Realms of Glomora: Better Familiarity

 

              Xelniya crouched under the shadow of a gargoyle, her cowl pulled low against the chill of the wind and rain. She looked down from her perch at the city far below. Houses made of stone and thatched with wooden rooftops spread out before her like a sea to the very borders of the city. Thunder growled, and there was a flash of lightning.

            

The great tower gave her a vantage point of the entire city. There. Secreted in an alley far below, she could see a figure waiting, looking left and right like a nervous deer. She leaped from the building, her cloak billowing out about her like the wings of a great bat, descending into a free fall. Halfway down, her white hair whipping about her face, she reached inside herself and activated her innate ability. She vanished into a cloud of black mist.

            

She reappeared on a rooftop below in a crouch. She dropped over the lip of the roof into the alley where her contact waited. He was a portly man with a black beard, and a dung-colored cloak pulled tightly about himself. He started as she approached him.

            

“Are you from the Midnight Court?” he asked.

            

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you think?”

            

He said nothing, but his eyes roved her body, her curves attractive even in her leather armor. She scowled. She would have killed him for letting his eyes wander in such a way, but she needed the information he carried.

            

“Do you have the target?” she asked.

            

He tore his eyes away long enough to acknowledge her question. “Yes, yes I do.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a rolled piece of parchment which he handed to her.

 

Xelniya scowled as she read the parchment. “This is a joke.”

            

“No, mistress. He is the target.”

            

She looked back up. His eyes did not meet hers; they were instead occupied with a lower point of her form. She snarled in anger, whipping out her dagger and brought it up with a quick slash. He cried out as he covered his eye, falling to the ground.

            

“There is an ancient teaching by one of the old gods,” she said, cold venom in her voice. “If your eye causes you to lust, then you must cut it out. I do not worship whatever god said this, but I am only too happy to do his or her bidding. Shall I cut out the other one?”

            

The man scampered away on his bottom, looking at her in horror with his one eye. There was no lust in it, only fear.

            

“Very good,” she said. She evaporated into mist, leaving him whimpering in the alley.

 

***

            According to the parchment that the contact gave her, Xelniya was to kill a wizard named Gal Ravenwing. She was able to find him easily enough. He lived in a house in the western section of the city. To spy on her prey effectively, Xelniya had slipped inside an old couple’s residence across from the wizard’s house. She loomed next to the window of their bedroom, looking at the house through the curtain of rain. She could hear the couple downstairs as they ate dinner and spoke of simple things, of gardening, of grown children, and of an impending visit from their granddaughter. Their voices were happy, and Xelniya ruminated on that happiness as she stared out the window.

           

 Ravenwing wasn’t inconspicuous. She could see into his well-lit window, at his desk stacked with piles of great tomes. He was poring over one of the books, his head cradled in his hand. Xelniya did not know why the king of the Midnight Court wanted him dead. It wasn’t her job to know—her job was to kill her master’s targets.

            

She was contemplating how she would kill the wizard when she heard a voice behind her. “You’re not as stealthy as you think.”

            

Xelniya whirled around and threw her dagger. Ravenwing flicked a finger and it froze in midair. Xelniya’s eyes widened.

            

“How are you able to do that?” she demanded. She glanced behind her. The wizard was still at his desk, but as she watched, his form vanished like a mirage. She turned back to the real wizard. “How are you able to use magic without speaking?

            

A crooked smile spread across his face. “Oh, my dear, I am beyond the simple forms of magic that you understand.”

            

Her dagger turned in the air before him like the needle of a compass before freezing for the briefest moment and shooting back at her. She ducked and it crashed through the window behind her sending out a shower of splintered glass. She drew her sword and charged at the wizard driving the sword through his heart

 

Even as the blade pierced him, Xelniya knew something was wrong. As his flesh met the hilt of her sword, his body dissipated into a flurry of black feathers.

            

“You waste your time,” Gal said. He was now by the window where she had been observing him, his hands folded behind his back. “You cannot kill me, assassin.”

            

Xelniya squared off against him. She knew that she was hopelessly outmatched. If he was able to use magic without speaking, then he was truly a powerful mage. But that still left her with a question.

            

“Why haven’t you killed me?” she asked.

            

“Ah. A fair inquisition. I’m capable of it, aren’t I?”

            

“It would seem so.”

            

“Perhaps I have a proposition for you, one that would be difficult to give if you were dead and bleeding all over the floor.”

            

The sound of footsteps pounded up the stairs. Xelniya turned to see the door burst open and an old man—the owner of the house—come in, a small hatchet in his hand. His mouth gaped open for the briefest moment as Xelniya swiped her blade across his neck. There was a spurt of scarlet as he clawed at his throat and fell to the floor with a loud thud.

            

“No interruptions,” Xelniya said to Ravenwing. 

            

“Baylor!” the old woman screamed from downstairs.

            

Gabriel smiled and held open his hand. A small interdimensional rift appeared next to him. Out of it crawled a repulsive creature. It looked like a furless rat, covered only in muscle and sinew. It was the size of a dog and its eyes glimmered with wicked hunger. It skittered away from Gabriel, past Xelniya’s boot and the spreading pool of blood, and headed out the bedroom door.

 

 “No interruptions,” the wizard agreed.

            

The old woman screamed a moment later. There was the sound of hissing and the tearing of flesh.

            

“What is your proposition?” Xelniya asked.

            

“Your master is the Midnight King, Paalen of Kesma.”

            

“You’re well informed,” Xelniya said.

            

“Well, your contact was actually mine, a double agent. He was meant to lure you here so I could talk to you. By the way, did you really have to cut out his eye?”

            

The dark elf said nothing. Gabriel sighed with a wave of his hand. He pulled a chair that was next to the window towards himself and sat down. “Your lord has caused quite the upset with the unaé courts. Inducing blasphemy, seceding from the Moon Court to make his own nation. Quite brave, though some would say he is being ostentatious. Many fear war.”

            

“What do you care of the unaé courts?” Xelniya asked.

            

Gabriel brushed back a lock of his long black hair, revealing a pointed ear. “My father was a shadúnae. However, I was brought up outside of the Moon Court by my mother. She didn’t care for me being raised around a bunch of judgmental elves.”

            

“And what does this have to do with Paalen and myself?”

            

“First, I have to know—why does Paalen want me killed?”

            

“That I can’t tell you, and only because I don’t know. I do not question the will of my lord.”

            

“Yet you still perform it? That is loyalty.”

            

Loyalty, Xelniya thought, Or a curse?

            

Gabriel knitted his fingers together. “I want you to speak to your Lord Paalen for me. I want to be on his side. His decision to make his own land can only be seen as a prelude to inciting war with the other courts; something that has not happened for many centuries. I have no love for the unaé courts, and I’d very much love to see them collapse.” At that moment, the rat slipped by Xelniya, bearing a chunk of bloody flesh in its mouth. It scampered up onto Gabriel’s knee, where he stroked its head with the knuckles of two fingers.

            

“But he wants to kill you,” Xelniya said.

            

Ravenwing smirked. “True. But neither of us knows why, though I suspect it’s because he fears my power. If I’m right, then perhaps you can convince him that I would be better off as an ally.” He stood, and the rat scampered away, dropping the flesh it had been gnawing on. He walked to Xelniya and before she knew what he was doing, his fingers were brushing the side of her cheek.

            

“And perhaps,” he said, his dark eyes boring into hers, “since you have no hope of killing me, you and I could be friends of a better familiarity.”

            

Xelniya’s grip tightened on her sword. She jerked her face away from his touch. “I will speak to my lord. But understand this.” She fixed the wizard with a glare. “I am my lord Paalen’s and no other’s.”

            

He considered her a moment, never breaking her gaze. Then he smiled. “Ah, loyalty. Who knew there was still some of it left in the world today?” He turned from her. “Give my regards to your lord. Let him know if he wants my help, then he has it. Otherwise, he will need someone stronger than you to kill me.”

            

He waved his hand and the rat disappeared into the rift which winked out of existence. Ravenwing casted one last smile at Xelniya over his shoulder. She blinked and the wizard was gone.

            

She stood in the room, considering what he had said. The proposition he had for Paalen. She knew her master would find it amusing, and perhaps even consider it. She stared at the corpse of the old man, thinking about Gabriel’s words.

            

…you and I could be friends of a better familiarity.

            Xelniya brushed her cheek where he had touched her. Shaking her head, she went down the stairs. She did not look at what was left of the old woman as she passed through the kitchen. It was still raining as she exited the back door. She pulled her cloak close and vanished into the stormy night.

 

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