Chapter Two
The Market
The clothes Truth had chosen for the wedding were comfortable enough that he’d decided not to swap them out again, though he did slip his earrings out of his pocket and jab them into his ears again. It was awkward healing the holes every time he left the market, but by this point he tried to keep as many noticeable differences between his two lives and appearances as possible – and that was one that people would notice if changed in his all-business military persona. He wound his way through the tiny kitchen towards the stairs with ease, sliding past familiar obstacles with practiced grace. His house was remarkable only in that it was rather small for someone who made as much money as he did. He didn’t need any more space though, and he had better uses for that money.
His mask sat right where he’d left it, hidden under the smallest illusion on his nightstand, and he slipped it on over the slim hood it paired with. He briefly checked his appearance in the mirror for escaping curls or visible identifying marks as he reached for the secret teleportation mark inscribed near it. It would have been convenient for it to take him straight to his clinic, but there were protocols to be followed. At the very least he didn’t need to go walking through the streets juggling his ‘I’m-definitely-up-to-something-illegal’ mask and his medical tools while hoping no one noticed anything.
The little side chamber off of the main passageway already had several occupants when he arrived, clustered by the exit on the intricately tiled floor. Most of them he recognized by their masks; a few raised their hands in greeting on seeing him. One said, “Back already, Songbird?” Truth smiled behind the iridescent green of his painted wooden feathers, and said, “I did say it was a very small errand.” It was so nice to just speak naturally, let the words flow out and easy, no clipped military accent draining the color from his voice. The familiar dull ache in his earlobes settled in as he joined the queue.
He always loved seeing the market from up here, the colorful roofs sprawled across the cavern floor, interspersed with dripstone pillars and stalagmites carved into fantastical shapes where they had grown. Little floating globes of light hovered above the houses and shops, each a small welcoming glow – nearly impossible to tell which was magic and which was electric. Merchants with no shop fronts lined the streets in their stalls, hawking potions and charms along with more mundane offerings like fresh pretzels and roasted nuts, side by side with others selling the latest tablet models and teleconduits patched to link to the underground network. Androids weren’t common even here, but they were sprinkled through the area too – some simply shopping, while others were merchants in their own right. The grass and the gardens, spelled to believe they grew under an open sky instead of in a cave, spread between the buildings and grew through the cracks in the mossy cobblestone with abandon. Even the occasional tree flourished in the out of the way corners of the market, tended with the same care as all the rest of the plants.
The guard had changed since he’d left, he noted; it was Boots on duty now. He didn’t know the man’s real name, of course, but he knew him quite well all the same. The same couldn’t be said for Boots, of course – you learned a lot of things inadvertently when mindreading people, even for as simple a task as this. They didn’t call them memory guards for nothing. He likely knew Truth’s true name, his real job, and that old name he’d rather forget for good measure. Their strict silence was what bought the market the safety it enjoyed.
It was late enough now that most people were leaving the market, or closing their shops for the night, so it shouldn’t take too long to slip back inside, even if he was the last. He waited politely for Boots to finishing processing the current group of guests that were on their way out, as the man blindfolded each one and then suppressed the memory of the market’s location in their minds. Their escorts teleported them out, when he was done, and Truth sauntered up to the gate to say hello.
“Hey, Boots.”
The man nodded at him, tapping a finger to the plain black mask that both concealed and protected his whole face in a casual salute. “’Lo, Songbird. Going back in?”
Truth nodded in return, saying, “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”
“Actually,” Boots said, turning and looking over his shoulder at the outskirts of the sprawling complex, “We had a newcomer teleport right in to the market, bypassing the gate. Must have a talent for it, since he didn’t use a mark. You can see him, right… there.” He pointed, indicating a tiny black figure that was wandering slowly, aimlessly along the darker edge of the cavern where the grass thinned. “He’s maskless and not doing anything concerning at the moment, so we’ve left him alone for now – he’s clearly a magic-user of some kind, so he’s allowed – but someone ought to check on him.” He shook his head. “No mask… have to wonder if he ran into some trouble somewhere and had to run for it. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Truth nodded thoughtfully. That happened, occasionally. Once you were registered in the system as a magic-user, it became near-impossible to move around in more usual ways. The underground market was a good place to start if you needed help.
“If he did have a run-in with the authorities he might need to stop by my place later too.” Truth squinted, considering what he could see of the man’s gait from there. “He’s up and walking steadily though, so if he’s hurt it’s probably not too bad.”
Boots was frowning at his dashboard when Truth looked back, watching one meter in particular. Then he flipped the alarm switch. Truth started, concerned. That would send silent mental alarms blaring across the whole cavern, alerting people to get out, and get out now. Boots said, very quietly, “That’s a lot of footsteps in the main tunnel. Too many footsteps.” That could only mean one thing.
A raid. A raid, here? Something had gone very, very wrong.
“Oh no,” Truth whispered, fear twisting his stomach.
Boots bent and pulled out his shotgun, something he’d never seen any gate guard do in over a decade with the market. The man slid the handguard back and forth with a quick, practiced motion, loading it with a clack. “You’d better get inside the gate and run, son. I can distract them for a little while so people can get out.”
He seemed too calm, as though accepting the inevitability of his death. Truth stared at the pile of magazines next to the chair. More ammunition than Boots could possibly use, unless…
“You could distract them for a lot longer if I was healing you,” he said, crouching behind the desk. Over Boots protests, he rolled up the nearest of the man’s pant legs and put his hand on bare skin. “Now they’ll have to take both of us down,” he said. He knew he was too close to this entrance to get away anyway if they were already that far in the main tunnel.
Boots stood silently. His chin moved as he tried to think of things to say to persuade Truth to run, but finally he just said, “You sure about this, Songbird? I’m old already, but you… you could at least try to get away.”
Truth nodded, determined. “If they caught me it would be… especially unpleasant,” he said. His voice hardened. “I’d much rather be dead.” He knew the other man would understand why.
“It’s too late for that now, son,” Boots said gently. Confused, Truth looked up, saw the apologetic look on the man’s face – when had he removed his mask? What– then felt the butt of the gun hit the back of his head. Stars exploded in his vision – he was hit again one more time as he tried not to collapse, and the bitter taste of betrayal was all he knew as he spiraled down into nothingness.
Nightside
The pale statue had been waiting for them outside the building, having apparently not bothered to traverse the inside. Ortus, he had said he was called initially, then paused to think before continuing – in their language it would be akin to… to Apex, the Apex to his brother’s Nadir. Apparently that had meant something, a long time ago. Realizing they had as little comprehension of his statements as he did of theirs, he waved the details aside. He told them, “Suffice it to say, we worked in pairs, one to gather power, and one to expend it. My brother was always the more dangerous of us…” Oreo peppered him with questions as they climbed back out of the cavern and through the passage in the ice. Why, for instance, was he so damn tall? How did his hair work? What exactly was wrong with Nadir?
He was silent for a moment at that, and when he spoke his face twisted in a wry smile. “There were… unintended consequences inherent in the magic that binds us. We were created to guard kings, you see, to judge those who approached them with sin heavy on their souls.” He looked up through the ice, as though seeing something not there. “When the last of the kings was gone, what more need was there for us? A dangerous question to ask, it seems. When the master spellmark was destroyed and our spellcircles shattered, many of us died simply from the shock. Some of us went mad and were hunted down. Others fell silent, then still, and eventually faded away.”
He turned to face Oreo, trying to make his point clear. “With our keystone mark gone, with nothing to guard, our minds… broke. We had to have something. Anything.”
“In my own lapse of sanity I found a patch of flowers and was captivated by it, finding it so enthralling that I bound myself to it.” He tipped his head towards the phlox growing wild around them. “It was a completely inane thing to do, and yet it was enough to save me. They have been growing here ever since.”
“Wait,” Oreo said, blinking in surprise. “These flowers? They’re not preserved by a gardening spell? Shouldn’t they be dead by now?”
“The grass is, but not the flowers. They do not seem to be entirely mortal now,” Apex agreed. “It was not a thing meant to be used on plants, or small creatures, I think.” They turned another corner, the grass growing thinner as they approached the end of the tunnel. “It was not a perfect solution to the problem. I spent far more time carefully plucking insects off leaves than I would prefer to admit…” He shook his head. “By the time I had recovered enough of myself to think that perhaps something similar could be used to save others- hence the magpie,” he said, gesturing at the bird on his shoulder, “there were very few of us left. My brother was one; he was always terrifying at his full strength and more than a few hunting parties had fallen to him.”
“His rage was terrible,” Apex said quietly, eyes downcast. “Rage that he was broken, rage that he could not fix it, rage that he could not control himself, rage that it wasn’t even his own doing that had destroyed him. It was all I could sense from him when I finally found him. I have never seen him so furious. I do not know what exactly he went through – I have never been the mindreader he is – but to escape the chaos when the empire fell cannot have been easy, not damaged as we were.”
He shook his head again, golden hair dancing with the movement. “He tried to kill me too; I don’t think he recognized me at first. But, he was my brother… I could never have made myself fight him, let alone kill him, so I had to try to pacify him. Even in the same alignment as him, I was barely strong enough to put him to sleep, and I was uncertain that it would hold- I had by that time claimed the building behind us, and I had thought that if I put myself to sleep as well, it would be like a second layer of sleep on him through our link, until he could calm down.”
He was silent for a moment, following B. “It was never meant to be a permanent rest. Perhaps our separate sleeping spells reinforced each other through the link, instead of overlapping to make us sleep deeper.”
Oreo honestly wasn’t sure how to respond to any of that, and said the first thing that popped into her head, “So wait, it wasn’t your temple or anything, you just found the place? You sure people didn’t worship you in there?”
Apex’s face was a picture of horror as he looked down at Oreo. “Worship me? What a… distressing thought. Thankfully, no, it was abandoned when I found it, and I stayed because the ceilings are high enough for me to move around comfortably. My flowers aren’t very mobile, you see, so it was convenient to replant some of them nearby.”
They had slowed while they talked, and B was already seated inside the hopper by the time they exited the crevice. They could see her fingers typing furiously through the window, and her voice echoed through the open door as she saw them. “Bad news. We get reception out here, barely, but the underground channels are full of distress calls.”
Apex disappeared in a brief flurry of wind, only to reappear right at the door, anxiety in his voice as he asked, “Nadir?”
B shook her head, fingers still flashing across the keys. “No,” she said, her voice going thin and tinny. “No, there’s been a raid. They found the market.”
The Market
When Truth woke, groggily opening his eyes to the sharp stabbing pain of the military standard floodlights, he found his arms twisted back uncomfortably and his mouth gagged, loosely bound to a stake by the remains of the main entrance. There appeared to be some sort of makeshift proceeding happening in front of him, as an officer sat behind Boots’ desk and others spoke – Oh. Damn, they moved fast, he thought, they didn’t even wait to give me a proper court-martial, they’re just doing it right here. Apparently he didn’t even need to be awake for it. He watched as the presiding officer banged the makeshift gavel and announced his dishonorable discharge and three lifetime imprisonments for treason, espionage, and unauthorized magical usage. Not mentioned in the official sentence, of course, was the extreme likelihood that he would be experimented on for the rest of his natural life. Even if the infamous bill legalizing magic ever passed, the other charges were enough to keep him behind bars forever.
Truth couldn’t turn his head at all, sparking pain shooting up his neck and down his back when he tried, bright spots blooming in his vision as he did (potentially fractured skull, spine. Prevent movement, check none of the fragments are out of place before healing) but none of the soldiers he could see were injured. Boots must’ve just let them in. They had to have known when exactly to show up for his shift and everything. And judging by the amount of specialized equipment he saw being used, this wasn’t some hastily executed sneak attack, but a carefully planned raid. He felt a flash of anger at the thought – this man had been a trusted member of the market community for well over a decade, longer than Truth himself, and he repaid them like this?
He rolled his eyes, trying to see if he could spot any other captives without jarring his injury. He thought he caught a glimpse of a mask, but it might have just been the edge of a crate glinting in the lights as it was moved. He knew there were children living in the market – it was, after all, the oldest magical community still around and entire families had grown up in it – and they could be difficult if they didn’t understand how serious a situation was. He really, really hoped they had all gotten away. People still found mass unmarked graves with the bodies of children from magical families, from back when there were still purges. He wouldn’t put it past them not to have a few ‘accidents’ on a raid this big, with so little warning.
The officers in front of him were signing papers now, probably authorizing his detention and deportation. Perhaps they thought he wasn’t much of a threat, being injured and only medical corps, since they’d bound him so loosely – they would shortly realize that had been a mistake. He fumbled with his bound hands, twisting them around and turning until he could place one set of fingers on the skin of the other hand. This was not the best way to heal someone, but it was fast and doable, and he dumped energy into himself, flooding his body with enough aether to heal damn near anything short of a mortal wound. Without any real direction, the energy went everywhere, sealing the open piercings in his ears around the earrings as well as the intended fractures in his skull and on down to even the tiniest scratches on his hands. Horribly inefficient and left him drained, but his senses were suddenly sharp and alert again, pain gone and eyes clear. His eyes darted around the scene, noting which officers were closest to him; which soldiers had weapons and which were yawning with boredom due to the length of the proceeding. No one seemed to have noticed the slight glow where he’d transferred the power through his fingers, to his relief. He hoped his eye hadn’t been bruised enough for them to notice a difference in that either.
More quiet and careful twisting got one hand free, and then he was able to slip the other out with ease, loosely holding onto the ropes as if he was still bound. All he needed now was an opportunity. He’d only get one chance at this, he knew – but if a memory guard had turned on them, they were all in deep trouble. Even if Boots only knew specifics about the market, that could still have devastating consequences. He needed to warn somebody -anybody – and he had nothing left to lose now except his life. Prison and a lifetime of experimentation were all that awaited him. Hardly an appealing thought. Escape would be preferable, even into death – and with his death, he’d remove the chance that he could incriminate someone else, too.
His chance came when a careless soldier walked too close and turned his back. He was up and moving in seconds, foot lashing out to knock the man off balance, grabbing the firearm from the holster to fling away as hard as he could and garroting the neck of the next nearest soldier with his arm. The man made a strangled choking noise as he hit the ground and Truth dropped beneath the swinging limbs of onlookers turned attackers, dodging with every ounce of skill he had. He knew that they wouldn’t risk shooting him if he was in a tangle with their own soldiers, which only gave him more reason to trip and bite and jab his way through the bodies rushing him instead of trying to get clear. He had to make a real break for it eventually, though, and he darted for the nearest stalagmite, dodging and weaving – any cover was better than none.
Now, now they started shooting. He was prepared, though, hand to skin already, just waiting for the first bullets to hit him. The minute something tore, he healed it. A bullet passing through an arm was already healed by the time it exited. Bones chipped, fractured – those were much harder to heal, but he did it, forcing them to stay strong, be sturdy as he ran for it. He poured everything he had into his escape, holding nothing back. All that existed was the running and the mending of torn flesh, the expelling of bullets from where they lodged, the careful orchestration of skin and bone and muscle to force itself back together again and again and again-
He felt the sharp pinch of a needle, instead of a bullet, and cold numbness started flooding into his system from what he knew must be tranquilizer. He couldn’t really fight both the tranquilizer and heal the bullet wounds at the same time, but he tried. Oh, he tried. If he hadn’t had to heal his head from Boots’ treachery he might have managed it, but then the second dart hit him, and the third and fourth…. his steps began slowing, staggering, even as the bullets stopped hitting him and the numbness spread and he finally crumpled to the ground. Oh well, he thought as he fell back into that blank nothingness, they might have been prepared for it, but at least I gave it my best shot… wasted a bunch of their ammunition while I was at it… assholes…
