"The Steel Breeze"
Feb. 19th, 2023 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The Steel Breeze"
12/14/2021
I.
"You've been awful quiet, even for you," Unicorn prompted. She tagged her turn signal and swung up the ramp of Exit 24. Ahead was the row of brightly lit New York State Thruway toll booths. Slowing to a reasonable speed for the first time in three hours, Unicorn reached with her right hand to open the center console where a tangle off assorted bills were kept. "Oh heck, what a mess, count out eleven dollars, okay?"
Next to the little blonde, Carlo Ventura complied and put a ten and a single in her hand. Since accepting the Eyeless Helmet, he had steadily lost weight but now seemed stable at one hundred and fifty pounds. Not quite six feet tall, he seemed thin but not dangerously so. The white cotton shirt and trousers showed lean muscle but not bones and his ribs were not prominent. As Ashley handed over her ticket and cash, giving the attendant a gorgeous smile as if it were a present, Carlo exhaled. "Sable didn't give us much of a briefing. All she said was that there had been two beheading in the area around Shenandago and they seemed to be unrelated. And we have an observer to contact, whoever Diamond Joe might be."
"I don't think she has more info to give," Unicorn shrugged. "Certainly she would have called us during this epic drive if she had." A minute later, the maroon Toyota Matrix merged onto a highway marked Route 22, which had sparse traffic on an eleven o'clock Tuesday night. At forty, Ashley Whitaker looked much younger, with only the faintest lines at the corner of her crystal blue eyes. The long platinum hair hanging down past her shoulders had always been so fair as to seem silvery, so going grey would not be a problem for her.
"Megan has been messing with this car's onboard computer again!" the Unicorn grumbled. "The screen not only shows where we are on the map, that other green blip shows the location of Piper's house AND it gives our ETA to the second. It tells us how near or how far we are from it to an inch. And I didn't ask for any of that information. Drat. Never mind that. Spill it, Carlo, tell me what's on your mind."
"It's hard to explain," Carlo hesitated. "Remember when you were young? When you grew to be a little taller or a little stronger, you could do things you weren't capable of before. I remember the first time I could stretch up and reach the ceiling in our house. So proud!"
"Sure. Go on."
"I feel like that now. Only it's not physical but, well, spiritual. Or maybe extrrasensory. The helmet's effect has really kicked in on me. Even when I'm not wearing it, I'm more aware of stuff happening, even when it's out of sight. I can tell what people are doing when they're in another room, I can feel when someone is lying, I can find objects that have been hidden. It's weird."
Unicorn let an almost inaudible chuckle escape her. "Sounds great to me, Carlo. That's what you were told would happen if you kept Sagehelm."
"Yeah. True enough. But I wish Nebel had stuck around to give me some more training. He took off after telling me the barest minimum. I can't figure out why! Did you know him?"
"Garrison Nebel? Not really." The little blonde glanced down at the dashboard screen. "Eight minutes to go. Nah, I met him a few times at our headquarters building but we never did much more than say hello. He wasn't exactly friendly."
Carlo reached behind him and retrieved a canvas satchel from the back seat. It held a roughly spherical object slightly larger than his own head. "Nebel was a legend in the Midnight War. Imthril, the Sorcerer of Truth. When I hear about what he did, I don't see how I can ever lived up to him. I feel trapped by expectations."
"Now, don't play martyr. You've saved our team a few times already. You're not meant to be a hand to hand fighter or someone who carries lightning in her chest like Jocelyn. You're a mystic, a seer of visions. When people feel threatened by shadows at night, you shine. That's your purpose."
"I wish I was as confident as you are," he said. "You're always so sure of yourself."
"You bet. Don't get me started on my upbringing, because once I get talking about it, I won't stop. My mom was the first Unicorn and she started raising me to take her place as soon as I could walk. On my sixteenth birthday, she gave me the horn for my own and shoved me right into the Midnight War. Sheesh. I went from being a kid to a famous adventurer just like that, caught in the crossfire of childhood and stardom." She laughed again. "Not that I didn't love it!"
"I feel better talking about this," Carlo admitted. "I'm such a noob. You've all been in the Midnight War for so long."
"Hah! Don't rub it in. I was your age when you were born. But anyway. This is serious. The Teachers at Tel Shai think you're the right person to carry that helmet. Sable thinks so, Jeremy thinks so and I think so. And I'm a pretttty good judge of character."
Carlo did not respond further. He undid the thongs holding the satchel shut and drew out a gleaming helmet cast in one piece of a metal that gleamed the palest gold possible. It would cover the entire head, and the face had no eye openings... only etched outlines of where those openings would be.
"Why don't you wear it all the time?" she asked. "I mean, not in supermarkets or on the street of course. But on the ride up here, you could have been meditating and becoming one with the universal life force or whatever it is you do."
"I don't want to lose who I am." Carlo replaced the helmet into the satchel but kept it on his lap.
II.
They turned off on to Dutch Town Road, where there were no stores or commercial buildings found. Residential houses stood widely separated by long stretches of forest. To their right, a creek glittered when their headlights caught its surface.
"I wish we knew more about this guy, Diamond Joe. According to Sable, he was never a big player in the Midnight War. Kind of a shady character, sometimes recovering lost talismans, running errands, sometimes helping out when Jeremy had his Dire Wolf Agency running. He was out for cash in the hand, sorry to say. Jeremy said the guy could be useful as long as you didn't need to trust him."
Carlo Ventura took so long to respond that Ashley yelped, "Hey! You fall asleep, buddy? Maybe we should have brought a thermos of coffee."
"My perception stirs. The ancient winds of trouble blow and our names are in the night air."
"uh-Oh! When you get all poetic like that, I know Hell is about to break loose. You can tell we're heading into what, a trap?"
"Yes. A mind both cruel and eager waits for us to be foolish. We are targets for faraway laughter, but that mind does not know we are walking forward with open eyes."
Ashley snorted with glee rather than uneasiness. "Great. I'm armed like a SWAT team right now, and of course my Unicorn horn is right behind me in the back seat. And you have got your amazing helmet right in your lap. That cruel and eager mind should be afraid of US!"
"I did bring one of the anesthetic dart guns," Carlo added. "It's under my seat but I feel it will not be needed. My purpose is not to have used such weapons. I will have brought the holy light of Elvedal into darkness, I will have shone like the sun through black holes in the sky."
Despite herself, Unicorn laughed. "I really like when you talk that way, Carlo. Sometimes I feel like I should write your phrases down. Oh. There it is, that gravel road heading up the hill." She made a hard left, slowing down to a reasonable speed when forced to do so, and thumped up an incline between walls of beech and maple trees on either side.
At the end of the gravel stood a plain one-story house of white planks, with a black slate roof, holding no more than six rooms. Parking near the front door was a Nissan Sentra at least a dozen years old with some scratches and dents to boast of its survival. One window was lit, but heavy curtains showed no more than the dim beige rectangle. Ashley swung the KDF Toyota around so it would be ready for an instant getaway, a habit she had developed from bitter experience.
"Ya know, I'm about as psychic as a turnip," she admitted. "But for some reason, I've got the creeps big time."
"Your instincts serve you well, Ashley. This man is not a schemer but a prisoner. Another stranger far worse awaits us behind that door." Carlo slid out of the passenger door and stood up, reaching back into the satchel to extract a bundle of heavy gold silk which he fastened with a clasp around his neck. A cloak dropped down to ankle length, its material woven with fine strands of Enalsir, the silver blessed by the immortal Eldarin themselves. Then he lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over his head and, as he did so, a flare of rich golden light played over it as if reflecting a faraway sun.
Seeing him prepare this way, Unicorn's alertness jumped up to its fullest. She knew Carlo did not don that cloak unless the danger was imminent and life-threatening. Inside her own waist-length jacket were a dozen small weapons and gadgets concealed in their pockets, the needle-barreled dart gun was holstered across the small of her back. Ashley drew her own unique talisman from the back seat and strapped it across her narrow back.
Tightly wrapped in a conical white leather sheath, this was an actual horn of a Unicorn from Okali, tapering three feet long from its pointed end to the silver cap on its flat end. Ashley had no extra-human abilities herself. It was the power of the Horn to remove gralic force from an area that qualified her for membership in the KDF and as a knight of Tel Shai.
"I'm all worked up already, Carlo," she said barely above a whisper. "Let's straighten out the creatures of the night and teach 'em who is at the top of the supernatural food chain, namely us."
The blank eyeless plate of that helmet swung to regard her and Carlo's voice was hollow and sepulchral now. "We face the Steel Breeze, and lives will end tonight."
As he spoke those last ominous words, the front door to the cottage swung outward and a man brandishing a curved narrow-bladed sword strode toward them.
III.
Stopping well out of arm's reach, the man twirled his weapon in an elaborate figure 8 and lowered his point. "Honor demands that I give you a chance to surrender your valuables," he said in an odd, vaguely musical accent. Wearing mundane black slacks and light blue dress shirt with the cuffs rolled back, he was not himself an unusual figure. The black hair was cropped short over a long narrow face with regular features. Dark deepset eyes were watchful but the thin curled in an arrogant smile.
"Allow me to present myself," he continued, "Zhal Murakami of the Murakami Clan, third from the throne of Chyl. Of course, I know who you two are, I waited months until I could be sure that you two would come to answer Diamond's request."
"You're not from Chyl," scoffed Unicorn, showing no signs of being intimidated. "I was there when I was ten years old. You've got a nose, your ears aren't pointed, your skin isn't orange-brown. You're just another Human."
"A Human captive raised from the cradle in Chyl," came the reply, "A Human taught to swing a sword while learning to walk. I am a greater Zoku-Ya than any noseless Chylan. I had to prove myself and I did."
"You seek to claim our talismans," Carlo Ventura broken in quietly. "Sagehelm and the Unicorn Horn will never be yours, Murakami. You might as well cry for the Moon as to demand our sigils."
"But first, where's Diamond Joe Piper?" demanded Ashley in a very different tone from the one she had used when bantering with her teammate.
The swordsman grinned and took another step forward. "Beyond the pains and cares of this world. This is Steel Breeze. The craftsmen of Chyl make the finest blades in all the adjacent realms and the Steel Breeze stands above them all. Claiming it was the first step in my campaign. With its edge, I shall take the Horn and the Helmet for my own. With them, I will seize still more of the great talismans. The Sceptre? Brightbolt? Who knows, the Armor of Hell itself. I will assemble every potent talisman until I can dare challenge the Halarim themselves."
"Your grasp is not firm enough to close around such mysteries," Carlo said from behind the golden helmet. "You reached for the secrets too soon and you will be left with less than what you began with."
Murakami leaned back, placing his weight on his rear leg, drawing the Steel Breeze up to point forward. He laughed. "I know all about you two. Your powers cannot harm me. I have no gralic abilities, so the Unicorn Horn won't affect me. And the Eldar helmet? Its light undoes malevolent spells and heals the damaged. But I am what I am supposed to be! Neither of you can affect me."
For a tiny blue-eyed blonde, Ashley Whitaker certainly could put confident menace in her voice. "You still face two knights of Tel Shai. We are Masters of Kumundu. Hah! Now there's a look in your eyes that wasn't there a second ago."
"Stay where you are," Murakami warned. "Your heads will spin away if you get near me."
Faint gleams of golden light played over the Eyeless Helmet, Carlo's voice seemed to echo from far away. "Every soul deceives itself in many ways. Few can face their own weaknesses and failures. I am a miner of truth and delusion, my friend. Be exposed in the Light of Elvedal and grow wise."
The entire world seemed to flare up the palest gold imaginable, blotting out all vision, leaving no room for shadows, and a rushing roar as of a great river sounded. It died down almost instantly, but the night felt different, clearer, fresher.
Ashley Whitaker struggled to make sense of her sensations and realized she was sitting up on the cold gravel. No spots danced before her eyes as lesser radiance would leave. For a second, she made incoherent noise, then cleared her throat and managed, "GodDAM,
Carlo. That was like an afterlife experience. Shine on, you crazy fool."
Faint tendrils of steam rose from the Eyeless Helmet as Carlo pulled it up off his head. His curly hair was damp with sweat. "It would have done no good to look away or to cover your eyes, my friend. The Light which shines on Elvedal would show through your hands as if they were glass."
"I feel okay. I guess. A little mopey. But look what that blast did to him."
Crawling feebly on hands and knees, Murakami mumbled and muttered with his head hanging down. "I proved myself to the Warlords. I did! I am the equal of any noseless Zoku-Ya, no one can deny that. I ran the gantlet, I climbed the barbed rope, I did all that was required."
"Take what comfort you can," Carlo told him gently. "Bask in the shadows of yesterday's triumphs, your future is a short one."
Ashley had quickly picked up the sword Steel Breeze and made sure she kept it far out of his reach. "I need to check on Diamond Joe," she said as she spun toward where the front door still hung open.
"I'll be joining you there," said Carlo, tucking the helmet under one arm and letting the heavy cloak fall over to conceal his body. He was watching as Zhal Murakami began to recover from the enlightening. "Your eyesight is clearing now. Breathe slowly."
As his vision focused and he saw Carlo clearly, the swordsman recoiled and scuttled back out of reach. "I...I had no idea what you are weilding. I thought of the helmet as just another weapon. I was a fool. I have no words for what that Light means."
"I am sorry only that you might not have glimpsed the light sooner," Carlo told him. "No, don't try to get up. Your legs will not hold you."
Still holding the Steel Breeze in one hand, Unicorn stepped quickly through the door and toward them. "The best I can say is that he died quickly. One clean stroke right through the vertebra. I placed Diamond Joe's head back on his neck the best I could."
"Is this guilt? Is this what guilt feels like? Don't give me any more, please, it's like a heavy weight."
"Oh, I'll pile on many more layers. You deserve it. I saw the walker by his chair, he was an old man and you didn't have to kill him. And I read the police reports about the decapitated couple down by Lake Mewaska. You were having fun, weren't you? Testing out your Steel Breeze!"
"Ashley," said Carlo, "this isn't like you."
"So what! I'm pissed off and with good reason. Look, Murakami, you're a renegade from your realm. What Chyl calls a Stray Dog. Right now, nobody knows where you are. My partner and I can easily make you disappear. We should."
She glanced over at Carlo. "You don't have to talk me out of it. I'm not going to execute this guy. I wouldn't actually go through with it. We'll do what we usually do with ravers like him, we'll send him back to Chyl."
"The Emperor's edicts are clear about harming Humans in our world," Carlo agreed. "He will be executed by rope."
The platinum hair shone like silver in the light from the cottage as she turned her head to gaze back at the open door. "I didn't touch anything. We'll tip off Department 21 Black and they'll close the case. Okay, Stray Dog, on your feet. Hands behind your back, here go the cuffs. We're taking you to our base. From there, you'll be sent back to Chyl."
Meekly, head hanging down, the Stray Dog allowed himself to escorted over to where the Toyota waited. The whole clash had only taken a few minutes. "I accept my fate," he said. "I see my errors now. The light cleared my mind."
As Carlo secured Murakami in the back seat with the new ankle straps, Ashley brought the Steel Breeze to place in the trunk. She didn't know why she felt so depressed, usually the end of a case found her triumphant and proud of herself. Not this time. Unicorn hefted the sword thoughtfully before tying it down next to the tool box. "You wore out your welcome in our world," she grumbled at the blade. "But I guess it's not your fault, you're only a piece of metal."
Locking their prisoner in, Carlo came around to join her. "I'll drive on the way back, Ashley."
"Hmm? No, thanks anyway. I'll drive. It'll keep my mind occupied."
3/24/2022
12/14/2021
I.
"You've been awful quiet, even for you," Unicorn prompted. She tagged her turn signal and swung up the ramp of Exit 24. Ahead was the row of brightly lit New York State Thruway toll booths. Slowing to a reasonable speed for the first time in three hours, Unicorn reached with her right hand to open the center console where a tangle off assorted bills were kept. "Oh heck, what a mess, count out eleven dollars, okay?"
Next to the little blonde, Carlo Ventura complied and put a ten and a single in her hand. Since accepting the Eyeless Helmet, he had steadily lost weight but now seemed stable at one hundred and fifty pounds. Not quite six feet tall, he seemed thin but not dangerously so. The white cotton shirt and trousers showed lean muscle but not bones and his ribs were not prominent. As Ashley handed over her ticket and cash, giving the attendant a gorgeous smile as if it were a present, Carlo exhaled. "Sable didn't give us much of a briefing. All she said was that there had been two beheading in the area around Shenandago and they seemed to be unrelated. And we have an observer to contact, whoever Diamond Joe might be."
"I don't think she has more info to give," Unicorn shrugged. "Certainly she would have called us during this epic drive if she had." A minute later, the maroon Toyota Matrix merged onto a highway marked Route 22, which had sparse traffic on an eleven o'clock Tuesday night. At forty, Ashley Whitaker looked much younger, with only the faintest lines at the corner of her crystal blue eyes. The long platinum hair hanging down past her shoulders had always been so fair as to seem silvery, so going grey would not be a problem for her.
"Megan has been messing with this car's onboard computer again!" the Unicorn grumbled. "The screen not only shows where we are on the map, that other green blip shows the location of Piper's house AND it gives our ETA to the second. It tells us how near or how far we are from it to an inch. And I didn't ask for any of that information. Drat. Never mind that. Spill it, Carlo, tell me what's on your mind."
"It's hard to explain," Carlo hesitated. "Remember when you were young? When you grew to be a little taller or a little stronger, you could do things you weren't capable of before. I remember the first time I could stretch up and reach the ceiling in our house. So proud!"
"Sure. Go on."
"I feel like that now. Only it's not physical but, well, spiritual. Or maybe extrrasensory. The helmet's effect has really kicked in on me. Even when I'm not wearing it, I'm more aware of stuff happening, even when it's out of sight. I can tell what people are doing when they're in another room, I can feel when someone is lying, I can find objects that have been hidden. It's weird."
Unicorn let an almost inaudible chuckle escape her. "Sounds great to me, Carlo. That's what you were told would happen if you kept Sagehelm."
"Yeah. True enough. But I wish Nebel had stuck around to give me some more training. He took off after telling me the barest minimum. I can't figure out why! Did you know him?"
"Garrison Nebel? Not really." The little blonde glanced down at the dashboard screen. "Eight minutes to go. Nah, I met him a few times at our headquarters building but we never did much more than say hello. He wasn't exactly friendly."
Carlo reached behind him and retrieved a canvas satchel from the back seat. It held a roughly spherical object slightly larger than his own head. "Nebel was a legend in the Midnight War. Imthril, the Sorcerer of Truth. When I hear about what he did, I don't see how I can ever lived up to him. I feel trapped by expectations."
"Now, don't play martyr. You've saved our team a few times already. You're not meant to be a hand to hand fighter or someone who carries lightning in her chest like Jocelyn. You're a mystic, a seer of visions. When people feel threatened by shadows at night, you shine. That's your purpose."
"I wish I was as confident as you are," he said. "You're always so sure of yourself."
"You bet. Don't get me started on my upbringing, because once I get talking about it, I won't stop. My mom was the first Unicorn and she started raising me to take her place as soon as I could walk. On my sixteenth birthday, she gave me the horn for my own and shoved me right into the Midnight War. Sheesh. I went from being a kid to a famous adventurer just like that, caught in the crossfire of childhood and stardom." She laughed again. "Not that I didn't love it!"
"I feel better talking about this," Carlo admitted. "I'm such a noob. You've all been in the Midnight War for so long."
"Hah! Don't rub it in. I was your age when you were born. But anyway. This is serious. The Teachers at Tel Shai think you're the right person to carry that helmet. Sable thinks so, Jeremy thinks so and I think so. And I'm a pretttty good judge of character."
Carlo did not respond further. He undid the thongs holding the satchel shut and drew out a gleaming helmet cast in one piece of a metal that gleamed the palest gold possible. It would cover the entire head, and the face had no eye openings... only etched outlines of where those openings would be.
"Why don't you wear it all the time?" she asked. "I mean, not in supermarkets or on the street of course. But on the ride up here, you could have been meditating and becoming one with the universal life force or whatever it is you do."
"I don't want to lose who I am." Carlo replaced the helmet into the satchel but kept it on his lap.
II.
They turned off on to Dutch Town Road, where there were no stores or commercial buildings found. Residential houses stood widely separated by long stretches of forest. To their right, a creek glittered when their headlights caught its surface.
"I wish we knew more about this guy, Diamond Joe. According to Sable, he was never a big player in the Midnight War. Kind of a shady character, sometimes recovering lost talismans, running errands, sometimes helping out when Jeremy had his Dire Wolf Agency running. He was out for cash in the hand, sorry to say. Jeremy said the guy could be useful as long as you didn't need to trust him."
Carlo Ventura took so long to respond that Ashley yelped, "Hey! You fall asleep, buddy? Maybe we should have brought a thermos of coffee."
"My perception stirs. The ancient winds of trouble blow and our names are in the night air."
"uh-Oh! When you get all poetic like that, I know Hell is about to break loose. You can tell we're heading into what, a trap?"
"Yes. A mind both cruel and eager waits for us to be foolish. We are targets for faraway laughter, but that mind does not know we are walking forward with open eyes."
Ashley snorted with glee rather than uneasiness. "Great. I'm armed like a SWAT team right now, and of course my Unicorn horn is right behind me in the back seat. And you have got your amazing helmet right in your lap. That cruel and eager mind should be afraid of US!"
"I did bring one of the anesthetic dart guns," Carlo added. "It's under my seat but I feel it will not be needed. My purpose is not to have used such weapons. I will have brought the holy light of Elvedal into darkness, I will have shone like the sun through black holes in the sky."
Despite herself, Unicorn laughed. "I really like when you talk that way, Carlo. Sometimes I feel like I should write your phrases down. Oh. There it is, that gravel road heading up the hill." She made a hard left, slowing down to a reasonable speed when forced to do so, and thumped up an incline between walls of beech and maple trees on either side.
At the end of the gravel stood a plain one-story house of white planks, with a black slate roof, holding no more than six rooms. Parking near the front door was a Nissan Sentra at least a dozen years old with some scratches and dents to boast of its survival. One window was lit, but heavy curtains showed no more than the dim beige rectangle. Ashley swung the KDF Toyota around so it would be ready for an instant getaway, a habit she had developed from bitter experience.
"Ya know, I'm about as psychic as a turnip," she admitted. "But for some reason, I've got the creeps big time."
"Your instincts serve you well, Ashley. This man is not a schemer but a prisoner. Another stranger far worse awaits us behind that door." Carlo slid out of the passenger door and stood up, reaching back into the satchel to extract a bundle of heavy gold silk which he fastened with a clasp around his neck. A cloak dropped down to ankle length, its material woven with fine strands of Enalsir, the silver blessed by the immortal Eldarin themselves. Then he lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over his head and, as he did so, a flare of rich golden light played over it as if reflecting a faraway sun.
Seeing him prepare this way, Unicorn's alertness jumped up to its fullest. She knew Carlo did not don that cloak unless the danger was imminent and life-threatening. Inside her own waist-length jacket were a dozen small weapons and gadgets concealed in their pockets, the needle-barreled dart gun was holstered across the small of her back. Ashley drew her own unique talisman from the back seat and strapped it across her narrow back.
Tightly wrapped in a conical white leather sheath, this was an actual horn of a Unicorn from Okali, tapering three feet long from its pointed end to the silver cap on its flat end. Ashley had no extra-human abilities herself. It was the power of the Horn to remove gralic force from an area that qualified her for membership in the KDF and as a knight of Tel Shai.
"I'm all worked up already, Carlo," she said barely above a whisper. "Let's straighten out the creatures of the night and teach 'em who is at the top of the supernatural food chain, namely us."
The blank eyeless plate of that helmet swung to regard her and Carlo's voice was hollow and sepulchral now. "We face the Steel Breeze, and lives will end tonight."
As he spoke those last ominous words, the front door to the cottage swung outward and a man brandishing a curved narrow-bladed sword strode toward them.
III.
Stopping well out of arm's reach, the man twirled his weapon in an elaborate figure 8 and lowered his point. "Honor demands that I give you a chance to surrender your valuables," he said in an odd, vaguely musical accent. Wearing mundane black slacks and light blue dress shirt with the cuffs rolled back, he was not himself an unusual figure. The black hair was cropped short over a long narrow face with regular features. Dark deepset eyes were watchful but the thin curled in an arrogant smile.
"Allow me to present myself," he continued, "Zhal Murakami of the Murakami Clan, third from the throne of Chyl. Of course, I know who you two are, I waited months until I could be sure that you two would come to answer Diamond's request."
"You're not from Chyl," scoffed Unicorn, showing no signs of being intimidated. "I was there when I was ten years old. You've got a nose, your ears aren't pointed, your skin isn't orange-brown. You're just another Human."
"A Human captive raised from the cradle in Chyl," came the reply, "A Human taught to swing a sword while learning to walk. I am a greater Zoku-Ya than any noseless Chylan. I had to prove myself and I did."
"You seek to claim our talismans," Carlo Ventura broken in quietly. "Sagehelm and the Unicorn Horn will never be yours, Murakami. You might as well cry for the Moon as to demand our sigils."
"But first, where's Diamond Joe Piper?" demanded Ashley in a very different tone from the one she had used when bantering with her teammate.
The swordsman grinned and took another step forward. "Beyond the pains and cares of this world. This is Steel Breeze. The craftsmen of Chyl make the finest blades in all the adjacent realms and the Steel Breeze stands above them all. Claiming it was the first step in my campaign. With its edge, I shall take the Horn and the Helmet for my own. With them, I will seize still more of the great talismans. The Sceptre? Brightbolt? Who knows, the Armor of Hell itself. I will assemble every potent talisman until I can dare challenge the Halarim themselves."
"Your grasp is not firm enough to close around such mysteries," Carlo said from behind the golden helmet. "You reached for the secrets too soon and you will be left with less than what you began with."
Murakami leaned back, placing his weight on his rear leg, drawing the Steel Breeze up to point forward. He laughed. "I know all about you two. Your powers cannot harm me. I have no gralic abilities, so the Unicorn Horn won't affect me. And the Eldar helmet? Its light undoes malevolent spells and heals the damaged. But I am what I am supposed to be! Neither of you can affect me."
For a tiny blue-eyed blonde, Ashley Whitaker certainly could put confident menace in her voice. "You still face two knights of Tel Shai. We are Masters of Kumundu. Hah! Now there's a look in your eyes that wasn't there a second ago."
"Stay where you are," Murakami warned. "Your heads will spin away if you get near me."
Faint gleams of golden light played over the Eyeless Helmet, Carlo's voice seemed to echo from far away. "Every soul deceives itself in many ways. Few can face their own weaknesses and failures. I am a miner of truth and delusion, my friend. Be exposed in the Light of Elvedal and grow wise."
The entire world seemed to flare up the palest gold imaginable, blotting out all vision, leaving no room for shadows, and a rushing roar as of a great river sounded. It died down almost instantly, but the night felt different, clearer, fresher.
Ashley Whitaker struggled to make sense of her sensations and realized she was sitting up on the cold gravel. No spots danced before her eyes as lesser radiance would leave. For a second, she made incoherent noise, then cleared her throat and managed, "GodDAM,
Carlo. That was like an afterlife experience. Shine on, you crazy fool."
Faint tendrils of steam rose from the Eyeless Helmet as Carlo pulled it up off his head. His curly hair was damp with sweat. "It would have done no good to look away or to cover your eyes, my friend. The Light which shines on Elvedal would show through your hands as if they were glass."
"I feel okay. I guess. A little mopey. But look what that blast did to him."
Crawling feebly on hands and knees, Murakami mumbled and muttered with his head hanging down. "I proved myself to the Warlords. I did! I am the equal of any noseless Zoku-Ya, no one can deny that. I ran the gantlet, I climbed the barbed rope, I did all that was required."
"Take what comfort you can," Carlo told him gently. "Bask in the shadows of yesterday's triumphs, your future is a short one."
Ashley had quickly picked up the sword Steel Breeze and made sure she kept it far out of his reach. "I need to check on Diamond Joe," she said as she spun toward where the front door still hung open.
"I'll be joining you there," said Carlo, tucking the helmet under one arm and letting the heavy cloak fall over to conceal his body. He was watching as Zhal Murakami began to recover from the enlightening. "Your eyesight is clearing now. Breathe slowly."
As his vision focused and he saw Carlo clearly, the swordsman recoiled and scuttled back out of reach. "I...I had no idea what you are weilding. I thought of the helmet as just another weapon. I was a fool. I have no words for what that Light means."
"I am sorry only that you might not have glimpsed the light sooner," Carlo told him. "No, don't try to get up. Your legs will not hold you."
Still holding the Steel Breeze in one hand, Unicorn stepped quickly through the door and toward them. "The best I can say is that he died quickly. One clean stroke right through the vertebra. I placed Diamond Joe's head back on his neck the best I could."
"Is this guilt? Is this what guilt feels like? Don't give me any more, please, it's like a heavy weight."
"Oh, I'll pile on many more layers. You deserve it. I saw the walker by his chair, he was an old man and you didn't have to kill him. And I read the police reports about the decapitated couple down by Lake Mewaska. You were having fun, weren't you? Testing out your Steel Breeze!"
"Ashley," said Carlo, "this isn't like you."
"So what! I'm pissed off and with good reason. Look, Murakami, you're a renegade from your realm. What Chyl calls a Stray Dog. Right now, nobody knows where you are. My partner and I can easily make you disappear. We should."
She glanced over at Carlo. "You don't have to talk me out of it. I'm not going to execute this guy. I wouldn't actually go through with it. We'll do what we usually do with ravers like him, we'll send him back to Chyl."
"The Emperor's edicts are clear about harming Humans in our world," Carlo agreed. "He will be executed by rope."
The platinum hair shone like silver in the light from the cottage as she turned her head to gaze back at the open door. "I didn't touch anything. We'll tip off Department 21 Black and they'll close the case. Okay, Stray Dog, on your feet. Hands behind your back, here go the cuffs. We're taking you to our base. From there, you'll be sent back to Chyl."
Meekly, head hanging down, the Stray Dog allowed himself to escorted over to where the Toyota waited. The whole clash had only taken a few minutes. "I accept my fate," he said. "I see my errors now. The light cleared my mind."
As Carlo secured Murakami in the back seat with the new ankle straps, Ashley brought the Steel Breeze to place in the trunk. She didn't know why she felt so depressed, usually the end of a case found her triumphant and proud of herself. Not this time. Unicorn hefted the sword thoughtfully before tying it down next to the tool box. "You wore out your welcome in our world," she grumbled at the blade. "But I guess it's not your fault, you're only a piece of metal."
Locking their prisoner in, Carlo came around to join her. "I'll drive on the way back, Ashley."
"Hmm? No, thanks anyway. I'll drive. It'll keep my mind occupied."
3/24/2022
