Charles Ingrid - Burning Bridges

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BURNING BRIDGES

Charles Ingrid

ACT II

TO stand in the throne city of Sshen was to stand in the midst of a province walled as a

city, filled with cacophony and culture, to be overcome by a vast, dark tide of peoples. It had

its quarters . . . city-states, in actuality ... of peoples and classes, threaded throughout by the

military presence of the Sshen and emperor. To go within the inner walls of the city, into the

palace complex itself, was to stand in the wash of the radiance of the greatest civilization of

the world that called itself Lunavar. It was to want to be inside the palace, to study, to become

one with its greatness and mystery. To be admitted meant submitting oneself to the mage staff of

the emperor, to be examined and memorized before being allowed into the museum and library

of knowledge, antiquities, and beauties. And, while studying, being studied.

To go inside meant days of kneeling in silent petition. No one was quite sure what effort

would see the petition granted but scholars were allowed within by the handful. He wanted

inside. He had to get inside. He had a blood debt that could only be paid by getting inside.

So Brennan wrapped himself in black and knelt on the steps of the palace by the museum

wing and fasted and meditated and keenly observed the doors, windows, floors, upper

balconies, and guards through the veil gauze masking his face. He left at night, as the others

did, and broke his fast, but unlike the others, Brennan made sketches of what he had observed,

dictated and copied what he had to his mainframe server, and when he returned in the morning,

he knelt in a different place to expand his observations. He would not be denied.

But midway through the third morning, the eldest of the elders approached him quietly. "We

have been watching you, scholar. Come with me."

He rose to his feet silently, knees barely aching, his stomach complaining more than

anything, and unwrapped his face and followed the emperor's mage. They went through a side

portcullis that Brennan had marked and into the spice-scented shadowy interior of a small

chamber. He looked up, sensing that the antechamber leaned against what was a high tower,

and he scanned the interior, looking for evidence of that. There, before he could anticipate or

protest, the elder took his wrist, slashing it with a sharp stinging knife and allowing blood to

splash into an earthenware basin. Brennan moved away without a word despite his surprise,

applying pressure, and the mage nodded as he wrapped the wound carefully, rendering it near

invisible within his sleeves. The mage of the Emperor of Sshen returned his ritual knife to a

forearm sheath that Brennan had not marked before, hidden within faded crimson robes.

"Follow me," the elder said, without apology or explanation. As he stepped from the

antechamber, he put the bowl onto a rack, the coppery aroma of Brennan's blood mingling with

that of clove and sandalwood, the pungent scents assailing his heightened senses. They could

not mask the animal odor that began to seep through the chamber and Brennan thought he heard

a heavy, impatient body moving behind the walls with a dull thud. A shuttered enclosure

behind the rack of bowls rattled heavily as the walls were hit again. He smelled . . . not animal

. . . but reptile before the elder moved him through an arched doorway.

They moved into an inner courtyard where lesser mages sat on cushions, reading, with

books and parchments, pots of dipping ink and styli at their sides. Almost as one they looked

up at his entry, and the elder turned to him.

"Remove your head scarf."

Brennan did so, unwrapping the black gauze that had concealed him. His dark, glossy locks

tumbled free to his shoulders, his thin fine goatee revealed on his chin, and his dark eyes

watching all of them as they sketched and noted his presence. "Barbarian," one of them

muttered to himself, stylus quickly skritching across the paper. He did not try to hide the scorn

in his eyes as he looked at the monk-mage. They would render what he intended, the facial hair,

the foreign look of him. If it were he, he'd be using a universal recognition graph, vectoring the

face and neck into quadrants noting features that would be recognizable no matter what the

apparent disguise. And he was a barbarian.

After long moments of sketching at a furious pace, the pens were lowered. Heads nodded.

"You will be allowed three days' passage," the elder said. He gave Brennan a fired porcelain

pass, hanging on a tightly braided crimson cord. It was but a sample of the delicate china work

of the province, colors glazed skillfully, the porcelain so fine it could be seen through. Fine

and fragile. "Show this and you will be admitted. We trust you will not abuse the emperor's

hospitality."

He bowed low. "I thank you."

Behind him as he left, he heard the sanding and blotting of sheets, his image memorialized.

They would make a detailed Wanted poster.

Screeches and Sailings of something winged being fed beyond the inner walls followed

after his footfalls.

He had every intention of exploiting that hospitality as far as he could.

Outside the palace and back on the streets, mingled into the crowds, he turned and looked

back at the vast palatial complex, its turrets and wings and walls. A shadowy thing crouched

on one of the high turrets, before letting out a screech and launching itself into the air. A

raptor's silhouette was highlighted by the late afternoon sun, with formidable tearing beak and

claws. It winged in slow, lazy circles before returning to its perch on the tower. It had to be

one of the famed bloodseeker nyrll, and he understood then the ritual bowls and the

bloodletting.

Back at the inn he'd chosen, he unwrapped his outsider garb, discarded the expended squib

from the one wrist and unbound the unmarked one from the left, the thin intestine bulging with

fresh blood. The unfortunate donor was no doubt still asleep in a tavern gutter. His single

earring, a crystal drop held by a silver claw stud, whispered softly in his ear. "DNA marker.

They'll think they have you."

"But they do not," he murmured back to his mainframe server. He had noted others

leaving, wrists bound, one or two nearly swooning at the sight of their own blood, and he had

had squibs ready on either wrist. "Luckily for me they chose the wrist instead of the jugular,

eh?"

"That is perceived as a joke and is not found humorous." He did not expect her to find

it that way. Her existence H pended upon him, and his existence depended upon his surviv I

on this world.

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Charles Ingrid - Burning Bridges

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