Chapter 20: Slippery preeminence - Part I.

I quickly lunged for the keyring. The smoke was already filling the cells with its toxic grip. The heat of death followed in its wake like a plague. There were a thousand truths and only one was real. I screamed at the cell, I commanded the lock to be undone, but none of the truths fit.

Blisters bubbled forth on my hands, the bars becoming hotter than was bearable. Screams filled the hall of the damned as those closer to the growing hell had their sand run out in the hourglass of life.

I would die here. It was decided. We had no say. Others controlled our fate.

I let others decide my fate.

I walked through the hallway as I heard the lifeless gryphon scramble for the keys. He was searching for a purpose in the life of a bird with no wings. A spirit of flight chained in its own body. Death was mercy.

The pleading hands reached out through the bars. They tried to touch me, to grip onto me like a drowning man grips onto anything and anyone without thought, making their own saviour drown with them.

I wasn’t their saviour though.

The hands contorted into claws. They tried to slash me. Hissed at me. Yes, they hissed as the fire took the water out of their skin.

“You’ve changed,” I turned from the cells to the hall ahead and stared into my eyes. No, they weren’t mine, and the voice wasn’t mine either.

“Brother,” I whispered in disbelief. Here he was. It was over. I could rest.

He reached out his arms to hug me, and I obliged. How could I not.

“You’ve changed,” the voice repeated, now like two millstones grinding life itself. Pulling back, I found myself in the grip of a diamond dog with his head smashed in, eyes bulging bloody red out of their sockets, peering into me.

I shoved him away but he didn’t budge. Instead I moved, my feet sliding under me.

“I was the first you killed, remember?”

I remembered alright. Falling down into the blue caves. The guard posted there. In a stroke of luck, my mace met his head and like that, his life was snuffed. I remembered I was shaken.

Screams as prisoners behind me burned to death pierced the quiet. I didn’t feel anything.

“Where’s my brother?” I asked as he fell lifeless to the ground, the mace in my hand caked in black and red. The dog’s paw reached to the stairs leading above.

My legs moved, my eyes set on the throne above. The stairs were stone, cold and hard as my determination. It didn’t matter what they were. It didn’t matter as they changed, as they became soft like skin and fuzzy like fur and white as bone.

On the bloodied throne didn’t sit my brother, though.

“I’ve had about enough of this – how does one put it? – weird-ass dream. Time to wake up,” he said before kicking me down the stairs.

I jerked in my bed so hard my back flew out of it as the feeling of falling suddenly jolted my brain awake. But instead of falling down a flight of stairs, my back hit the bed again with a bang since the mattress was so thin. It took me a moment to realize that the dream was just a dream and not reality.

It also took me a moment to realize that the innkeeper didn’t sell us out to the guard as was my fear, even though Dufus assured me that the scribe had made many deals with this shady guy. But one must understand that waking up to a contingency of armed forces wasn’t my idea of a good morning.

With the fear squashed, that left me with the sour aftertaste of the freakish dream. I couldn’t help but recall what happened. However, the details were already starting to fade—except for one.

“Dufus.” I didn’t need to speak the question out loud. He couldn’t help but know, being in the center of my mind.

You’ve decided to put the lives of those prisoners beneath your brother’s. Now your consciousness is acting up after you suppressed it for the good of your kin.

“But I’ve changed, haven't I?”

That’s what happens when you grow up, Peter.

I didn’t have any words after that. Sitting up in bed, another realization hit me as my eyes surveyed the small room illuminated by the morning light. I’d completely forgotten that Paul was sleeping not so far away from me, practically directly opposite to me, in his own bed, his back turned toward me. Well…

“You don’t have to pretend, Paul. I know you’re awake,” I spoke, and with my eyes closed I let myself lean against the wall my bed was pushed to.

“How did you know?” The gryphon in question asked and, opening my eyes, I saw him turn around in bed to look at me.

“Please, I was making such a ruckus only someone deaf wouldn’t wake up. Or someone like me.”

He just stared at me for a while before telling me, “I don’t know what that thing said, but you’ve changed.”

I just blinked at him a few times, being speechless for the second time in the last five minutes. He sat up in his bed, but never took his eyes off of me. Paul continued when a heavy amount of silence passed between us, “I don’t remember you like this, and I dare say I know what I’m talking about. Back home, even though you couldn’t speak, we all got to know you. You were a good person, Peter. You’re different now.” He pointed at the bracelet around the wrist of my right hand. “Ever since that.”

I immediately shook my head. “Dufus has nothing to do with it.”

Paul jumped out of bed, the plumage of brown-tipped feather crowning his head now a little puffed up—a quirk Paul had when he became irritated or deeply angry. “He has everything to do with it! He’s manipulating you, slowly but surely influencing your every action!”

“You can’t know that!” It was my turn to jump out of the bed in anger. Why was he so angry?

“The Peter I know wouldn’t kill others in cold blood!”

Sadness suddenly took the ground beneath my feet, making me sit down on the bed. For a second I contemplated telling him while nervously playing with my hands.

“I’ve killed in cold blood before.” The words were out before the smart part of my mind could stop them. Paul just stood there as the silent words made the heaviness in the air all the more stifling. “What do you know about what happened in the slaver caves.”

Paul sat down now. “You mean back when the villagers captured you because they thought you were a scout to the slavers?”

I nodded. That explained why they treated me like dirt at first, I guess.

“Why do you want to know? I mean, I never brought it up because I didn’t know what the monsters did to you down there before you and the others were rescued.”

“Just, please. Tell me.”

He cleared his throat, clearly a little uncomfortable how the topic had shifted. “Well, when we were searching for their lair, we were ambushed by the diamond dogs. During the ambush, I tried to find you, but it seems they knocked you out or something because I couldn’t see you anywhere. There were too many of them in the end, and only me and one managed to escape, but not unscathed. You and the other gryphon were captured. At least that’s what I thought at the time. Hoped for.”

Damn… In the fervour of ambush, he probably didn’t even notice I was missing before that.

“I tried to get the villagers to help me find you, but they refused because we still didn’t know where their lair was, or how many there were. Alone and hurt, there was nothing I could do.” He hung his head low, looking quite ashamed. He probably took it as a personal failure, even though it wasn’t his fault that I was so stupid as to fall asleep behind some rock and presumably getting myself captured. I was probably incredibly lucky not to get captured for real when sleeping on some stupid rock.

“The sheriff let me stay at his house to sleep, which didn’t last for long. Some slaves seemed to have broken free at night and been able to get to the village. When the sheriff found out, he roused almost every gryphon, except for the young and elderly. They took arms that night and marched with the freed slaves into the hideout after learning its location. They didn’t let me and some other younger or otherwise hurt gryphons go with them, though. When we tried to sneak up after them, we were found out and they had two villagers stay behind to look out after us. After some time, they arrived with more freed slaves, children, and some wounded—you amongst them. They told me later that you played some part in freeing the slaves, but didn’t say much else.”

After hearing that story, the stifling pressure in the air was back.

“Peter, I don’t know what you did in those caves, but if you think killing slavers is killing in cold blood, then your heart is in the wrong place. If I could, I would’ve killed all of them, even if they had no slaves that moment. Any slaver has lost the right to live the moment they decide to be one.”

“Even if the slaver was a child? Even if the slaver was a father I butchered in front of his son’s eyes?” I asked weakly, not daring to look at my friend. “I almost killed that boy, in the caves. He was the alpha’s son. And I almost killed him again, when we found him in the cave by that glade with silver trees.”

Paul gasped in surprise. “Is that why you were so hostile toward that cub?”

Nodding, I said, “I was afraid he’d kill us for revenge.”

“Well, that would explain his anger then. I tried talking to him, but he wouldn’t utter a word. In the end, come morning light, he told me he had to go pee. I untied him and let him go, knowing he wouldn’t come back. At the time, I didn’t really understand the hostility of it all. But now...” Paul looked away, a look of concentration clearly indicating his reminiscence of things past.

“I was so worried back then that he would follow us and slay us in our sleep,” I said and smiled as another thought hit me. “Now I barely remember that little encounter. Haven’t thought about that kid in a long time, too.”

Of course, ‘long time’ wasn’t all that long, but when one is travelling and getting into all sorts of excitement throughout a short period of time, even a week can feel like eternity. After another moment of silence, I looked at Paul and he turned to gaze into my eyes. “Look, Paul, I am sorry about the prison. I was just trying my best to get us out in one piece. All of those prisoners were probably really dangerous if the confiscated things were of any indication. If you let them out then and there, we could’ve been easily overwhelmed and killed. In the end I did give one of the prisoners a key, though, so don’t worry about them anymore. Please?”

Paul listened to what I had to say with calmness and stone face. When my speech was finished, he looked downtrodden somewhat. “I understand, Peter. It’s just –” he got up and took a deep breath before pacing a little over to the small window set into the wall opposite the wooden, bolted door leading out. “– my father always taught me that all life is precious. I mean, I know that sounds strange coming from a hunter, but even then we should preserve life whenever we can. Hunting to eat is far different from hunting to kill,” Paul muttered the last sentence silently, however still loud enough for me to hear.

I saw the chance to change the subject and disperse this heavy atmosphere. “Anyway, I’ll check up on our now renewed budget and whatever else Dufus put into this old-new backpack.” I dragged the thing from underneath the bed and threw it on top to look inside.

“I still don’t trust him, friend,” Paul announced out of the blue, deciding to drag us both back to the unpleasant problem at hand. Instead of expanding on the subject, though, the gryphon decided to go outside, closing the door behind himself rather forcefully.

Pfft, party pooper.

“He’s right.”

If you thought he were, you wouldn’t be relying on me so much.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Slowly opening the backpack, I pulled out the first thing in there. It was a small paper bag full of a familiarly smelling bunch of leaves. Almost crying in joy, I suppressed the strange impulse to just shove the entire thing – paper bag included – into my mouth. Indeed, the paperbag presented a copious amount of solutions concerning my teeth. No more chewing sticks resulting in sore, sometimes bleeding gums and aching teeth!

Putting the bag gingerly aside, my hand once again delved into the dark depths. Out came a holstered knife with a small leather strap wrapped over the knife’s handle and buttoned to the leather scabbard. With a simple pop, I managed to unbutton the leather strap to take out the knife. It was made of steel most likely. The blade was single-edged and slightly serrated on the sharp side, only the last few centimeters were plain blade. The whole thing was about as long as my forearm—handle included. Tucking it away for later, I continued my search through the backpack.

Sometimes I’d find money in between the items, but most of the dosh was at the bottom. There was an old, sturdy blanket that would need a wash-over, and a small strapless satchel full of  picklocks of various sizes and types.

Could be useful for later if you decide to learn the exhilarating skill of being an asshole stealing other people’s stuff.

Or, you know, the art of escaping. I’ll definitely try to fiddle with some locks later.

Next was some uneaten lasting food. Even if it looked quite alright to eat, Dufus and I decided to rather not test our luck. After that it was a small case filled with gems and some carving tools.

An artificer’s basic bag. Don’t know why I took it. Useless to us since you’re unfeeling to all magic, but some people could buy it from you for a hefty price I guess.

Alright. We should hit a market or something similar in the city then.

That would be unwise, considering the guard might be looking for all escaped prisoners.

Well, what then. Should we stay holed up in here for a while until it all blows over?

Not good, either. The scribe had friends in dangerous places and many connections to the underground of this city. It’s almost guaranteed these people will come looking for him. This city isn’t safe for us anymore.

But, the guy died in the prison!

The guards we confronted all died. Nothing but ash remained from the body. They probably just had him declared missing or something.

You can’t know that.

I can’t, and I don’t. However, even if they know he’s dead, his friends will still likely go after his killers. The closest suspects are you and Paul. Now don’t get me wrong, but you’re not really inconspicuous. And you did leave a witness behind...

Fuck.

Basically, it was damned if I do, damned if I don’t. If we stayed inside the tavern, we’d be tracked by the slavers or whoever his friends were. On the other hand, going out means the possibility of confrontation with the local guard. But then again, the guard was rigged with those bastards.

Putting those troubling thoughts aside for a moment, my hands dug back into the backpack to see if anything else was there. After palpating something round, I took it out. It was a silvery necklace with a silver circle-like amulet with a diameter of about five centimeters attached to it. Into one side of the amulet was set a slightly scratched but otherwise perfectly polished tear-shaped jade gem. On the other side was into the silver engraved a circle with lines crisscrossing inside of it, sometimes accompanied by a strange symbol or two.

Ah, now I remember why I took those charged gems. This here is a rather crudely made yet still very much functional sort of ‘magical items’ finder. Some guy was probably a treasure hunter. These things aren’t that uncommon with this lot. It should shine, tremor or both in presence of a magically imbued item. And by magically imbued item I don’t mean the everyday necessities powered by magic, but honest to maker magical items. However as all these amulet things tend to be, it needs a magical charge itself to function. Just pick one of those magical gems from the artificer’s satchel and touch it against the amulet’s engraved circle. That should make the amulet charge itself, if the artificer who made this had done his job correctly.

Following Dufus instructions, I touched a small sapphire against the surface. For a split second the gem heated up slightly while giving almost unnoticeable tremors. Something happened, that much was for sure.

I guess it’s done? I felt something.

It is. You didn’t really feel the magical energies pass, only the consequences of them doing so. Luckily, you have me to tell you when magic happens.

Why don’t I feel it, though?

Probably because you don’t have a whit of the void in you.

The void is starting to piss me off.

It does, doesn’t it? There was a slight good-hearted laugh following that statement. In all sincerity, I was kinda bummed about not being able to cast or even feel magic because of something with my soul or whatever.

There was something, though, that somehow didn’t sit well with me and something that I almost missed. For a fraction of a second I felt strangely happy. Was I for some reason happy that Dufus was happy?

Dufus was just coming out of his high when he again spoke in somber voice, Now, there shouldn’t be anything special in the backpack anymore except for some normal things like a basic fire-starting kit, a first-aid kit, and an empty waterskin. Maybe something else I forgot. That doesn’t matter, we should get out of here as soon as possible.

Why the rush suddenly?

I would rather brave the guard than wait for those slavers to come find us.

It’s not like they can hurt you, can they?

Well, no. You’re still my friend though, and I would loathe to see you hurt.

Dufus, you touch my heart truly.

I couldn’t help myself to think of the way Dufus had handled the slavers and the guards. With that, an idea struck me.

Could you maybe possess an animal? Like a squirrel or something small in case we need to get to places? Or a bird to help us scout our surroundings once we get outside subtly?

Yes, I can in a way. However, it would be very impractical to keep an animal like that around. Plus, I wouldn’t be able to translate anything for you.

Eh, you’re right. Forget it.

Done. Now get packing.

Soon enough, everything was jammed back inside the backpack which I slung over my back. I contemplated putting the amulet around my neck, but I didn’t want to bring even bigger attention onto myself once outside. The knife went into the back also, as I had nowhere to strap it to, and just putting it between my pants and my ass wasn’t too save.

Picking Paul’s backpack which he never unpacked, I went to the bar where Paul was sitting and drinking something. Upon seeing my backpack and his, the gryphon confusedly raised an eyebrow toward my direction.

“Dufus says it’s high time we tailed it out of this place and this city.”

Upon mentioning my mind companion, the gryphon’s mood turned sour. “Oh, is he the party leader now?” He asked sarcastically, something unbecoming of him.

“Stop it, we aren’t a party. And no, he isn’t, no one is. He just told me that the scribe he possessed was a slaver with friends in dangerous places. Those friends will surely come looking for him and his killers if they think he’s dead.”

“But… we didn’t kill him! Dufus did!”

“Shhh, not so loud!” I shushed at him, looking with my eyes at the other patrons of the bar who didn’t seem to pay attention to Paul’s little outburst. “It doesn’t matter who did it. The only thing that matters is that I am not entirely easily overlooked. They will come after me, and in extension, after you if they think we did it. Maybe, if other prisoners escaped, they will think that one of those escapees did it. Anyway, doesn’t matter, we’re moving out now.”

I threw his backpack at him before he could say anything or protest. His pack was quite heavy, but I managed. In the few months I’ve been here, I’ve gotten slightly stronger. Has it been that long, a few months? I didn’t even know, but at least two to three months surely. Time didn’t matter on the road, only the path did. The ever present thoughts of how Michael was coping without me, if he was even alive to do so, flashed through my mind like lightning splitting down a tree.

Putting the unpleasant arising feeling aside, I moved toward the door, Paul trailing behind me. Then I remembered that it would be a pretty good idea to have my waterskin filled. A talon less later, we stepped out into the grand city outside.

The alleyway hiding this tavern wasn’t much to look at—probably intentionally. We moved right toward one of the busier streets where we could hopefully blend in. That proved to be a rather difficult task, since there were only few species or creatures as tall or taller than me. And those weren’t that present in the morning crowd it seemed, so I stuck out like a sore thumb.

The street itself was grand in every sense of the word. It was as wide as any major street in a metropole back home, except cars were replaced with carts, hackney coaches or variants thereof, stands and stalls, and huge amounts of bodies both large, wide, thin, and small. To our left, the street continued upwards into to the mountain range, where halfway up the mountain stood a grandiose castle so far away one could mistake it for a painting if it weren’t for the huge flag atop one of the castle’s massive spirals dancing in the wind. To our right, the street dragged to the docks which weren’t that far away, only a few minutes of brisk walking, probably more with the amount of slow-moving traffic though.

Where should we go?

Going through the city gates is probably a bad idea. Maybe see if there are any ships getting out of here and going to the capital city by swimming upstream the Sunwing river?

What? Why didn’t you tell me before that there was such a way to get to Vanground?

I would’ve if we weren’t so busy trying to survive.

Just… tell me these things sooner than during life-threatening situations.

We’re not doing that bad…

“Peter, you’re spacing out again,” Paul said as the crowd flowed around us, the pedestrians giving us a polite breadth.

“Sorry. We should get to the docks, see if there are any ships getting out of here sailing up the Sunwing river.”

Paul suddenly grew slightly red in the face. “Oh, I didn’t think about that. That’s actually a great idea.”

“Don’t fret it,” I said, smiling at him reassuringly. A smile he returned happily.

We began moving with the crowd, going by the right side of the street where the flow concentrated downward to the docks. Right now, we were somewhere in some sort of shantytown district. The small houses packed against each other were tall, their thatched roofs overlapping each other, thus creating sort of a seemingly permanent protection against the elements for the tight streets between the blocks of these buildings. Though, sometimes there was a gap because some houses had a flat roof.

The street began curving slightly to the right, and soon enough we arrived at a huge open plaza filled with citizens, merchants, sailors, and all other sorts both appropriate and inappropriate. There were stalls full of seafood, and areas with nothing but towers of boxes, crates, and chests. Then there were, of course, the long huge piers jutting out into the ocean, ending just as the walls that continued into the sea did.

Right now, it seemed like we were situated at one end of the docks, and the other end seemed impossibly far.

Finding anything or anyone in this mess is outright batshit crazy.

At least that means you are practically hidden too. No one will try anything in this crowd.

Hopefully.

With having thought of nothing better, we began to sweep the ships from left to right for information. Walking to the first ship that seemed like something more than a shipping barge, we soon found a fairly young gryphon who looked like the captain with the hat he was wearing.

“Greetings, captain!” I greeted him with appropriate levels of enthusiasm, gaining his attention. He turned his head towards me, raising both eyebrows upon seeing me so high I feared they’d fall off.

“We-e-ll, fuck me sideway’ and frahnt ta’ back, neva’ seen ya’ two-legs lot ugly face b’fore!” he practically yelled with unbridled levels of joy and an ever-present smile on his face.

Do you seriously have to do the accent?

That’s but the shadow of his true drawling. Even I have hard time understanding what in the seven hells he’s saying.

And I have hard time understanding the accent as it is, so please maybe just tone it down?

Dufus sighed, Fine.

I decided to just answer, “Yes, I am somewhat of a rarity. Anyway, we wanted to ask you if you're sailing to Vanground or anywhere near?”

“Uhh,” he drawled, his smile fading to be replaced by a look of intense thinking. After scratching his nogging, he just shrugged and replied, “Nah,” turning back to his ship in the process as if dismissing us from his presence. One look at Paul, we carefully stepped away from him and to the next captain.

“Well, that could’ve gone better,” Paul sighed, shooting a death glare at the bastard of a captain.

“Probably. Still, plenty of fish in the sea,” I said, giving the whole rest of the port a look. “Let’s get moving.”

After a dozen or more captains – I didn’t bother to count them up – we stopped by a fountain. It was one of many in the whole docks. It spewed clear water from its depths via a statue set in the middle, this one carved into the image of a stag reared on its hind legs, one of the arms holding a book, while the other was raised upward. The stag’s antlers were sawn-off and the book was desecrated with inappropriate imagery.

“Someone doesn’t like the deerfolk, I guess,” I muttered as Paul sat on the mountain’s edge while I observed the detailed marble figure.

It’s a preacher of the Maker’s religion. There used to be an empire, as grand as the Numen Forest, stretching from one corner of the world to another.

Let me guess, the empire was really powerful before it had fallen by some mysterious force or whatever and now nary but ruins remain, am I right?

Okay, maybe it does sound cliché, but it’s the truth. It’s a long story. I was actually around the time the war happened. Perhaps I could share my memories with you so I don’t have to explain it, but the few times I’ve done that weren’t exactly successful.

His words got me thinking. I already knew that Dufus was old, just how old really? Nevermind that, the memory thing could really come handy with the amount of knowledge and history behind his name. No more boring exposition!

Why didn’t you tell me about this possibility sooner?

As I said, it’s rather difficult and bothersome.

We’ll talk about this later. Give me a small summary, at least.

Do I have to? Dufus said more then asked, and I felt he was pouting.

You promised me knowledge for not getting rid of you, remember? Or should I remind you?

Very well, He sighed. Long ago, the empire was ruled by deerfolk who were the most religious lot around. They built their empire on the Maker, the whole thing was basically one big theocracy with this ‘pope’ as the leader of both the religion and the empire. However, since our creator decided to hole up somewhere, people started losing faith. Thus the Heretics were born – those who defied the Maker and all the teachings to carve their own destinies in this god forsaken world. There were only few at first, then there were many. There was war, unspeakable things happening on both sides, but the deerfolk were the ones hit the most. Soon the empire was overthrown, the entire deer race almost obliterated; survivors were scattered to the wilds where they became savages for the better part. Now they are nomads or primitives who scour the wilderness. Some find their way into the civilization’s light. Most stay in the dark of their now primitive ways.

Wow, that’s quite the history.

My mind flashed back to Paul’s village. Jack had killed a deer, and now I knew what I saw in those eyes of the dead deer. Though I believed Jack’s prey was the savage kind Dufus told me about, there was still some intelligence in the dark depths, somewhere beneath the clouded mind of a confused being.

The silver forest, too. I had a dream of armies killing deers and stags; children, adults, elderly. It didn’t matter. The survivors of that slaughter were trapped beneath the glade, where something gushed forth from the earth. Something dark, terrible, primeval… powerful.

A geyser, Dufus whispered.

So it all happened, the dream?

Yes. The power of the geyser must have preserved the carnage in a form of some sort of… ‘memory footprint’ or some such.

I felt it, Dufus. The power. It beckoned and I wanted it more than anything else.

There was a moment of silence, where even the busy streets seemed to quiet down, though my eyes still saw the people bustling about. Now, there was only my breath, and the sound of Dufus’ ethereal voice.

You can have it, you know. It wasn’t some sickly sweet offer. The words bore no maliciousness or desire; neither was it a deadpanned statement. It simply was.

We talked about this.

And we will talk about it again and again. Imagine all the pain and suffering fading away, all you have to do is open yourself up to me.

Never going to happen, Dufus.

People change, Peter. You already did.

Those last words echoed like the wind upon rolling mountains of my mind. An avalanche of conflicting emotions rocked my body, made me sit down next to Paul.

“It’s just a statue.” Paul brought me out of my reverie as he looked behind himself to see what had me so captivated.

“You know the story behind it?” I asked as if I knew not what the marble piece of history represented.

Paul just shrugged, replying, “Probably just some drunk sailors having some fun.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” I mumbled before slowly getting up. “Time to search again.”

My movement was accompanied by a loud rumble coming from the gryphon’s direction. It was quite impressive that I could even hear it considering the ambient noise.

“Maybe we should get something to eat first, huh?” I smirked at the slightly embarrassed gryphon as he held his belly.

We just began searching for another ship captains who looked like they were maybe going inland, when we approached a ship being loaded with large heavy-looking crates. Impractical to carry so many of these things anywhere by foot, so it looked rather promising. It could’ve been going somewhere else entirely, however, it seemed like a good a bet as any.

We just stepped around a few stacks of crates higher than us when Paul and I noticed what was probably the captain overseeing his cargo. It was a minotaur, rather small and lean compared to others I’ve seen running around. He was probably about the height I was, not counting the horns running from the sides of his forehead and upward, though even those things were small compared to other minotaurs. The thing was, he looked young yet old. In fact, he looked like the kind of man who had seen some shit when he was far too young to sanely process it.

Peter, get out. Suddenly, Dufus spoke urgently in my head.

What? Why? I asked, yet still acted on my mind companion's urgency, slowly gesturing to Paul to get back behind the stack of crates.

He’s –

Whatever Dufus said next was drowned out as the minotaur, as if on instinct, turned toward me almost casually with his entire body. Upon seeing me, his pristine light-orange eyes widened a little, before settling into a half-lidded stare, his eyes suddenly devoid of any emotion, pupils dilated into two wells of darkness.

His whole posture changed into a more relaxed one, his arms falling by his side like useless lumps, his legs bent like they bore more than they could handle. Yet, the minotaur didn’t look weak. No, quite the opposite.

He was no longer a captain. No, he wasn’t fighting against the sea anymore; he was one with the sea—no matter the weather. However, he wasn’t a part of of some ship, relishing the feeling of being bobbed in the waves of the cerulean mistress. What he was now was a fucking iceberg breaking through the ocean’s depths, destroying anything that floated or sailed in its way. And what I was seeing was just the damned tip of it.

It was as if death itself tolled its bell for me.

Run, Peter! Run! Dufus screamed at me. I didn’t really notice it in that moment, but he sounded scared.

Paul, being the predator, knew that something was wrong with the minotaur immediately without probably not really knowing what. He grabbed me painfully by my arm, jerking me backward and out of my petrified state.

“Run!” I screamed, no longer caring for anything but our hides. We started running back the way we came. It didn’t matter where we ran, really. Getting away from this monster of a minotaur, whatever the hell he was, was all that mattered. I couldn’t even tell what was scaring me so much about him except for how he looked in the moment he saw me.

Of course, that’s when the cavalry arrived.

“By the midnight laws, move no more, criminals!”

The bastards came pouring down from the main street like a hundred little spiders crawling out of their mother’s corpse. It was repulsing yet fascinating at the same time; the way they timed their arrival almost like this world was making another joke at my expense. I hated this shithole. I truly did.

I chanced a look behind myself, only to see the minotaur slowly advancing on us while inconspicuous-looking sailors weaved their way through the crowd that gathered all around.

Without warning, some of the guards started stabbing their comrades. Chaos ensued, and in came the second cavalry. Creatures from the crowd started crowding the guards, overwhelming them while they were distracted. I took that as an opportunity to run again.

“Paul, to the air! Take us to the air!” I yelled after him in a spur of genius as he was already running ahead of me, the lucky quadrupled. Even my fear of heights was forgotten in the moment of life and death.

The gryphon spread his wings and with a powerful flap threw himself into the air, soon picking me up, too, but not before I managed to grab a sword from one of the downed guards. Some of our pursuers had wings too, however, and they made quite sure to utilize them to their full potential, something a heavily-loaded gryphon had no chance of escaping.

Something hit us. Hard. In a swoosh of wind, I was soon liberated of Paul’s arms holding me. In the second of absolute terror of a freefall with absolutely zero amount of orientation, my whole life flashed in front of my eyes.

I’d say it was pretty good, though I probably shouldn’t have freeloaded so much to pursue my stupid dreams. I just wasn’t as strong as my father, I guess.

Eh, everybody makes mistakes. Nobody's perfect.

Roof incoming!

What probably wasn’t even a whole second later, I impacted what was probably the roof Dufus yelled about pretty hard. The sword flew from my hands, and I felt something in my backpack break. However, through the shock of it all, I didn’t feel like I had myself broken anything at all. The impact, however, would leave some large bruises for sure.

Quickly getting up, though somewhat wobbly, I found out I was on one of the rows of houses in the poor district. This row was filled with houses which, for more space I guessed, prefered a flat roof. I could even see a hatch in the corner.

Quickly picking the lightly dented sword that fell a few steps away from me, I was about to search the sky for Paul when suddenly something big and heavy dropped a couple of meters in front of me.

It was a red and orange snake being with dragon-like torso and arms, dragon-like wings jutting from his back and spread wide. It had no legs, only a tail that coiled beneath his muscular frame. In his claws he held a spear almost as long as he was—that is, basically my height. The being, all in all, reminded me of some kind of snake men, like slamanders or nagas from one of the famous fantasy settings.

You can’t win this. Let me help. Let me in!

Over my dead body.

That’s what I am trying to avoid, you idiot!

“Not the best wording for the moment, I guess,” I laughed out loud at my tired, stupid self as I readied to fight to the death.

Behind you!

Not even thinking much about it, I slashed as I turned around, decapitating some kind of catfolk as he or she tried to sneak up on me. The sword became stuck in its rib cage, so I just took the cat’s sword as the being released its grip on it.

Duck left!

I dove to my left side, turning around and using the momentum to ready the sword above my head for a downward fatal slash. The salamander’s spear came margins away from me, and lodged itself into the cat as it was about to fall to the ground.

The slash came down against the salamander’s head, but he managed to relatively dodge it by countering with the butt of his spear. Though the sword slashed through it, it diverted its track enough that instead of his head, the sword slid down harmlessly down his tail scales.

The seasoned warrior that he probably was, the snake creature slashed its tail like a whip even before my attack finished, something Paul liked to do with his tail during our sparring sessions. I always forgot about the damned tail

It threw me about two meters away from him, where I almost fell over the edge of the roof. The sword was lost as it tumbled down into the relatively empty street below. A couple shouts of alarm went up, but no bloodcurdling screams so no one hopefully got slayed by the falling sword. Some luck at least.

Before being even able to get up, the salamander slithered over to me, picking me up by my clothes with his powerful arms before throwing me against the wall of another building that was about a meter and a half higher than the one we stood on now.

Even in my dazed state, though, I was smart enough to cover the back of my head from the blow with my hands. Instead of my head cracking, then, it was one of my fingers. Or was it more? I couldn’t tell. Maybe my hand was broken. Maybe nothing was broken. Maybe I was the god dreaming this place up.

Damn, the head hitting wasn’t doing me much favour.

I fell on my belly, and it hurt like hell. In fact, everything hurt like hell. Didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one. Feeling pain meant I was still awake and kicking, but feeling pain also sucked hard.

Rolling around onto my back, I could glimpse the sky and in the afternoon light Paul fighting another gryphon, both of them ferociously flying around each other, looking for any opening to strike with their weapons. Paul, however, was at a big disadvantage. Having a lesser-reach weapon and not knowing how to use it much, the enemy bearing a large sword managed to hit Paul’s wing by its tip. My friend yelled out in pain, and fell like an angel of old.

He will die, and so will you.

Something grabbed my by my left leg. Could only be the salamander by the shadow he was casting over my face.

Save him, save yourself, save your brother. Let me in, dammit!

And become your slave? What would stop you from taking every last thing from me? The very thought of slavery, of being enslaved, of being commanded by the whims of some ephemeral creature forever. I could not imagine a fate more horrible.

Sliding along the roof scraped my back. I knew he was dragging me to the roof’s edge, and I knew he was taking the long way to do it, to make me feel the terror of impending death I couldn’t do anything about. Bastard.

You will die! Paul will die! You won't save anyone when you're dead! This isn’t what you want!

Of course… it isn’t. I want to save… them both. Even forming thoughts was becoming harder and harder.

Then let me in! Let me in! Let me save you! LET ME IN! Dufus’ frantic yelling turned into a bloodcurdling scream as his toy was denied for him. At least, that’s what I think was making him so mad.

“No,” I sighed, and with that, the salamander dragged me over the roof’s edge, holding me in the air by nothing but my leg with both of his arms.

Dufus, now eerily calm, continued his jabbing again, You would seriously choose death over life? Do you not trust me, Peter? I am your friend.

Only when it suits you.

Damn you, I still have… Gah! Fine! There is… another way.

Too late to... seduce me now, don’t you think?

It will help you, and you won’t have to give your ‘freedom’ to me.

“Death, or sssslavery?” The snake thing hissed at me.

I will lend you powers. You will be stronger, faster, better in every physical aspect. It will cost you, however, and it will cost others their lives.

What… what do you mean?

I can’t take the power from the void to you through such a small channel as the bracelet, so you will have to get it from somewhere else. Someone else. You will take the life force of others, and claim it for yourself.

I… I don’t want to become a monster.

Oh my sweet, sweet Peter. At least you will become a monster that saves his friends and family.

“Death it issss,” the salamander said, his patience clearly running out, and my time for decisions with it.

...

What do I have to do?