and defeated. He refused to accept any payment for his wasted time.

A week had passed after the healer’s visit. Kosta looked like a ghost now, so pale and thin he had become. There was no way to help him. Even returning to the Temple of Life would not solve the problem, for magical addiction is a mysterious illness without a known cure, not something you can treat with potions or magic.

There was no more fun and laughter in the little flat that the team was currently calling home. Every morning, the boys woke up early and left as quickly as possible. They trained and learned twice as hard as they used to, grateful for any distraction that could take their minds away from Kosta’s situation, even for a little while.

Only Jarmin always stayed by Kosta’s side, keeping the silent boy company, reading to him, brushing his hair, and bringing him tea. Bala forgot all about his story-hunting and switched to recipe-hunting instead. Soon, he knew all the healers in the city and all the merchants at the market. He bought himself a bag of medicinal herbs and a cauldron and started brewing a new potion every day.

“I’ve just learned this recipe today! It’s awesomely strong stuff. It must help,” he said every time he brewed another one and added when it failed to work, “Don’t worry, I have another recipe right here…”

Bala’s optimism was the only thing that made Kosta smile now.

Clumsy as he was, Bala was good at potion-making, just as good as he was at cooking, maybe because those two things had a lot in common. His potions did produce some effect, just not the one he was hoping for: a bit of colour returned to Kosta’s cheeks, his cough became softer, and his hair grew long and shiny.

Still, the invisible disease kept filling the boy’s lungs with liquid, slowly but steadily.

***

In the beginning, that morning seemed no different from many previous ones. Jarmin tucked the blanket around Kosta to keep him warm and got back to painting. The little artist worked on its magnificent steel bridges today. Bala’s cauldron was merrily bubbling on a small stove fuelled by Pai’s Fiat-lux. Bala added the last ingredient to the mix, stirred it for a while, took a sip from the spoon, and decided that the potion was ready. He filled a cup, dropped a small cube of diadem sugar into it to sweeten the medicine, and brought it to Kosta who drank it obediently, in small sips, as he always did.

Everything was just like it had been yesterday, everything but the look on the sick boy’s face. There was fire in his eyes that Bala had never seen there before.

His cup of medicine finished, Kosta got out of his bed and started to dress. And not just dress: he put on his sword belt as well.

“Where are you going?” exclaimed Bala. He clumsily waved his hand as he did that, making a pile of pans and pots tumble down from the table with a crash.

Kosta unsheathed his sword, gave it a long look, then sheathed it again.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, very quietly but with determination. It was the first time he had spoken in weeks.

“No, you can’t!” cried Bala, throwing himself between Kosta and the only way out of the room.

Jarmin had left his balcony and was peeking from behind its door now, frightened by the scene.

“Bala… my friend…” said Kosta with a weary sigh. “I’ve been waiting for weeks. My illness used to pass by itself before but looks like it won’t now. If I wait any longer, I will die in my bed. I must do something. Just trust me, please. I will return healthy. Or won’t return at all.”

“What’s on your mind? Suicide?”

“No. I’m going to deal with what is torturing me. Please, let me go.”

Bala was silent for a long time and under this silence, his doubts were having a mortal fight…

“Fine…” he gave in at last. “But I’m going with you!”

The Crimson Guardians would have had a lot of questions to a child leaving the city alone, but a child accompanied by an adult warrior was okay in their book. No one had stopped Kosta and Bala from leaving Firaska.

Free from the claustrophobic labyrinth of the city, both boys were glad to enter a huge, green, open world of Southern wilderness. The air was so fresh there! Kosta even tried to draw a deep breath but regretted it right away: his cough returned.

He could not stop coughing for a long time. Kneeled on the grass, he pressed his hands against his chest and patiently waited for the coughing fit to pass. When Kosta stood up, he had no voice and a horrible wheezy sound accompanied his every breath now.

“I should’ve done it a week ago,” he thought as he saw pity in Bala’s eyes. “It may be already too late.”

“Let’s go,” he said in a wheezy whisper. “We have a long way ahead of us.”

They followed the main road at first but left it after an hour. Their pace was slow but Kosta already breathed heavily and could not go any faster no matter how much he wanted to. Moving forward in a steady, non-stopping pace was the best he could do now, and he did. Hours passed but they had not stopped to rest even once. Had not exchanged a single word either.

Finally, they reached the Firaskian forest, a dark, ominous mass of ancient cedars.

Despite being so close to the city, the forest seemed wild and untouched by people. There were plenty of cedar cones scattered under the trees; every glade was full of berries. Obviously, no one picked local nature's candy – that alone should have made Bala suspicious but it didn’t. He enjoyed the forest too much for his own good. He picked herbs, nuts, and berries along the way, stuffed the herbs into his pockets, gorged on the forest gifts himself and fed them to Kosta.

For the first time in weeks, Kosta didn’t refuse food, knowing that he needed all his strength to meet what he was going to meet.

But strength was what he had not. Four hours after entering the forest, Kosta had to stop to rest and catch his breath. He resumed his journey shortly, as stubborn and methodical as ever in his efforts, but his next “sprint” lasted barely three hours. Then and only then, it dawned on his careless companion that they would not be able to return to the city before dark.

“Kosta,” he said in a terrified, hushed voice, “we have to go back, now!”

Young Ollardian, sprawled on the ground, opened his eyes, bloodshot and watering because of his endless cough, then made an effort to get up and leaned against the nearest cedar tree for support. His wheezy breath was painful to hear.

“Of course…” he whispered. “We will go… it doesn’t matter where to now… Please, sit with me… I have to tell you…”

But he didn’t have the chance… A terrified, wailing cry interrupted him mid-phrase. It must have belonged to a young child scared out of their wits.

“Stay here,” pleaded Bala, torn between his helpless friend and the helpless little stranger. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Don’t…” wheezed Kosta, trying to grab his sleeve, but Bala was too quick for him.

“Late once again,” he thought bitterly. And then he got up and tried to run after his friend.

Two seconds into the run, Kosta started to cough again. His lungs could not take it anymore. His heart was close to its limit as well; it pounded so fast in a desperate attempt to keep up with the sick body’s demands that Kosta felt close to blacking out. His vision dimmed, blurred, overcast with dancing green specks. He had to slow his pace to stay conscious but didn’t dare to stop, knowing that any delay could cost Bala everything.

“Breathe… breathe… breathe…” the boy chanted in his thoughts.

Bala was running through the forest in the direction he had heard the child’s cry from. The undergrowth was thick there; that made Bala’s long sword a real burden that slowed him a great deal. Luckily, the child, a little boy, jumped out of the bushes right in front of Bala.

Marascaran went down on one knee and tried to calm down the kid and learn what had happened to him. The boy looked about five years old: he seemed younger than Jarmin. He was scrawny, dirty, and dressed in filthy rags; his arms and cheeks were red with scratches that running through the undergrowth had left him. The boy’s little face was a mask of utter terror; it made all the horrors of the No Man’s Land that Bala had heard of from his teammates flash before his mind’s eye in a split second.

“What happened to you?” he asked, trying to sound as calm and confident as he could.

“They killed mommy…” whispered the child, his voice gone, probably from crying so loudly.

“Who?”

“They’re scary, evil! With long teeth! There!” the boy pointed his finger somewhere beyond Bala’s back.

“Stay here and be very quiet,” said Bala. He stood up and unsheathed his sword. “I’ll go have a look…”

“NO!!! Bala, don’t!!!” That was Kosta’s cry. One could only guess what that kind of effort it had cost him. “Step away from it!!!”

Surprised and startled, Bala turned back to the child. And recoiled instantly in horror, with his sword in front of him…

The mask of the human child now thrown away, the creature that had lured Bala here started to change into its real form. The eyes, blue and teary the second before, turned glassy and black. A heavy brow overhung them now. The nose sunk into the skull and turned into a narrow slit. The corners of the mouth stretched almost to the ears, revealing two rows of pointy teeth bending inward – a deathly trap for any prey. The “kid’s” arms lost their gentle appearance, they stretched and twisted, turning into grabby paws with long, clawed fingers.

The only thing that remained unchanged was the former boy’s ruffled fair hair that now crowned the creature’s ugly head.

A recent memory flashed in Bala’s mind, answering his silently screaming question: morok. That was all he had managed to think of before a wave of horror paralysed him. Now, he could not even run away.

Bala had no idea what had bought him and Kosta those several precious seconds that changed everything; why the monster hadn’t jumped at the paralysed prey right away: it was the sword. Bala still clutched his katana in his hands, he hadn’t dropped it even in the face of the No Man’s Land horror. Moroks are not stupid, they know well how dangerous human weapons can be. So the monster hesitated, just a moment, but that was enough for Kosta to reach Bala and stand between him and the shapeshifter.

In an attempt to buy himself some time to catch his breath, Kosta looked into the monster’s eyes, sending it an unspoken challenge. His heart pounded so fast he could hear it over all other sounds. His hands trembled. But he felt no fear. The fear that had been torturing Kosta for weeks, was gone now. Young Ollardian felt more confident than ever now when everything fell into place. And he was ready.

Furious with the little human’s challenge, the morok answered with another wave of horror that washed over Kosta without any harm but made Bala lose his mind, drop his sword and fall to his knees crying.

Kosta stood his ground. Between his friend and the monster. He deliberately kept his hands off his sword to send a message: I’m ill, I’m weak, I’m unarmed, come and get me. But the morok was old and experienced enough not to fall for this trick. Instead of jumping at Kosta, he threw another horror wave at him, perfectly aware of Kosta’s immunity to it: the monster’s target was Bala.

Kosta didn’t see what was happening to his friend but he heard Bala’s cry. That cry no longer resembled a sound of a human being, that cry was a primal, animal signal of agony. It was as clear as day: Bala would not survive another wave. So Kosta had to make the first move and the morok was ready…

Bala saw only the end of the battle, only then his sanity returned to him along with his ability to control himself. The morok had no armour on it but still took Kosta three precise hits to kill the monster. Even mortally wounded, it was strong, aggressive and dangerous. Every time Bala thought that it was dead, the monster attacked again.

All Kosta’s training, all his talent, all his ambasiath’s power went into that battle, fitted into mere seconds that seemed as long as life. Everyone knew Kosta Ollardian as a shy, sickly kid who would never hurt a fly. Now, Bala had a glimpse of a very different Kosta: a methodical, merciless monster slayer. He played the role to the end, for after the battle was over, he didn’t fall to his knees exhausted and terrified, no. He proceeded with destroying the morok completely by cutting its heart out of its chest and trampling it on the ground until it stopped beating. And then Kosta’s coughing returned with redoubled strength.

Kosta’s legs gave way under him, he dropped his sword, bent double, and sunk to the ground. He coughed and coughed, spitting out chunks of something black. In the end, the black became liquid, then the liquid turned red. Only then the coughing stopped.

Kosta wiped his bloody mouth with his sleeve, got up, and raised his face to the sun. He was smiling; the colour returned to his cheeks; the horrible disease was no more.

Bala sheathed his sword and approached Kosta.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, desperately trying to find the answer for himself, but there was too much blood on the young Ollardian – both his own and his enemy’s – to know for sure.

“No,” answered Kosta. For the first time since the very beginning of their journey, Bala heard Kosta’s real voice, unchanged by wheezing or panting. It was a very pleasant voice: childish, clear, kind. “And you?”

“I’m fine…” Bala lowered his eyes. “Forgive me for being a burden…”

“There was nothing you could do,” Kosta reassured him. “Moroks are masters of manipulation, both psychological and magical. You had no chance of winning. It usually takes a battle Seven to kill a monster like this one.”

Bala glanced at the monster. Now, when the morok was dead, Bala was afraid that its body would take a form of a child again. But no, it didn’t.

“I thought creatures like this were afraid of the sun…” Bala shook his head. “Why did it pretend to be a child?”

“It wanted to split us at first,” Kosta frowned, “and then – to make you turn your back to it so it would attack you from behind.”

Bala winced at those words. Suddenly, all the horror he had been through, welled up in his heart again.

“Moroks are not stupid,” explained Kosta. “They know how dangerous a sword can be. It’s unlikely that you would have killed it, it knew, but it didn’t want to get wounded. Hence the performance… Bala, it’s a good thing that you kept clinging to your sword. No way I would have got to you in time otherwise.”

Now, when Bala had a good look at the beautiful forest’s true face, he dreaded the prospect of staying here after dark. They got lucky this time but few people get that lucky twice in a row.

With Kosta’s disease defeated – literally – the boys could move much faster now, so they headed back to the city in a run.

Running was difficult for Kosta, still weak from the weeks-long ordeal, but easy enough for Bala to allow gloomy thoughts and doubts pester him as he ran. How could a sick, dying boy have defeated the monster worth of the effort of a professional battle Seven? How could he resist the waves of horror the morok kept sending his way? Who was Kosta for real?

So many questions but no answers.

***

Someone knocked at the locked gates of Firaska. It was a quiet, almost shy knocking but the Crimson Guardians took it as seriously as they would a blaring alarm. Hundreds of newly-made Liht spheres, thrown from the watchtowers, dotted the grass beyond the walls, chasing the darkness away. But they didn’t reveal much. There were no monsters around, just two human figures by the gates: the very kids that had left the city in the morning. On seeing them, Aven Jay Zarbot cursed under her breath: she knew those young Lifekeepers would be trouble.

The younger of the two was holding a dirty bundle in his arms. When one of Aven’s mages demanded him to open it, the boy obeyed. He threw the rags aside and raised his trophy with both hands for everyone to see.

It was a severed head. A morok’s head…

***

“There are many dangerous creatures in our world. You need only a warrior to stop most of them. You need a mage to stop the ones of a more dangerous kind. And a battle Seven to stop the most vicious ones. But not all dangerous creatures are children of the night. This is the term reserved only for the monsters that specialize in humans, imitate their appearance and even speech while hunting.

Are children of the night sentient? Is their behaviour conscious? There are many opinions but no one knows for sure.

Our book does not delve in such discussions. It teaches you how to fight the dark creatures.”

“Tome of Dark Creatures” by Helga-Vlada and Sereg, a handbook of Crimson Guardians and Grey Hunters, first published in 1254, the newest edition published in 14501

Chapter 6. Between a rock and a hard place