XXXVIII
Everyone was gathered around me when I woke up. It must have been late in the afternoon; the sun was glaring victoriously outside the small guild window. Voices around me conversed silently, fearful whispers afraid to wake me from my slumber.
“How are you feeling?” Kadava asked, noticing me shuffling under the two blankets to gain a better position.
“Fine, thank you,” I responded subconscious, my mind still processing the quick turn of events that had occurred yesterday. “What did you give me?”
“A classic brew of Wyvern’s Wing,” he smiled. “Works every time.”
“My favourite,” I responded sarcastically. “How’s Fulcan?”
“He was feeling agathokakological,” Kadava responded eloquently.
“Agahko-what?”
“That’s how he described it to his army in his post-war speech, ‘we won with an agathokakological conclusion’,” Kadava imitated.
“What does that mean?”
“Beats me. I would guess it meant something along the lines of both good and bad, but I don’t think anyone bothered to look it up anyways.”
“He told you to rest well,” Arcanor added. “The walls around the city have been destroyed and are in need of immediate repair, so we won’t be marching for a while.”
“What if the next faction attacks?”
“We’ll be defending from home,” Tarsus answered. “Bring the fight to us, and not us to the fight. We should’ve done that from the get-go.”
There was a knock at the door, which was unlocked except for the very inner layer. Glo, closest to the door, immediately stood up and opened it to reveal the king with two soldiers at his side.
“Ulterium. Tarsus.”
“Your majesty,” we both responded in unison, in habit. We had stopped bowing down or showing gestures of respect to the king after his unending protests against it. “We’re all equal Grozorgians anyways”, he would say, and it was both a commendable and respectable statement.
“I’m sorry,” he stated simply, taking off his crown and lowering his head.
His statement was vague and accounted for two separate instances; he was asking for forgiveness and expressing his condolences.
Tarsus’ cold face carried an unforgiving expression, an indignant look that made the king turn his head towards me to seek forgiveness. I was swaying between disappointment and frustration, but my weary, tired face must have concealed my emotions well.
“I should have listened to you two,” The king continued. “It...won’t happen the third time.”
It was a strange feeling; the king apologized to me and Tarsus, figures of less significance within the nation. His genuine words and humble realization of his wrong forced me to pardon his mistake, as before, but Tarsus was unrelenting.
“What happened while I was out?” I asked, switching thoughts. “The North wall, no, the South Wall crumbled,” I described, collecting my thoughts, “and the Southeast Tower fell. That’s all I can remember up to.”
I was careful with my words. I didn’t mention Chrikhil to Fulcan. Bringing her up would trigger Tarsus’ memories as well as additionally burdening the king with the unspoken knowledge that his forces were getting weaker and weaker. The king proceeded to sit down on the couch beside me, his two guards standing watch beside the closed door in a motionless position.
“Right,” the king began. “Just to note, the South Wall was our longest wall around Tenebris, and I thought there would be no more hope when twelve individuals took it down at ease. Anyways, Ferrius somehow engaged in a war with Askar, setting us aside. The confrontation between the two overlords resulted in a dynamic feud and the entire South Wall fell when the Sisterhood summoned a collective elemental attack against the metal domain. I was busy gathering the army and I didn’t witness what happened afterwards, but I’m sure my two generals here can provide their accounts.”
“Overlord Ferrius’ machine shielded him and absorbed most of the damage, but his army wasn’t so lucky; most of the androids were blown to pieces from the attack,” General Zartan continued. “And that was the same with ours. When the South Wall crumbled, the men directly behind the wall all lost their lives, a devastating blow to the Army of Light and Purity. We had at least a fifteenth of our army positioned there, every single soul slaughtered by whatever the Sisterhood had released.
“The turning point was when Ferrius seized the opportunity to attack while the Sisterhood was recovering,” the other general continued. “He brought his battle machine to the group of twelve and took down two of them before the Aeromancer completely obliterated the war machine. Ferrius was trapped by the remaining members of the Sisterhood of Air, and without his battle machine, his troops lingered helplessly around the downtrodden field. With no mercy, his body was cut in half by a smooth blade of air from Askar herself and-”
“Hold on...the overlord of air was a female?” Foku asked, cutting the general off.
“What’s surprising about that?” Fulcan deflected. “Actually,” he confessed after a moment of silence, “I had the same initial reaction.”
“That breaks tradition,” Foku continued. “All who inherited the throne from their fathers were males. Every lord that ever existed, lord, high lord, and overlord, were all males!”
“There hasn’t been much trade with the domain of air in the last few centuries, given that the path to the governing palace was too onerous. Even if I had sent messengers, they would have never seen Askar’s face. It’s something in their laws that none was allowed to come face-to-face with the overlord unless they were of equal or higher rank,” Fulcan explained, “and I’ve never set up any personal meetings with her, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Well anyways,” General Zartan spoke as Fulcan finished, “right as Askar killed the overlord of metal, Ferrius weakly raised his arm, and a long thin blade replaced his cybernetic hand, piercing through the heart of the overlord of air. The remaining eight sisters fled from the scene in an elegant display at the death of their ruler. We waited for a while, but after realizing that they had gone home, we celebrated with abandon. The two-front war was over.”
“I never figured out why the two forces turned against each other,” Fulcan wondered. I glanced at Arcanor and his unmoving face constrained a proud smile behind the wrinkles of hard work and practice. “I guess I’ll never know. Then again, some things are better off unknown.”
“So now we just sit and wait?” I asked. “Wait for the next overlord to declare war?”
“If that’s how you put it, yes. We’ve defeated six overlords-”
“Five, actually,” Pyrrhon butted in.
“Right, five,” Fulcan responded understandingly. “We’re halfway through if every elemental faction is declaring war. I know this is hard on you,” Fulcan said, addressing the thirteen of us in the room, “and it’s the same for my army. We’ve lost nearly half the army ever since we started fighting against Naterra’s forces. I’m hoping in this timeframe before we get news that a faction has declared war, we can rebuild Tenebris, rebuild our spirits, and rebuild the refuge for every citizen. Thanks to the civilian sector of Ferrius’ island, our defensive structures are quickly repaired now. Hopefully, we can recruit and train more to join the army so we’ll be well prepared to face the next force of evil.”
“Who do you think it’s gonna be?” General Zartan asked.
“The domains of Illusion, Electricity, Ice, Time, Death, and Space have remained dormant. It’s most probable to be Overlord Crothus of Time if we followed the ‘across the island’ pattern, but from what I’ve learned, I don’t think we can afford a wild guess. I’ll just wait for a surprise when they decide to attack.”
“Good plan,” Tarsus simply stated with his arms crossed.
“I’m gonna head back now. The kingdom needs a lot of work, especially when one fourth of its defences have been knocked down by twelve people. I’ll hold a public meeting to receive feedback from how our people are doing in a time like this, and I’ll decide how to fortify our walls to make it stronger than it was. It should be a lot easier now with the influx of skilled workers from the metal domain. In the meantime, all of you should rest. A little drink and fun won’t hurt, just be on your guard at any moment. If the domains of Ice or Time decide to march to Tenebris, they’ll have to cross the forest of Sanoctuis, and I’ll be expecting the news from either guild personally.”
“At your command, your majesty.”
All of us bowed down, not in formality but in understanding, and the king was soon on his way with the two generals tailing behind him.
As the royal figure left, we put down what we had in hand and gathered around to play a traditional game of Syndicate, followed by a short jog to the outskirts of Tenebris to grab a drink. We partied together for the whole day, two guilds as one, the thirteen of us closer than brothers and sisters. With the little gap of relaxation and rest, we fully seized advantage of it to leave behind all the sorrows and sadness. We all went through the same traumatic experiences, physically and psychologically, some more difficult to bear than others, and we all shared tears, laughter, joy, and pain with one another. Once a bane to my guild now a brother-in-arms to my family, Tarsus and I were a lot closer than I had known.
“Tell me about yourself!” I spoke too loudly, unable to control the flushing of my cheeks. We were all drunk or nearly, scattered around the emptied tavern haphazardly. It was a bit past midnight, and the tavern keeper had already retreated to his bedroom upstairs. He knew both Tarsus and I, and he trusted that we wouldn’t destroy his building while he rested.
“You know everything about me!” Tarsus boasted, equally as loud. Some had already fallen asleep, but most were still awake, sipping on the last drops of their spirits before helping themselves to more from the never-ending keg.
“No I don’t,” I denied. “Where were you from?”
“I already told you, I grew up on the island of metal!”
“Where were you born?”
“Nythar’s island!”
“It don’t match up, buddy,” I responded messily, pointing my two index fingers together but missing by an inch through my blurred vision, chuckling at my own clumsiness.
“You really want to know about me?” He spoke. He seemed more awake all of a sudden, as if he had faked his drunkenness before and had a huge tolerance for alcohol.
“Yesiree,” I answered ecstatically. What could I have not known about him?
Tarsus looked around uncertainly with sealed lips, but seeing our drunken state and Glo’s soft smile, he began.
“Well, the story goes like this,” he enunciated, falling back into a careless tone. “I was born into this world by a Skyla Chrako and an Augustine Tarsus. They somehow found an infatuation with each other on Nythar’s island.”
I burst out in laughter. Love on my home island of death and decay? The irony. That led me thinking to how I was also born there.
“When they got comfortable, they had me and no other child, as far as I know. But somehow, I, as a baby, was incompetent to them. Unworthy!” He shouted. “Unworthy, and I was only a few days old!”
The whole room had woken up to his sudden shouts. His already-intriguing story had begun to lure some out of the fog of the drunken liquor effects and back into reality.
“They placed me in an orphanage on Nythar’s island, they decided that they couldn’t raise a boy. Just one boy and they couldn’t do it! Nunny’s Home for the Bright and Brilliant. Bright and brilliant, they said. I was the youngest there I had no one as a friend when I grew up. The only lesson I took away from that damned orphanage was the art of necromancy. But all I could remember was spending the most of my days scrubbing the bathroom stalls and sweeping the unlit basement and continuing labour meant for a fully grown, placed in the hands of a five-year old. A five-year old!”
He paused and took a great swig.
“Some of those damned kids played tricks on me while I was down there, locking the only door and trapping me in the eternal darkness while they made harrowing sounds. If I hadn’t been scarred by that already, they would come into my room every night, steal my blankets while I lay helplessly asleep, and cut my garments into pieces. Every day, every damn day, I would wake up cold with barely anything on.”
The unfocused gazes now turned into attentive listening, the infuriated Tarsus capturing the whole room with the revelation of his mysterious, traumatic childhood none had heard of before.
“When I turned eight, I broke out of the prison. The night before, they had decided it fun to drench myself in gasoline. Gasoline!”
He paused and lowered his head. The whole room was silent.
“I was awake, but I stayed frozen in my bed. The four of them, four years older than I was, had picked on me ever since I was put in there to when I left. I had known that they were screwing around with me, but if I woke up to fend off the burly gang, they would torture me all the more. So I stayed still in my bed until I was fully drenched in gasoline. At the age of eight, I thought the water just smelled foul. But before I knew it, my body burst into flames, the overwhelming heat scorching me with third degree burns all over my body. I rolled off my bed frantically, dropping head first onto the ground. The gang didn’t stop there. The bloody gang didn’t stop there. After I had miraculously put out the flames, I couldn’t move. The four held each of my arms and legs, and they stripped me until I was only wearing light undergarments. What did I do wrong to deserve that? Tell me! One of them pulled out a knife and cut the burnt flaky parts of my skin off, as if I was a roasting hog over a campfire. A damn hog over a fire! I hollered in pain, but was quickly muffled by a suffocating towel around my mouth. When the night felt like it would never end, they finally let me go. That night, I slipped out the barred window I had always kept chipping away at every day prior to that night. I ran and ran, until my lungs gave out and my thin legs could run no more. I had reached Helterium’s island, but the thought of my burnt body submerged in icy cold water motivated me to keep running. Somewhere I would never be found again. Somewhere I could start a new life. And that’s how I ended up on Ferrius’ island. The divide of sectors had not occurred yet, and the presence of artificial life was limited. I had no home in the alien domain, so I lurked around the streets of what you know now as the civilized sector, familiarizing myself with each hidden underground route and path. I fought for myself, defended myself, and taught myself to be strong in the slums of the metal domain. And through that process, I taught myself the art of ferromancy. With slight knowledge of controlling death and metal, I became strong and concealed my history from anyone who dared to ask.”
“Except for me,” I replied. “I...didn’t know you were in such a tough position.”
I was fully awake, as if Tarsus’ story cured all the drunkenness within me.
“Your parents left you because you were weak, no?” Sylvan asked.
“No. It was because if this.”
Tarsus slowly removed the golden spiked plate that covered the left side of his face - he had always kept it on, even while he rested. Beneath was a strange birthmark; an infamous birthmark.
“The Mark of Sagular,” many voices gasped around the room.
“Yeah, some Grozorgian myth to scare children. But apparently it was enough to make my father and mother abandon their one and only child.”
“What is it? Sagular?” Pyrrhon asked, as if he was the only one to not know.
“A myth turned into a cult,” Tarsus answered.
“It was folklore started by some estranged man,” Foku continued. “The true story dates back to the ancient days of Tyrannust II, when a strange blight started killing many civilians in Pulchrachao, the small village a bit west of Tenebris. Many were infected by the plague; however, a small portion of the population was strangely resilient against the disease, and when they were affected by the blight, a mark like Tarsus’ would show up somewhere on their skin.”
“How does that relate to ‘Sagular’?” Pyrrhon asked impatiently.
“I’m getting there. There was a strange mystic in that town, a medic that could heal the sick with unknown powers. She was the best doctor in those times, and everyone would see her. Of course, when the blight came, she was overwhelmed with patients. But even she couldn’t explain the strange phenomena, and a few days later, she died from the plague. As generations passed, the story got skewed, and somehow, Sagular was blamed as the one to start the blight. According to that edition, those that received a personal “mark” from Sagular showed that they had made a pact with her dead spirit and that the individual with the ‘Mark of Sagular’ was to be burnt at the stake, like the witch.”
“But the witch wasn’t burnt at the stake...” Pyrrhon spoke slowly, comprehending as the words left his mouth. “Oh...I see. People really do know how to twist a story.”
“So how did Tarsus end up with the mark?” Glo asked. She had been silent all this time, seated next to the keg behind the wooden counter.
“The resilient gene was passed down from generation to generation,” Foku explained. “Those that had the birthmark would be immune to the plague, whatever it was, if it returned, but those that had the birthmark must also conceal it for a lifetime now to protect themselves.”
“That’s why it was hard for me to have been accepted by others. After I learned what that birthmark meant the hard way, I escaped death twice and found something to hide it. My parents probably had it too, just in a less visible and obvious place. But for me, it isn’t easy hiding a mark that big directly on my face. Calliphar helped me out with that. He was a poor man’s son, and he scurried around the slums the same way I did, searching for food everyday to keep ourselves alive. He told me what the mark meant, and he made me this to conceal it,” Tarsus spoke, pointing to the golden plated mask he had taken off.
“You rejected me,” Callipher added. “You didn’t want to befriend me. I saw your desperation, your persistence, and I just wanted to help you.”
“Now you know why it was hard for me to make a friend. I was so used to independence; my perception of trust was completely warped when I grew up. But you kept trying to help me out, and I truly appreciate that. If you had given up on me, the Night Guild would have never been formed.”
“Was that why you were so hostile the first time you encountered me?” I asked.
“Possibly. I think it was built into me from birth, an initial reaction of rejection, scepticism, and fear turned to hatred towards every stranger I met.”
“Well the past is in the past, so let bygones be bygones.”
“I can let it all slide, but I will never forget, nor will I ever forgive my parents nor will I forgive those four bastards. If it’s the last thing I get to do, before my last breath, I will have my vengeance on Marth Jovick and his goons. What did you think my ulterior motives of forming the guild was? Stopping petty crimes?”
His guild members didn’t speak. Obviously, they had known nothing about this prior to joining.
“I’m with you on that, brother,” I spoke, heartfelt. “Damn those bastards.”
Though it was wrong, perhaps unlawful, I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone bullied to Tarsus’ extent. He didn’t choose his life, nor did he choose his birthmark. The only thing he chose was his will to live, and that headstrong will inspired me.
“As am I,” Calliphar nodded, with the rest of the Night Guild and Blood Guild in full assent.
Tarsus simply looked at me with a stone face, but the gratitude was truly reflected in his golden eyes.
I was not a friend fighting for a friend.
No, I was a brother vindicating a brother.