In the beginning, Jarak reached out to the Shakoura with an arrangement, hoping to acquire Tamine directly. However, the Shakoura refused him. This refusal only served to fan the flame of the Malhada’s rage. One wouldn’t tell ‘no’ to someone who was never used to been told ‘no’. In the end, Jarak had his personal agents, some of which were high-level Dark Listeners invade the Undercity under the cover of the night, massacring an entire faction of the Shakoura. He then kidnapped Tamine and persuaded him to work for him by promising the boy to get him into the Zaradate Temple where he could read, experiment and learn to his heart’s content.
Tamine’s peculiar personality and his maniacal thirst for knowledge would serve to endear him to the aged Tewekaga, who ended up offering discipleship to the boy, despite his unblessed state. This one move of the old man would later seal his own demise and lend a hand in the subsequent fall of the Temple.
Yuer had to either acquire Tamine before Jarak did or to wipe this kid off of the face of the living world. He didn’t care how cold-blooded and evil this line of thoughts would make him seem to Sakina, but he couldn’t allow this one wild variant to roam free. Tamine must not learn to engineer the Echo-negating device. Better yet, he must never meet Jarak.
The sub-chief that should be employing Tamine at this moment was called Lone Eye. He was placed somewhere at the lower end of the Shakoura’s chain-food. At this point of time, it should have been close to three months since he recruited the boy. Yuer needed to meet the man. Until now, Lone Eye should have not discovered Tamine’s genius so he might be willing to part with the kid for the right price.
After some time, the driver halted the horses and hopped down. He placed a small wooden stool under the ride’s door and knocked. The pair quickly got off of the carriage. The driver then looked at Yuer with his perpetually bored eyes and curtly said, “I can’t drive you any closer. You follow on foot. I will wait.”
Yuer nodded, not sparing the older man any further attention. He quickly made his way across the street, Sakina followed along without much fanfare. The pair walked for a while, bypassing decrepit stacked houses, depressingly bare shops and countless guarded eyes. They eventually reached a certain alleyway of Indigo District.
The alleyway was dark and musty, littered with stale, unclean water pools. At the end of the alleyway, an unremarkable rusty door stood. Painted across its rust-crusted surface was a drawing of a gigantic ten-legged black spider. The design on the bottom pulpous part of its body evoked the image of a wailing skull. This was a depiction of a Scythe Spider or commonly known as Death Spider. They were no ordinary arachnid species but an Echo Beast that roamed within the Razura Forest, far north of the Semani Empire.
Sakina held back the shudder that fought to break through her slight frame at the mere presence of that symbol. She knew better than anyone what that insignia meant. The Shakoura; the reigning kings of the Undercity. In this city that never knew the sun, there was but one law and that law was the Shakoura. In her time spent here, she had never glimpsed a single Reznali trooper or a Helisari warrior. Even the mighty Rezas and the famous Zaradate Temple wouldn’t want their people to set foot in this violent world of darkness. One simply wouldn’t step on the Scythe Spider’s web if they cherished their lives.
Yuer noticed Sakina’s alarmingly pale face. He moved closer to her, freeing her hand from its death grip on the heavy cloak. Instead, he took her skinny, slender hand into his own, squeezing it gently. In a low and smooth voice, he reassured, “Don’t be afraid. It’s all in the past now. This place is no longer where you are. It’s just a pile of rust, old stone and dirt. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
Yuer’s previously smooth voiced developed a dagger-sharp edge, “And if anyone in there dares to breathe your way, I will make them regret the very thought of it.”
Sakina shut her eyes for a bit, her eyelids quivering. She took a deep and long breath before she looked back at Yuer. Her brown eyes brimmed with trust and determination. “Let us be on our way, esteemed master.”
Yuer nodded, a proud smile clinging to the edges of his lips. “Let us, then.”
The pair pushed the door open and walked in. Instantly, they were greeted by the sight of a long, spiral-shaped and dimly lit staircase that led downward, into the ground. The master and the servant followed the staircase cautiously until they reached the bottom. Leaks of man-made sources of light hinted at human presence behind another door.
They opened the second door and found themselves surrounded by several pairs of sharp and unkind eyes.
One of the owners of these hostile eyes approached Yuer like a predator attempting to close in on his prey.
“Who are you? What’s your business here?” he demanded in a raspy, deep voice.
“I’m here on personal business with Lone Eye.” Yuer answered, his tone was even and unruffled.
The man looked slightly started for a moment. Then as if he had never been affected to begin with, the Shakoura guard pinned his deep, knife-like gaze into Yuer’s. His eyes seemed as if they wished to cut through the very skin and flesh of Yuer’s hooded face to see what’s underneath.
The code names of the Shakoura’s sub-chiefs were never made public to people outside of the Undercity. So, unless Yuer had already met and closed a deal with Lone Eye, that would be no other possible way for him to know that code name. Yuer had Jarak’s running mouth to thank for this.
After a brief moment of hesitation, the guard turned around and threw Yuer a careless “follow me.”
Yuer glanced back at Sakina, who nodded back at him. The pair then trailed after the guard, who led them deeper into the Undercity. After crossing the foyer of the second doorway, Yuer was met with the bustling main underground street of the city of Night. Massive torches hanged from every wall, paper lanterns of all sizes and shapes dangled from every crook and cranny of the street. Merchants with all sorts of wares and artisans of varying crafts stood behind their makeshift stands, angling to hook in customers. People of differing castes and races walked down the street, some talked, some marched as if they had somewhere to be, and others pursued the merchandise laid before them. Beggars and homeless Shefrin stuck to the walls. Their bony and gaunt figures looked as they were attempting to fuse into the very hardened soil of the walls. Among the people, the occasional Shakoura member could be glimpsed. Their peculiar black attire and forehead Scythe Spider tattoos made them stand out, even to the most air-headed of people.
However what caught Yuer’s eye the most was this city’s most prized possession, its ‘sun’. In the middle of an open plaza, a gigantic orb of Echo Light floated above the people’s heads. This orb was the strongest and most precious source of light for the city of Night. A great chunk of the Shakoura’s illegal earnings went into the maintenance and the upkeep of this ‘sun’. The way they did it was that they hired Light Listeners and had them set in timed rotation around the clock. Each Light Listener would feed his Echo into the orb, so that it would never run out. This idea seemed to be the work of the first head of Shakoura and because the Divine Echo was the closest imitation possible of the natural elements, this Light Echo orb had held off the outburst of skin diseases and eye sight ailments by the virtue of its presence for more than half a century. This ‘sun’ meant more to the people of the Undercity than the Mahatir, Zaradate and the Rezas combined.
The Undercity was for all intents and purposes a fully functioning body of its own right. Its expanse stretched as far Indigo District and some believed that it stretched even further, with certain hidden tunnels that could even lead into the outer courtyard of the Imperial Palace. No one knew how old the Undercity was or when it started. What everyone knew was this city had existed for as long as the capital itself had; A juxtaposed, hidden and less pleasant-looking twin.
The guard stopped in front of one of the many stacked and narrow buildings of the Undercity and loudly knocked on its door. The door opened and whoever behind seemed to exchange few words with the guard before beckoning Yuer and Sakina in.
The pair stepped into the building and Yuer’s attention was suddenly snatched by the state of the man who greeted them. He was so thin that Yuer feared a gust of wind could snap him in half. His bald head and hairless eyebrows gave him the man an eerie and off-putting air about him. However what was most ghastly about this lackey was his mouth, which was sewed shut with some form of metallic thread. His beady eyes looked dead, as if they had long forgotten how to register their owner’s own being.
The mute husk of man paid Yuer no attention; instead he guided them toward a certain door and knocked. A “come in” resounded through the wood. The servant’s morbidly expressionless face titled towards the door, wordlessly gesturing to the pair to enter.
Yuer took a step into the ‘office’ and found himself faced with a familiar yet abhorrent scene.
An emaciated, bony little boy lay motionless within the clutches of several burly-looking men. His eyes were hazy and unseeing. His stark, white hair was messy and matted with blood. His rags were strewn across the floor; varying shades of purple and blue were littered across his abraded skin. Streaks of startling red run from between his dangerously thin thighs. A dark-haired man was seated on a darkwood armchair; his one-eyed face remained expressionless as he leaned it atop his upturned palm, indifferently watching the scene unfolding before him.
Suddenly, Yuer wasn’t there anymore. He was somewhere else, somewhere big, gaudy and familiar. The man on the chair grew larger, his facial features shifted and his physique morphed. He became some else, some else whom Yuer knew far too well. The men around the boy contorted into long, faceless shadowy figures that had neither eyes nor noses. They only had scythe-shaped smiles the color of blood painted across their featureless faces. The white-haired boy’s dead-looking black eyes became blue. Then, Yuer found himself looking at his own image. Another him with the very same, empty, quiet, dead eyes.
Yuer couldn’t breathe. The air grew too thin and no matter how much of it he gulped into his lungs, it still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough!
The walls of the room shifted. They grew too thick and too high all of a sudden, rushing towards him, drawing too close, boxing him in, suffocating him.
Yuer panted, his saliva pooled like a flood within his mouth, overflowing down his lips. Rivers of cold, chilling sweat traveled down his back, soaking the fabric of his tunic. The frenzied thumping of his heartbeat rang deafening inside his ears. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move.
Suddenly, an eerie moment of silence settled over his mind. And then he heard it, the crisp, sharp sound of something snapping.
Click, click.
The world before Yuer’s eyes became black, then red, then black and red. He couldn’t tell where one color began and the other ended. They danced, twirled and glided together, all in perfect, beautiful harmony. Only there was no music to be heard. The world had become blissfully quiet now.
“Mas—”
What was that? Why did it feel like there’s water in my ears?
“Mast---”
Who is that? Who’s calling me?
“Master!”
Why are they calling me?
“Master! Please!”
Yuer jolted. The film of blissful quiet lifted. He found himself looking into a familiar yet pale and tear-streaked face.
Sakina.
Her slight, nimble hands trembled as they cupped his cheeks. Her brown eyes were bloodshot and misted. Within their warm pools, grief and shock warred in equal measures.
Yuer stared into those familiar eyes, confounded. Before he could open his mouth to speak, an overwhelming, metallic stench furiously assaulted his nose. The smell was so thick and heavy that it nearly caused him to choke on his own breath. Yuer held a hand over his mouth and reflexively gagged.
Sakina drew him close to her. Her slender, still trembling hands circled around his shoulders, embracing him. She squeezed him gently in her arms. Yuer buried his nose into her skinny shoulder, wisps of his brown hair plastering themselves against the skin of his face, sticky with sweat. A light, sweet scent unique to Sakina traveled into his nostrils, driving away the stench that nearly numbed his sense of smell.
Sakina murmured. “It’s alright. Master is here now. Master is back. Hush. My sweet, sweet master. ”
Yuer closed his eyes, soaking in the warmth of Sakina’s embrace, engraving into his mind the pleasant timber of her young voice. He hoped for her to drive away the chill for a bit, this chill that clang to him like a second skin.
A moment passed and he opened his eyes. His gaze swept across the office and stopped at the blood-covered child in the middle of it. The boy looked back at Yuer, his dead obsidian eyes wide open. Around him, corpses scattered about the blood-soaked floor. ‘Corpses’ was too a generous word for them for they were but mere torsos, limbless and headless. Spatters of fresh blood painted the walls of the room crimson. Yuer slowly shifted his gaze to the man on the chair, except there was no ‘man’ there, just a collection of bloodied intestines and gore. No corpse to speak of.
Yuer slowly pushed himself out of Sakina’s hold. “Did I do that?”
Sakina fought the tremors that quaked throughout her body. Instead of answering, she snatched Yuer’s hand and tried to haul him up. “Master, we must leave. If the rest of the Shakoura find out about this, they will flood the entire Undercity and we won’t be able to escape. They are likely to have high-level Echo Listeners among them.”
“Did I do that?” Yuer asked once more, refusing to move.
Sakina then understood that in order to make her master move, she had to placate him. “I will tell my esteemed master everything once we get out of here. The driver is still waiting for us outside. Master, please, we must hurry.”
Yuer was quiet for a bit before he stood up, “Alright.”
The pair dashed to the door when Yuer suddenly halted in his steps. He turned around and looked at the white-haired boy, still kneeling within the stench-filled room. The boy’s fathomless eyes still locked into him.
“Do you know how we can get out of here without going through the entrance door?” Yuer asked.
The boy titled his face, as if trying to process Yuer’s words. He then lifted one bloodied, thin hand and pointed to the southern wall of the room.
Comments (0)
See all