Falling Into Crimson

    Aster sprinkled a coarse gray powder onto Sean’s signature. The crushed stone turned red as it soaked up the excess liquid, before the man tapped it off and into a small tin. He then rolled up the contract parchment and stood, examining his clothing for any dust before moving to the door.

    “Now that all of the particulars have been attended to, I must take my leave. There are other, more pressing matters for me to attend to.” He said, his voice clipped. “Your new attendant may contact me when matters are concluded.”

    Without waiting for Sean to reply, the man swept out of the room, leaving Sean alone with Flick and the newest member of his entourage.

    Sean could feel Mordren’s eyes boring into him from beneath the huge man’s hood. He bent his neck to rub his forehead, acknowledging the unspoken attention with his eyes.

    “May I have permission to speak, master?” Mordren asked, catching the motion.

    “Always. And you can call me Sean when we’re in private, or Your Majesty when we’re in public. You’re my sworn subject now, not my slave.”

    “As you wish.” The servant responded, his voice hesitant. “Then if I am not mistaken, my former lord is rather perturbed with you.”

    “I don’t know why,” Sean replied, standing to stretch, “I still feel like I’m getting taken to the cleaners on this deal. If he thinks I missed the part about the ‘expectation of grievous bodily or spiritual harm’, he’s badly mistaken.”

    “Oh, the task he has requested of you is no doubt more dangerous to you than it is valuable to him. What I mean to say is that Aster – that is the name he gave you, correct?”

    “It is.”

    “Curious, it’s not one I’ve ever heard him use. Regardless, he is likely unhappy because you had the nerve to actually negotiate rather than take the deal as it was given.”

    “Oh, aye, how dare we?” Flick mocked. “It’s only our hides on the line, no reason to quibble over trinkets.”

    “Nevertheless,” Mordren continued, “it might be wise to expect some expression of his annoyance. I do not know him to be forgiving of slights.”

    Sean snorted as he began to move around the room, gathering his things. The recovery that had occurred during negotiations had plateaued, leaving him uncomfortable rather than bedridden. He winced as he bent to pick up his pack, selfishly regretting his decision not to bring help, when Mordren took the heavy bag out of his reach.

    “Please, allow me. If I am to be your attendant, you must allow me to attend.”

    “Thanks, Mordren.”

    The big man’s breath hitched at the use of his name, but otherwise Mordren carried out his self-assigned duty silently. Sean stood sharply, ignoring the grinding it caused in his joints.

    “Alright, we’re going to get down to business, but first – Mordren, I’d like you to lower your hood.”

    The attendant slipped the backpack over one shoulder, using his other hand to pull the cowl back. Sean realized in that moment that the garment hadn’t just shadowed the man’s features, it had rendered them completely indistinct. Whatever magic had powered that disguise must have been tied to the hood’s position though, because the face he saw now was memorable.

    If Michelangelo had sculpted David as an elf - flawless and ideally proportioned - and then beat the result with a chain out of hatred for its perfection, Sean imagined the result would look much like Mordren.

    A long, badly healed tear puckered his flesh from his chin to the edge of one sharp cheekbone, pulling the side of his mouth up along with it in a snarl. The ear on the same side ended in a ragged stump – seemingly courtesy of whatever had almost taken his eye. On the other, one long, pointed ear curved back from his skull.

    Smaller wounds were scattered around his face and up onto the bare scalp above, but none of the damage touched his eyes. Shining and silver, Mordren’s gaze met his new king’s.

    Sean heard Flick gasp and almost recoiled himself out of sheer surprise, but he managed to master the urge before his body could react. Instead he reached out his hand.

    “I wanted to look you in the eye while I say this, because it’s important.” Sean said. “You didn’t know it back there, but you just saved my life and probably the lives of many of my subjects. For that, you have my gratitude, Mordren. Thank you.”

    Mordren met the gesture, nodding in acknowledgement as he grasped Sean by the wrist. As they both withdrew, he reached into his robe to pull out a small notepad.

    “If you are both ready,” he said, moving towards the door, “I believe it would be prudent to move on to the task at hand. I can provide some of the details my former master left out along the way.”

    “Please, lead the way.”

    The three of them left the room behind and began their trek down into the deeper levels of Thairis. Mordren brought them across bridges and through towers, until they reached a lift some ways from their lodgings. Much like the one that had aided their ascent, this one overlooked the streets below, which gave Sean an opportunity to look out over the city now that he wasn’t an inch from death. He was surprised to find that he found it beautiful.

    While they were nowhere near the top of the spire they were currently in, they were high enough to be free from the oppressive smog that settled in the lower quarters. The crystal of the windows around them reflected the rose-colored light of the Otherworld’s strange sun into a kaleidoscope of reds and golds that bounced between panes.

    As they descended, the shining display quickly dimmed into a dull, omnipresent crimson glow. Sean took one last deep breath before the air turned foul and turned back to his companions.

    “So, tell us about what we’re actually doing here, Mordren. Between Aster’s hinting and the contract I know it will be dangerous, but nothing beyond that.”

    “The master – excuse me, Aster, – likely neither knows nor cares about the specifics. He leaves the day-to-day running of his estates to his servitors. The only piece that necessitated his involvement was enlisting your aid due to the strictures of the contract.”

    Sean looked askance at the elf. “You’re telling me he jumped to a different dimension, called in some ancient pact, and tore me away from my infant kingdom, to what? Bring his dirty laundry to the cleaners?”

    Mordren’s lack of response said plenty.

    “What an asshole.”

    “Such are the ways of Thairis. In all truth, you should be glad you were not involved in more relevant pursuits. Avoiding a being like Aster’s attention is often better than courting it.”

    “What is he anyway? He certainly looks human enough, but he puts my teeth on edge”

    “Ah,” Mordren hedged, pulling at the collar of his robe, “that I cannot say.”

    Sean let out a short, bitter laugh. “Fine, it doesn’t matter anyway. So what am I going to have to do for the world-hopping fairy lawyer?”

    “Aster has retained your services to remove a certain item from the premises of one of his workshops in the lower city.” The elf spoke as if reciting the instructions by rote. “The item is to be disposed of at your discretion, however it must be taken from Thairis or destroyed.”

    “Do you know what the item actually is, or is he keeping that a surprise?” Flick asked, her ears flicking in annoyance.

    “I do, in fact I can show you both the object in question.” Mordren retrieved a slip of paper from his robe, holding it for his companions’ view.

    It looked like a photograph, a sepia tinged image of a stone bound in concentric rings of some type of metal. The picture was of poor quality, a grainy fog covering the whole thing and obscuring the detail. Based on what Sean could make out of the background though, it was probably the size of a baseball.

    “That is an intact transit core. The one you must remove was flawed in its construction and, based on reports, reacted with extreme volatility to the artificers’ final tests. The initial release of magical energy rendered a portion of the city undesirable and it has continued to periodically emit bursts of caustic mana in a smaller radius, preventing work from continuing.”

    “How undesirable are we talking about?” Sean asked as the lift’s doors opened onto a wide thoroughfare.

    The crowds they’d encountered on their way into Thairis were nowhere to be seen. The street was silent and completely still, empty except for piles of debris. He began to step forward, picking his way through the stone piles and avoiding a pale hand sticking out from the rubble, when he realized they weren’t stones at all.

    They were corpses. Hundreds of them. The road was littered with grey robed bodies as far as he could see, fading away at the end of the road into the wall of dim red smoke.