Before the windows opened and Midrift was invaded by alien magic, I worked as a handyman in a tiny town in eastern Everlorne: an unmapped podunk called Sylanne, population two-fuckers and a goat. As one of those fuckers, I aspired to saving up enough money to buy some land to farm on. I had a girl and her family to provide for, and doing odd jobs was a vagrant’s responsibility, according to Nat. I was worth more—again, according to her.
I never asked for much. Never needed much to be happy.
I didn’t dream back then.
After the Silent One chose me, not one night’s past that I don’t.
The giant, black bullfrog was waiting for me.
“’Sup,” the thing ribbitted.
“Hey,” I replied.
“We’re not doing a carrot-stick, promise-threat thing tonight.”
“No?” Disappointment. I had been looking forward to seeing Nat.
“Nah,” the frog croaked. “I need to tell you about my youngest brother-sister-father-mother. Your people know them as the Void Maker. The Void Maker is destined to eat their older brother-sister-father-mothers. They have nearly succeeded in doing so. We elder five are the last of our kind, but should the Void Maker succeed, they will bring about a future of endless light and annihilation.”
I stared at the frog.
“Which would be bad for you people,” the frog reinforced.
“This is a lot to take in.”
“Take it in faster, because their firstborn is about to wake you up with something sharp against your hungover throat and you’re not going to get much opportunity after that.”
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Yeah. Alright.” Dream-me has always been very blasé about threats on our not-dream person.
“Cool,” the frog chittered. “See ya.”
“Yeah. See you.”
I felt a knife slide through the front of my shirt and dig and scrape against my beadnet breastplate and then heard an infuriated growl before cool metal pressed against my windpipe. My eyes weren’t even open yet before I had someone small in a choke hold. The tent burst apart, and I pinned Blizzith’s knife between a knee and a bedroll. Her other hand I pinned in a fist. My other glove went to her forehead, pressing her back to meet me eye-to-eye.
She hissed out a pained sound between bared teeth. “Mother fuck!” she spat. “You’re heavy!”
And? I put all my weight on my knee and she cried out, releasing her rose coral knife. But then her legs swung up like whips between us and she crossed her feet behind my head, trying to suffocate me between her thighs.
Flexible little bitch! I released her face to try to pinch the inside of her groin, my own teeth grinding against each other as I tensed every tendon in my neck to allow tiny intakes of breath. For being so short, her whole body was nothing but hard muscle and the fury of the small.
Then she headbutt me and I’m sure the both of us saw stars. We groaned out loud as I fell on top of her, and her legs went limp.
Unrelenting Force, meet Immovable Object.
The both of us took a long moment to recover. By the time I was on my feet, throwing tent canvas free to allow more maneuverability, she too had retrieved her wits and her knife, facing me in the dark, her eyes shining in the moonlight with menacing intent.
“Who the fuck wears beadnet to sleep?!” she demanded.
I, the guy who gets knifed in his sleep on the regular, gave her an incredulous look.
“You’re supposed to be a bastard!” she accused. “You’re not supposed to be a sad, shitty bystander! I’ve seen your soul count! You’re supposed to be a cold, ruthless, merciless, murderer! I don’t kill warlocks unless they deserve it! If I can’t kill you, I’m supposed to drain you! Is that what you want?! You’d rather I rip every soul—every bit of magic and life—from your stupid bones than just knife you in your sleep?!”
The incredulous look turned baffled.
She wavered and said, “You’ve killed everyone you’ve ever loved. There’s no coming back from something like that.”
Rich, coming from Wk. Blizzith Torvoole who admittedly killed all the partners she’d ever been contracted with.
She shook her head, shaking thoughts free. She was utterly altered. The ditzy blonde was transformed into an unhinged enforcer. She grimaced at me. “I know what you’re fucking thinking. You’re thinking you can take me. Try it! You think you can just disappear all your problems? That’s not how the real-world works! There are consequences even for us! If you’re not willing to submit, I’ll be forced to take you down by my patron’s means.”
The bafflement turned to realization.
the raccoon doth project too much
She was looking for redemption for her own sins.
I shook off my gloves.
She shouted something incoherent as she rushed me.
I opened my mouth.
And nothing happened.
She crashed into me, a dazed look in her eyes, the knife flying from her hands. “What was…?” She took time to focus on me, but through the roaring in my ears, I was able to stop her before she could hit me or pin me. The crazy witch was grinning from ear to ear. She pushed herself off me and I let her gather herself. That was a mistake. “You really are an idiot. Have you not been listening to half of what I’ve been saying?”
Not really.
“I’m a voider! I’m a source hunter! A living magical focus? Any of that ring a bell?” When I only frowned at her, anticipating more knives from secret pockets (girls always have secret pockets), she rolled her eyes and put her hands to her hips. “You just charged my spell reservoir, Wk. Sue. En garde!” She clapped her hands together and a crescent of fire tried to bisect me. I sidestepped to the right, but there she was, her hands outstretched, bleeding light. I managed to deflect her next few punches, but then she hissed a curse and waved her hands in a series of gestures.
Stalagmites made from rock and grass and tree shot toward me, some of them the diameter of a plate at their bases. I hopped back, dragged a rope from the campsite with me. I ran to the side, a trail of sudden terraforming following me before a fireball sent me flying backwards off my feet. I rolled over my shoulder and managed to look up just in time to see Bliz rushing me once more, that coral dagger of hers back in her sure grip.
I lassoed the rope. I didn’t expect to catch her wrist. I jerked and the knife went flying into the trees behind me. Out of a pouch on her calf, she drew another knife and cut the rope before I could throw another loop over her.
mhm
secret pockets
sister-mothers always
got
secret pockets
I opened my mouth again, shouting, “STOP!”
Bliz faltered this time, bending a knee slightly before getting back to her feet. Her pupils were dilated in the moonlight, and the grass and beaten earth around us glowed; her skin breaking apart like rock floats on top of lava, illuminating the surrounding area like some furious high fey. “Do that… Do that again,” she said drunkenly, fumbling around before dropping her calve knife and rubbing at her eyes. She shook her head at me, trying to focus.
I held out my hands in a placating gesture.
She batted at me and slurred her words. “It keeps going. I follow the stones down and your well keeps going. Sue…” She stumbled into me and finally collapsed. Her skin slowly contracted in on itself, sealing the world in shadow once more. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
Her body went limp and she started to snore. Loudly.
I’m too hungover for this, I thought as I fire-carried her back to the torn-down tent. I threw her bodily onto the pile. She was drooling like an idiot. I recovered her weapons and sheathed them on my own belt. (I used to keep lockpicks and iron levers, but the knives fit in their absent places like the lambskin and steel had been made for them.)
I draped an errant piece of canvas over the other warlock and then sat down with a huff of breath, surveying the destruction of the clearing with fresh, adrenaline-fueled eyes.
I’m dangerous? I know one spell and that spell is a circle of annihilation. But Torvoole… I’ve only ever seen wizards cast more than one kind of elemental magic before. She wasn’t kidding, was she? She pulls from source… and I apparently have a well of source. Enough to knock her on her ass like a weekend bender.
She said she was sorry.
after she tried to kill you
And she can wrestle.
trying to kill you
What if she wakes up and she still wants to contract with me?
SHE TRIED TO KILL YOU
Will I say yes?
NO
No, I decided there and then. Blizzith was obviously unstable. She was troubled by those who abuse power. She was daring and dangerous and homicidal and impassioned by something I would never be able to properly address with her.
It would be better if we parted ways. I’d give her a share of my takings for this one job and disappear back in the crowd of The Commons, seeking out boards and ledgers with shit-paying jobs open to whoever was willing to risk it for the biscuit. I’d get drunk and I’d forget about the voider and her glittering rock formations, reaching up to the sky, framed in ash and moonlight.
for fucksake
you were already gone
Will you please just let me tell this story?
hm
you have invoked the most magical of
words
al
right
I laid back to watch the stars roll by, knowing that Half’ld was just around the corner. It would prove to be a short watch.
Still, a revolving door of thoughts wedged themselves between my folds like a splinter or piece of fibrous crystal. And one shiny shard stood out among all the rest: a declaration of dependence.
Bliz was the first person I had managed to speak to in four years.
and there it is
I was already
chopped liver
ns 18.68.41.146da2
