Price of Power

When Lucian came he saw her standing over already dead body and a growing puddle of blood. The only thing you could hear were the drops of water hitting the stone floor. Second cleric was already behind him, Lucian knew that he had an immunity and is untouchable, but she did not and she just killed a Director. She turned on them, they both were in shock, but Lucian knew he had to take quick action.

"Lariska, hand me over your weapon." He demanded.

"Excuse me?"

"Your weapon, give it to me, now!"

She gave him reluctantly her musket and misericord pinned to her belt. She was about to turn back but Lucian stopped her and rolled up her sleeve under which she had another dagger. It was taken from her and then he asked the other cleric:

"Do you have any place here to hold her?"

"Classroom number three should be empty."

"So take her there, lock-in and wait for me, and one more thing, until things settle down, don’t you touch a single hair on her head, understood?"

He nodded and pushed Lariska who was still looking sternly at Lucian not believing in what she just heard. On the way, she was not thinking much, she did not care about her surroundings, she just was angry. Before she knew it they got to the class and he closed her inside it. When she calmed down she realized what she has done and yet that cleric didn’t kill her, and on top of that was taking orders from herDirector. Soon enough she was about to get answers for these questions, for he entered the class, though „entered” is a mild word for it how he has stormed in.

"Do you have any idea what have you done?!"

"I have killed a traitor, instigator." She said.

"No, you have killed a Director!"

"You heard yourself how he confessed."

"Yes, but not exactly to what. The fact that he was running proves nothing."

"So I was supposed to let him escape?"

"Between that and killing him? Yes! You won’t interrogate dead. Listen, if we won’t find enough evidence to prove him guilty, it will be a miracle if you won’t pay for it ...with your head."

After those words he left slamming the door, leaving her alone and unaware of all the commotion she caused. She sat on the chair, for her killing Estremoz was nothing more but an elimination of another threat. Would she do it again? Yes, if she would receive such order, or herself had enough evidence.

After around fifteen minutes of being mad at her Director, some woman entered the class. She was around the age of her mother, maybe a bit older. She had on her a heavy coat with many pockets, but Lariska cared about only one thing, she had her musket. Woman put it down to take off coat which she hung on a standing hanger, you could see under it various tools or weapons, even syringes. She took musket again and started to analyze it.

"An interesting weapon, designed and crafted especially for you, do you know maybe how it works?" She started.

"It uses magic to turn it into bullets." – Lariska replied hesitantly.

"Yes, every other weapon, including my pistol draws the magic from the person using it. With it like with blood, drain some and nothing bad will happen, in time reserves will refill. Drain a little more and the effect can be tragic. However, you are completely deprived of it and yet you live. It looks like your musket drains and stores the magic of its victims. Of course, at first, someone had to sacrifice a little bit of his own magic. This weapon requires high accuracy, too many missed shots and it will become useless."

"How do you know it?"

"I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from your parents, even once out of curiosity I looked into your files. I’m sorry to meet you for the first time in such circumstances, are you not afraid?"

She leaned musket against the wall and came closer.

"Afraid of what? Estremoz is guilty."

"Are you so sure of it? Has he told you something?"

"That the Sister is weak and she should be overthrown. "

"But too bad there’s no way for you to prove it." She paused for a moment to change the subject. "But there is something I was not expecting from you, at least after what I have read or heard about you. Although, some call you ruthless. Namely your act of cruelty."

"Excuse me?"

"I saw his body, it has three wounds, two to immobilize him and the last one, fatal. You didn’t have to kill him, shooting just one leg would be more than enough. He wasn’t a warrior by any means or a threat himself and from what I know you prefer not to waste ammunition, what happened?"

Lariska looked down and reminded herself her anger, at that moment she lost control, she knew a reason for that and it was trivial, she preferred not to think about that.

"He called me a traitor." She said through clenched teeth.

"And for someone so devoted to her cause, there is no worse insult?"

At that moment she wanted to just curl up and die.

"It is inappropriate for Clerics to let their emotions control them."

"That’s why you feel so bad? Because you let your emotions control you, not because you have killed a Director?"

She nodded.

"It never happened to you before, right? Always cold and calm like her parents."

"Isn’t it what Cleric should be like?"

"Yes, he should."

She didn’t answer anything.

"Would you like to tell me something more?" Woman asked.

"No, you seem to know a lot about me, but I do not know anything about you."

"My name is Serqet, a Cleric ....and Director, to me is assigned your father."

"How do you become a cleric?" She asked out of curiosity, cleric and Director, she had no idea that’s even possible.

"Since I remember I was interested in poisons and venoms. In my youth, such unusual hobby could bring me some troubles, sometimes I was even poisoning animals and I don’t mean just rats. They were trying to convince me to switch from poisons to more cosmetic or pharmaceutical interests but in vain. Later they were even trying to lock me in a psychiatric hospital, but I ran abroad and let’s say I was adopted by bounty hunters. It wasn’t a bad life, they even taught me a few new things. Later on, it turned out that some of them were Clerics and they said that it could be a better alternative for me."

"And you just agreed?"

"Well, I had a little choice. Did you have any?

"Me parents introduced me to it after they decided I will be homeschooled and I just stayed."

"Can I ask why they thought you needed to be homeschooled?"

"Other kids... bullied me because I can't use magic. When I finally defended myself teachers called them. I think it was the only time I saw them being truly furious, but at them not me, for ignoring what other kids were doing to me.

"I see... well, we're running out of time, we could make our chit-chat a little longer but now there is no place nor time for that."

"For me, there may not be a better time."

"That’s why I’ll better start looking for evidence. Anyway, possible that the other would like to see you."

She took her coat and walked out, only coat. She was right, Lariska wasn’t alone for long and soon other Directors started to come. Altogether three more wanted to see her, last two came with their Clerics like they were afraid of that she could do something to them. As for them, they were more similar to Lucian, at least by their persona, sure not by metal prosthetic of a leg one of them had. They were asking more general questions like they just wanted to see her profile or just to have pretext to see a murderer of an other director and they weren’t interested in her as a person.

For a closer indefinite for her time, she was sitting alone, too sure about her right. Fighting with herself to don’t take her musket which Serqet has left. She was wondering if she left it on purpose, or just forgot about it. Have others just haven’t noticed it? After a while, she noticed that she again feels the presence of her mentor, but she had no idea what she could be doing there. She turned back and saw nothing. The class was not lightened well, you even could see a crimson trickle of smoke coming out of her musket, Estremoz’s magic. She turned around once again and saw her coming out of the shadows.

"For how long have you been here?" Lariska asked.

"I just came, in this district there are passages even Estremoz didn’t know about."

"What do you want now?"

"I didn’t come here because of you, but since I’m here I won’t let you die."

"Die? Estremoz is guilty and I am pretty sure you knew about it before, why didn’t you tell me?"

"I wanted you to keep away from this, looks like my bad, but I also have to thank you. One moron down and it’s much easier to move around here with everyone gathered in one place. Lucian and the other five have to list all members."

"Five? Only four talked with me."

"Maybe the last one doesn’t want to."

"I am more interested in why they are even listening to them, Clerics I mean. I understand scientists and others, but the majority of these Directors is unarmed, and even if there are only six of them. What is holding them back from, I do not know, taking revenge on me?"

"Everyone was obliged to take with him at least one Cleric. But the matter is that you chopped off the head of a beast, without a leader they don’t know what to do. Of course, they could kill you, but what next? It applies to both, these more and less privy to Estremoz’s plans, in an anthill, an ant queen is needed."

"And there won’t be anyone who would like to pick up the baton?"

"Probably, that’s why they had to take control fast."

"You said that you are not here because of me, then why?"

"You know I can’t tell you, at least till you decide to go with me."

Lariska stood up.

"I have not even breathed a word about you and about that you convinced Dapper to steal the casket."

"So you met him? And you led Clerics on his track?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that he is dead, murdered by Estremoz’s two clerics, who apparently followed you to the place he was hiding in."

Lariska was shocked.

"But how? Does she know?"

"Yes, only one guard survived."

"You can talk to her, tell that Estremoz took responsibility for his deeds. That we got him and we will make sure that anything like this will not happen again."

"Of course, I can, but that won’t convince her. Problem is, he was not the only one."

Lariska started to walk in circles thinking nervously about what she has done.

"I have to warn them."

"But think about it, the situation you are in already is really bad. If they know that you went to Dapper, they can think that you did this only to force Sister to take action."

"That’s just stupid, they can check the reports, just that during the gathering two Clerics are missing is sufficient proof."

"And will you tell that from where you know it? Will you give me up? Apparently, you had a reason to not tell anybody about our meeting, they will check reports anyway."

"I did not want to endanger you, but after what happened, I start to think it was a mistake. What is your goal in all of this?"

"I made a deal with Sister," She made a short pause to gather words. "if I will be able to stop ones like Estremoz, she will leave alone districts that are not 'corrupted'."

"And it’s for her to decide which ones are and which ones are not?"

"Like you meted out justice to Estremoz on your own."

"Why don’t you just come to us instead of seeking help from her?"

"I come to you, I don’t trust others. I don’t want you to die because one Director can conceal something."

"So one of them conspired with him?"

"No idea, I don’t exclude such possibility. The question is: Will you take the risk?"

"But if I run they will look for me."

"If they consider that you did what was right, escape on its own won’t be a reason to kill you."

Lariska looked at the door for a moment.

"Fine, so what do you want to do?"

"First? Take us from this shithole."

They got out through the passage behind the blackboard, it wasn’t leading straight to the exit and they had to wander in the maze of corridors for a bit. Lariska had no idea how her old mentor knew that place so well but blindly followed her to the exit. After getting out of the bloody forest they went straight to the village and more precise to the post office, under the pretext that she had a letter to send. Just then in a daylight, Lariska noticed that she was getting back her old colors, slowly but surely. When she finished writing, she wrapped the letter, sealed with her own stamp and went out without even sending it. Lariska followed her to see to her surprise how she ignites the letter with matches. Paper immediately caught fire and burned unnaturally fast, not even ashes or molten seal left.

"This way it will go straight to her."

'Yes, magic.' She thought.

"You just had to tell her that you managed to convince me."

"No, I just described the current situation."

"Can you tell me now for what sake you have been there?"

"To check if Estremoz was contacting others of his kind"

"And?"

"I was able to find correspondence with so-called: Velvet Acevedo, they were talking about, obviously, about money, co-financing his district. It looks like unwillingly, but she agreed. I think we can pay her a visit, better close your eyes."

She caught Lariska under sleeve and after a moment in the place they were standing on there was a flash of violet light and they were gone.