Soulrazor (8 page)

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Authors: Steven Montano

BOOK: Soulrazor
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The ship sails into the ruins.
Dark shapes move in the deeps, silhouettes of drowning people that grasp and struggle for the surface.
He senses a presence in the dark, lost somewhere in the shadows. He sees flashes of eyes and teeth.
The woman is there, at the far end of the open keep, waiting on the shore. She is wreathed in grey shadows that flow around her body like clouds of steam.
He cannot see her face, and yet feels that he knows her. Her eyes are pinpricks of light in the watery gloom.
The ship slowly chops its way toward her. A sense of dread grows in his chest and holds there, like some gritty substance he’s been forced to choke down.
The waters are violent and the walls loom close, and he knows that at any moment he will be dashed against the stone, where he will sink and drown in the company of lost souls.

 

Cross woke. He still saw the woman in his mind's eye, a vivid shadow with hazy diamond eyes. He shook himself to, and the image was gone.
His head pounded, and his lips and throat burned with dehydration. Cross reached for the decanter of water on the stand next to his hospital bed, only to find that it wasn't there.
He looked around the hospital wing, which was a vast and open space crowded with sandstone pillars and hospital beds. It was deep in the night, and the only reason Cross could even see his own hand in front of his face was because of the ambient glow of the flames that penetrated the mists from the watchtowers outside.
The walls hummed with hex currents and bioelectric wires. Thin fog curled against the reinforced windows, and the air was cold and still. Cross smelled disinfectant and body scent.
Something felt wrong. Like the air itself had frozen.
Cross looked around. The other patients all seemed to be asleep. Someone was usually being tended to by a nurse or one of the doctors on Rikeman's staff, but just then everything was utterly quiet. Only the sound of warships passing by overhead broke the silence.
He wanted something to drink, but he didn't want to wake everyone in the hospital wing calling out for a nurse, so Cross licked his lips, popped the muscles in his neck, and slowly stood up.
The stone floor was deathly cold, and it took some effort for Cross not to gasp at its touch. He considered living without the water before he saw something move out of the corner of his eye.
Whoever it was kept to the shadows, and they moved in and out of sight behind the nearest pillar. Cross' spirit coiled around him. She was like an electric current that covered his skin in a burning glaze. Her excited state gave him a rush of energy that he badly needed, as his body was entirely drained of strength, like every muscle had turned gelatinous.
Cross carefully stepped around his bed and moved towards the pillar. His bare feet were silent on the stone. He’d made it most of the way before he realized he wasn’t wearing his implement gauntlet: it would be impossible for him to channel his spirit without immolating them both.
Shit!
Unarmed, Cross stepped closer. A woman stood half-concealed behind the pillar. He couldn’t make out any of her features, like she was nothing more than a silhouette. She wasn’t really trying to hide her presence, but she kept herself out of plain sight so that he couldn’t see her clearly. By her shape it almost might have been Danica, but this woman was too tall.
“
Hello?” Cross said. His voice rang like cannons in the still air.
“
Hello, Cross,” she said. He knew that voice, but couldn't place it.
The air went brittle and hard. He stared into her eyes and

 

he sees the trees. The sky is dark and cold and filled with shadows that loom like giants.
He sees the women in the glade. Their pale flesh is moist, and their gossamer dresses cling to their thin bodies.
Black unicorns descend and tear through the forest with their razor horns. Their approach shakes the trees and brings down the leaves in an avalanche of purple and red. Black rain falls, and the water smells of death.
He sees his spirit – his original spirit, the spirit he’d grown up with – and joy swells in his heart. She reaches out, but she can't take hold of him, because her hands are made of flame.
Her touch scalds him, but as his clothes are set alight and the fire swarms all over his body, all that he can think about is how he knows this has somehow happened before.

 

Cross woke on the floor, screaming.
“
Easy, now,” Rikeman said. The doctor knelt down, which was obviously painful for him due to his leg brace. Rikeman held Cross' arms so that he couldn't thrash about. A nurse stood nearby with a burn kit.
“
What...what happened?!” Cross gasped. He tried to pull himself upright, and that was when the pain hit him, sharp and fast, from the centers of his palms all of the way up to his elbows. Tears welled up in his eyes.
“
Eric, please!” Rikeman pleaded. “Stop moving!”
“
What’s going on?!” he asked. “Who was that woman?! What did...”
He looked down and saw what had happened to him. Rikeman gingerly held him by the wrists, the only spots on Cross' arms that weren’t covered with dark burns.

 

Later that morning, the hospital wing bustled with activity as beds were shifted around and the halls were clean. Patients woke from their disturbed sleep to feast on hot food.
Rikeman’s staff consisted of almost a dozen nurses and three doctors who helped the crippled doctor maintain peace and order in the hospital wing of the Southern Claw headquarters. More often than not, he still had his hands full.
The smell of artificial eggs and turkey meat was thick in the air as the patients ate their breakfast. Cross smelled coffee and juice, but even though his stomach growled he was afraid to eat. He was afraid to do much of anything other than just lie there in his bed, still and quiet.
Rikeman had stayed with Cross through the rest of the night and for a significant portion of the next day. He took biometric readings with a thaumaturgic oscilloscope, monitored Cross’ vital signs, and carefully applied burn salves and wrapped Cross' arms just tight enough that the bandages wouldn't slip off.
Cross didn't sleep. He sat with his back a few inches away from the metal bed frame and leaned forward, so that if he started to doze off he would slip backwards and jar himself awake.
Rikeman got on Cross’ case to get some rest, but the warlock just looked out the window and tried to figure out what had happened.
His own spirit had burned him, Rikeman said. She’d somehow slipped out of his control while he’d been asleep. Mages spent years learning to maintain control over their spirits even while in a subconscious state. Somehow Cross’ control, which he'd always taken for granted, had broken during the night.
“
It could be a side-effect of that black soup that you went swimming in,” Rikeman said. Cross and Snow had both judiciously decided some years ago that Rikeman had a great bedside manner: he was kind and soft-spoken, not-overbearing, knowledgeable, and only stern when he had to be. Cross didn't know how he managed to maintain his composure so well with a life-threatening injury hanging over his head.
“
Maybe,” Cross nodded. “But that doesn't explain the dream.”
He looked around. Cross was gripped by a mental haze. It was mid-morning, he guessed, and the air felt stale and heavy. His eyes stung with fatigue, and his throat was raw. The tube in his left arm led up to an IV stand that he precariously gripped with his trembling hand.
Who was that in his dream? And why did she seem so damn familiar?
“
Try to relax,” Rikeman said. His bifocals made him look at least twenty years older than he actually was. Rikeman was probably only in his late thirties, but both the glasses and his salt-and-pepper beard added quite a few years. He picked up Cross' chart with his gloved hands and wrote something down that he saw on his latest reading. “It was just a dream.”
“
I don't have ‘just dreams’,” Cross said. “I wish I did. Trust me.”
He’d experienced visions on every major mission he'd ever been on, all of the way back to Wolf Brigade's ill-fated engagement in Blackmarsh in A.B. 20.
He'd never had visions before he'd joined the Southern Claw military, and nothing he'd dug up in his research or from his interviews with other mages gave him any indication as to why he had them now.
“
Both you and your spirit seem to be in pretty good condition,” Rikeman said after he'd finished taking his readings. The oscilloscope allowed him to gauge a spirit's general state of well-being. While a spirit had no definable physiognomy to speak of, with the proper equipment one could determine their general power level and emotional state and then conduct further analysis from there. Mages were always cognizant of their spirit’s status, of course, but sometimes things went wrong, and further assistance was needed. “Eric…I’m sorry, but I’m just not sure what to tell you,” Rikeman said. “Both you and your spirit seem to be fine. The trouble is that I don’t know what to expect from you and your…you know, special circumstances.”
“
You mean the fact that my spirit isn’t the one that I started out with,” Cross said.
“
Exactly. It can make things difficult to gauge because, frankly, we’re in uncharted territory.” Rikeman stood up. His metal brace squeaked as he placed weight on it. A nurse came by and told him that he’d be needed for an operation in a few minutes. “You can stay as long as you like, Eric,” Rikeman told him.
“
I thought you guys were supposed to kick non-SC personnel out of here as quickly as possible,” Cross said quietly.
“
Yeah, well…” Rikeman laughed, and he smiled sadly. “I wish I had more answers for you, kid. Would you, uh…consider talking to Laros, or another mage on the White Council?”
Cross’ blood ran cold at the suggestion. The level of anxiety he suddenly felt at the notion of letting the White Council run tests on him took surprised him.
“
Um…probably not,” he laughed nervously.
“
It may be helpful,” Rikeman said after a pause. “I’m not sure what else
I
can do for you. By all accounts, it looks like you had an incredibly vivid dream, and somehow your subconscious control over your spirit slipped, which resulted in those burns. They’re superficial, and both of you seem to be okay. My readings aren’t picking up anything out of the ordinary.”
“
Thanks, Phil,” Cross nodded. “I’ll probably enjoy your luxury accommodations for a little while longer, but I do have a meeting to get to.”
“
Take care, Eric.”
Cross stood up after Rikeman walked away. Both of his arms were wrapped in thick bandages that ran from the middle of his fingers all of the way down to his elbows. The skin itched like crazy underneath, and even slight motions made them ache. His spirit had already started the process of healing his skin, and even as he sat there in the dank morning air, with his throat raw thanks to the taste of ammonia and the smell of sickness, he felt her lace damaged tissue back together.
But even though he felt the results of her work, he only barely felt her presence. He got the impression that she was trying to keep herself in the background. Maybe she felt sorry for what she’d accidentally done.
I always worried that something like this would happen. I never thought it would be because of a dream.
He heard the woman’s voice again. It had sounded so familiar.
Who are you?

 

Cross wondered about the woman’s identity during his trip home. He left in the afternoon. Rikeman had insisted that someone escort him just to make sure that he was all right, but Cross declined. He wanted to wander Thornn on his own for a bit, just to clear his head.
Thornn’s Centertown district was extraordinarily noisy in the afternoon because of the rush made to complete all outdoor work before nightfall. Cross slowly worked his way up steep streets made of hard-packed earth and through cobblestone intersections, and his body reminded him every step of the way that he’d far from fully recovered.
His throat was sore and raw. He’d picked up some sort of cold in the hospital, which, while not surprising, was still annoying as hell, and he found himself running out of breath before he’d even made it a few blocks.
Even with magic, we still can’t cure the common cold. Lame.
The buildings in Centertown were made from dark stone and cast in hues of crimson. The tall windows were reinforced with steel bars, and every door was banded in iron. A cross had been laid over every threshold, or else inscribed on the doors themselves. Not all of them were traditional Christian crosses, but it didn’t really matter, because the crosses were placed there as symbols of the struggle against the vampires of the Ebon Cities, and not for any pragmatic measure. It was discovered in the early days of the war that crosses had no effect on the Suckheads, much to the detriment of those who felt confident they’d offer some measure of protection.

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