Alliance ch 24: Between Truth and Falsehood

One to defeat ten thousand

Two to best a million

Three to destroy a kingdom

Four to conquer the world

Five would see the end

Painted in vermillion

Bid farewell to your freedom

The wise always surrender

Before an Aylata’s fingers unfurl*

This last verse of the ancient folksong rang in Rogii’s mind. What ridiculous ratios, hyperbole emphasizing how unwise it would be to challenge Aylata. Was it exaggeration though? Considering what he had witnessed, four Aylata alone might be enough to conquer a world.

Fear and awe grappled over the foremost seat within him while envy sat second. Why slink in shadows when one had the potential for so much more? He wanted his Aberrant to be like these legendary beings. He would grasp any steppingstones they left, learn from them, surpass them. Songs would be written in warning of Aberrant, claiming things like ‘two to conquer a galaxy.’ If he played the game right. If they survived.

As of late, Aberrant corpses turned up in every shadow. One of these had held a message for Rogii. Aylata would meet him within the Aberrant capitol, Moshee Spire, to hear his official proposal of alliance.

However, only those invited by the high boss could enter the Spire without penalty of death. Even heirs were not exempt.

This rule’s only flexible point concerned the shymgo matches held far below the main structure. Anyone who wished to compose the audience was welcome, as long as they paid.

Rogii had entered Per’nyé in the current game, and irony laughed at that, knowing how much he despised the sport. Here he was of his own volition, standing in the second grandest sponsor box while his amaraq competed within the spherical field. The game’s terrain was currently ice, her least favorite. Swirling, fat snowflakes contrasted her fiery coloring.

Reinforced glass walls subdued the sound of lesser viewers. The most luxurious six chairs in this quadrant lounged behind him, a buffet arrayed behind them. But he didn’t eat, didn’t sit, didn’t watch, staring into the middle-distance as the folksong played on repeat in his mind, now in the second verse.

One challenges ten thousand

“Rogii,” Sarana warned, resplendent in a dress of tiny, platinum chains, sleeves scarlet as always, “your father watches.”

Rogii’s gaze slid to the sponsor box in the most-desired southern quadrant. “So he does.”

Here in the western quadrant, Rogii was as much a spectacle as the contenders, bedecked in his formal best. His freshly bleached hair showed no hint of its natural ebony, instead white tinged with cerulean. The matching silk of his high-collared suit dipped into a triangular hem, sleeves embroidered with indigo brambles to echo his battoo. The ever-present half-glove on his left hand displayed the same dark blue.

“Your father knows you hate shymgo. He suspects you’re up to something.”

“I’m an heir. I’m supposed to be up to something. People tend to forget that because I don’t have siblings to compete with.”

Dress rattling, she leaned forward. “You’re sure he would balk at your plans?”

“It’s my project.”

A twofold answer. His Aberrant would surpass the Aylata, and he didn’t want his stagnant father stealing credit. Also, Thanar Moshee often crushed his son’s ideas simply because.

After a pause, gaze gliding to her, he continued, “Plus, any involvement with the governments of the Alliance is treason.”

Again, twofold: part grudge, as the Alliance authorities had so mistreated Magni hybrids, and part precaution. Traitorous Aberrant had conspired with the Knalcal queen to form the backward Adjuvants.

“I’ve had Per’nyé playing with those politicians like shymgo pawns. He would kill her if he knew.”

The crowd roared, and Rogii frowned, attention jumping to his partner. She kept Narkom close while Mikana ventured across the sphere, scrounging up tracers. Four other pawns surrounded Per’nyé, their movements too coordinated to have multiple Controllers. At least two had been stolen.

Narkom’s spinning kick plowed through the first two that approached. One crumbled under his massive weight. The other flew as if shot from a cannon, caught the edge of a frozen platform, and swung onto its slick surface. Despite the indigo stain spreading across his loose shirt, he hastened to rejoin the fray.

He wasn’t the only one. Six more scrambled from every direction. Rogii glanced at the status display projected on the left wall. Four of the seven Controllers had already been killed.

Narkom engaged the closest two pawns, and the crowd erupted as his shirt was torn away, a dripping, red slash across his back. Rogii’s eyes widened. All Lettaplexal/Magni were limber and resilient, quick to heal. Some were also small, swift, and extremely perceptive. Others were colossal, strong, and incredibly thick-skinned. His teammate Len was the former, Narkom the latter. For him to bleed so profusely, it must have been a very deep gash.

“She’s never lost a match,” he assured himself, hands on the back of Sarana’s chair. They trembled, but he told himself it wasn’t fear. Since the battle with the Aylata Messenger, he saw little more than blurred shapes. His balance was skewed, and when Sarana formed microscopic messages, he couldn’t read them.

“She hasn’t,” Sarana concurred, “yet she has also never been matched against Kontiki. He’s known for leaving only one opponent alive each match, usually a pawn, and he’s the one the high boss sponsored today.”

An unspoken warning: Thanar Moshee hated it when his champions lost.

“He also adores Per’nyé, and Kontiki would be stupid not to consider that. She doesn’t have to win. She just has to put on a good show.”

However, as he had said, she had never lost a match, and it would take more humility than she possessed to ruin that record.

“Keep watching,” he told his Truth, “as if your silent support can grant Narkom the strength to keep moving.”

Sarana knew better than to ask the same of him. His attention had already fallen to the fringes of the crowd. Standing directly behind their sponsor box in an arch that led to the catacombs beneath the Spire, a man devoid of color watched him. Their gazes locked. The stranger nodded, then slipped into the tunnel’s shadow.

The Aylata’s message scrawled through Rogii’s mind again.

If you mean to propose an alliance or surrender, meet us in Moshee Spire, and we will hear you.

They invited him to his own turf and walked about with the nonchalance of a carnivore surrounded by flowers.

Rogii chased him, soon winded in the long corridors, cursing whatever never-ending drug that Messenger’s minions had used on him. His head pounded, stomach roiling, breaths burning, but still he ran. Up spiraling ramps, darting through doorways and vaulting over rails. The stranger remained just ahead, plotting this crazy course, and though Rogii could barely perceive the signature of anything in this state, he kept close enough to confirm this foreigner was Aylata.

He dashed through yet another twisted arch and entered a decagonal hall of glass and steel. There was a lot more of the former than the latter, and glass was the bane of ’netic Talents. It had the slow signature of an inanimate solid, but like it did with light, glass reflected and distorted everything. Here, Rogii not only saw his reflection in the walls, he felt it hundredfold.

He had lost the Aylata. Each of the room’s ten walls boasted an identical twisted arch, decorative tables and perfume-filled vases between them. Rogii stopped in the center of the hall, panting, a giant, rusty swirl embedded in the glass beneath his shoes.

“Oitat.” A proper Knalcal greeting.

He whirled. The Aylata leaned against the arch Rogii had come through. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Sorpme,” Rogii returned. A proper Napix greeting. “I am…” He gulped another breath. “I am Rogii Moshee.”

“Messenger Nond,” the Aylata replied, shoulder shoving off the wall. Skin the color of a cloudy day covered his thick build, and a jagged edge cut his dark hair. An off-white scarf trailed over the black Adapt material of his simple jacket.

Rogii cleared his throat and stood straighter. “I understand your custom. Now that we’ve exchanged names, we must truthfully answer each other’s first seven questions.”

A dormant kanaber handle slid from the Messenger’s sleeve, and he pointed it at Rogii with a shrug. “That is a Tsira tradition. I’m Yakru, but if you insist, why not? Seven’s a lot, though. Let’s cut it to three, and I’ll start.” Nond’s lip curled as his gaze rolled over the hall. His irises were eerily lighter than his sclera. “Why the overabundance of glass?”

“Old tradition,” Rogii said with a Knalcal bow. “The first Knalcal/Magni believed its reflective surface to be a window into another dimension and one’s reflections to be one’s guardians. My turn?”

The Messenger nodded.

“Are you alone? Forgive my presumptuousness, but Messenger is the lowest rank of Aylata. I should be negotiating with your Ravida, a Refraction Leader, or at least a High Defender.”

A smirk crawled onto Nond’s angular visage. “You couldn’t handle more, and you might not be the one we should negotiate with either.”

Rogii’s heart skipped, but he made every effort not to show it. “If you think that because I’m an heir instead of high boss, I assure you, a sizable portion of the Aberrant compose my Loyalists. Do you have any real power, Messenger? Can you accept an alliance and enforce it?”

Nond’s ghostly eyes flashed. “I’m a liaison. Defender Nyoki will hear you, and if he doesn’t like your proposal, I’ll put you out of your misery.” He snapped on the kanaber.

Rogii extended a hand toward him, ’netics tugging on the weapon, but his reflexes were too languid, cells too slow. He couldn’t hold it, and the kanaber clattered to the floor, laser blade gouging the glass. At a gesture from Nond, it jumped back to its master’s palm.

“Impressive,” he drawled through a feigned yawn. “Speak what message you have for my Defender.”

“No, I will not tolerate—”

The kanaber flew, and Rogii just managed to harden the air to deflect it. As it bounced, the Messenger swooped in and snatched it. Now he stood much too close. Rogii retreated a step.

I’m here alone. I’m an idiot.

Yet, this was Moshee Spire, never vacant of Aberrant—Rogii’s allies, not this Aylata’s. Help waited just around the corner, a group of approaching life-signatures. In this sorry state, he couldn’t identify them, but that didn’t matter. He was the Aberrant heir, and he would not flee from a lowly Messenger.

He planted his feet and slid into a widened stance, calling to the air with the weakest of ’netic voices. “I spared that other Messenger in good faith. Don’t think I’ll make the same mistake twice.”

Laughing, Nond flipped the kanaber. “I’m sure that lazy Vlokem is immensely grateful for your lack of good judgement. Now, is that all there is to this proposal: Let’s be allies? No details?”

“Not until you present me with someone worth my time.”

The Messenger rolled his eyes. “Such over-exaggerated self-worth. You aren’t even the only heir.”

Rogii blinked. “The others are dead.”

“Wrong.”

No, that couldn’t be. Rogii had attended his siblings’ funerals, seen their broken bodies dipped in molten glass and interred here in this very Spire. This was a lie. A trap.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Your belief doesn’t make the difference between truth and falsehood. There are two living Aberrant heirs, for now.”

A new voice trilled through one of the arches. “Can ya name this other heir, hm?”

Rogii’s heart sank to his heels and drowned in dread as three Aberrant joined them in the hall: a Tala, a Knalcal, and a Lettaplexal, all adorned with crimson battoos and white robes with red stripes. Absolutes, the highest order of Truths.

The Lettaplexal carried an unconscious Sarana.

“What have you done to her?”

The short Tala in the lead tilted her head and warbled with the winy tone and clipped accent of all Absolutes. “That is no concern of yers. Now, this stranger has declared a serious revelation, and I insist he clarify and verify.”

“And I require you answer me.” He didn’t outrank Truths, especially Absolutes, but he wouldn’t have these pompous tattle-tales show him up in front of this Aylata.

They stared. No one budged.

Rogii lunged for the Lettaplexal. A ’netic shove on his clothes pushed him back, but he secured a hold on his Truth. He hit the glass wall hard, Sarana in his arms. Her eyes fluttered.

Rogii’s ears rang. The faster his heart pounded, the more he fed the drug hiding in his veins. His vision swam as he got to his feet, clutching Sarana to his chest.

The Knalcal Truth plodded closer. “Are they your lies she tells? Your secrets she keeps?”

“I look forward to discovering them,” the Tala cackled as she approached from a steeper angle. “We asked the girl why ya left the match, and she negligently did not know. We asked her why ya are here at all, and she lied. Ya know a lying Truth cannot be permitted to live.”

It clicked. The rusted swirl decorating the floor was the same as the crimson stripes on their robes. He was in the Truths’ portion of the Spire. They had brought Sarana here to wring out his secrets before destroying her. None of his Loyalists would be coming.

He threw out a hand, and the air, his most loyal pawn, raced at his foes. A mere breeze ruffled their heavy robes.

His team was falling apart: Azin dead. Rrosh, Len, and Lyten not answering when called. Per’nyé attacked by Aylata and now struggling in a lethal game with Narkom and Mikana. It would be his fault if she lost. Now Absolutes would steal Sarana as an Aylata watched on.

The Knalcal snatched at him. Rogii scrambled back, attempting to reverse the pull on his collar.

The Lettaplexal approached from behind, and Rogii whirled, cursing whoever forbade the carrying of weapons in the Spire. Those with guard-like duties were exempt, of course. Too many heirs had killed past high bosses to qualify.

He wasn’t sure what he aimed at the Lettaplexal—another slight breeze, a ’netic tsunami, a chop to the shoulder? Regardless, it never hit him. A wall of air smacked Rogii from behind, and he crashed onto a table between the arches. Its fragile glass shattered. Rogii, Sarana, and an antique, Magni-inscribed vase met the floor. The container ruptured, and sweet-smelling perfume drenched them.

Choking, Rogii wiped his stinging eyes. His sleeve came away with indigo paint.

No.

Forgetting even to breathe, he tried to hold the ink on his face. How smeared was his fake battoo? His ’netic senses should have been able to tell, but the details overwhelmed his crumpled nerves. He couldn’t fix it instantly as he always had, and it was plain on his face for everyone to see.

Before he could blink, he was pinned against the wall’s warm pane, Sarana fallen at his feet and a burly Knalcal arm pressing against his neck. He couldn’t push it away by either ’netic or conventional means. He couldn’t breathe.

The Tala Truth ran her hand along his cheek, and dark paint stained her fingers. “Quite the intriguing secret.”

He tried to turn away, but she caught his chin, her scarlet nails digging into his jaw. She captured his gaze, and despite the tricks Per’nyé had taught him, he couldn’t keep this Tala from invading his mind. His own frustration formed a whip in her hand.

Her voice gained an echoic quality. “Why does the Aberrant heir have a fake battoo?”

Not this. Anything else he could explain away. His head burned. She was a flame boiling his brain until the scene she wanted floated to the surface. She dove into it, resurrecting the worry, the fear, the frustration of long ago. They were new in this moment. He was a preteen again.

A battoo! Such a deceptively simple solution, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Everyone squashed his ideas as stupid or trivial, but with this symbol of Aberrant adulthood, they wouldn’t see the face of an eleven-year-old. They would have to respect him as the heir he was, a force not to be trifled with.

Lyten was a genius for suggesting it, and Rogii conscripted him to make it happen. With her Truth curiosity as a cover, Sarana discovered exactly what the battoo process entailed. Sweet-faced Per’nyé put their handlers to sleep so the team could sneak out and gather the necessities.

It went off without a hitch, and Rogii’s hrausq, his most trusted companions, gathered in his room. Per’nyé swabbed his face clean, and Azin picked up a paintbrush. Rogii had drawn out the pattern for the battoo, and Azin would copy it onto his face because he was methodical and skilled with such things.

He dipped the brush in the concoction of herbs from a variety of worlds, and Rogii closed his eyes, shaking with anticipation as the bristles caressed the bridge of his nose, both soft and wiry. He flinched, and the bowl on his lap tipped. Some of its contents splashed on his left hand between his thumb and forefinger. It tingled just like his face. He tried so hard to sit still, but a million worms burrowed into his skin.

Finally, Azin announced he was done, and Narkom brought the lamp. It would shine bright like a star, triggering the concoction to burn the mask on his face, so Rogii closed his eyes again, eager and anxious and tired of sitting still.

Narkom tried to hurry, turning the lamp on too early and tripping over Len. Bored and distracted, the smaller Lettaplexal practiced being invisible in the middle of the walkway.

The lamp fell in Rogii’s lap, shining full and close on his tingling hand. Per’nyé snatched it and switched it off.

“Did it apply the battoo to your hand?” she asked, petite features scrunched in concern.

Rogii inspected it. His skin looked dry and no different than before.

“It didn’t hurt. I don’t think it worked.”

“Did it stop tingling?” Sarana added, and once she mentioned it, he noticed that it had. “If it stopped tingling, that means it worked.”

“Thanks a lot, Narkom. I don’t want a blob battooed on my hand.”

“Wait, I’m starting to see it!” Per’nyé grabbed his hand and brought it to the end of her nose. “We can call it amoeba-shaped if it makes you feel better.”

“No, it doesn’t make me feel better. Hurry up and shine the lamp on my face. This stuff really itches.”

Tentatively, Sarana approached, pretty face drawn with worry. “You should wait and see how this one turns out.”

He listened to her because one should always listen to a Truth, despite how his face felt like it was turning inside out. Though he really wanted a battoo, he let Per’nyé wipe the herbs away, and he waited like Sarana said. Truths were wise in all things, and he had recently begun to notice how very pretty this one was.

Within half an hour, his hand burned, waves of heat rolling up his arm, and the first layers of the battoo peeled. Dark gray waited beneath. No one said what everyone thought: The first layers were always a lighter version of the final color.

No one besides a Truth knew what color they would get. Without their Red Serum, a battoo’s hue was the product of the individual’s genetic reaction. Anyone whose battoo turned black was one chosen to destroy all they valued. To bring an end no one could accept.

Black was the color of loss, the color of empty space that had stolen their ancestors. Black was the color forbidden to Aberrant. Those with black battoos were killed, no matter rank or heritage. A sacrifice to the longevity of the system.

Surely, with the first layers such a dark gray, Rogii’s battoo would be black.

Panic, sharp and fierce, gripped him, and Per’nyé took charge, sitting everyone in a circle and talking it out. None would tell of this.

Everyone’s eyes swiveled to Sarana. She was a Truth. Her superiors would ask for her report of the night’s activities, and she could not lie. She said nothing, lavender eyes asking Rogii to trust her.

Days passed, and his terror grew. His battoo was black. He hid it under a glove, but what if it had been his face? What of when it would be his face, when he was recognized as an adult and expected to bear a battoo?

The scene faded, and Rogii’s innermost self shoved at the Tala to keep her from leaping into the next one. She didn’t need to see how he had pulled off his official battoo ceremony. She had seen too much already.

Resignation brought a strange calm. His mind fell silent, leaving nothing for the Tala to hold. She scrambled for purchase, but everything bounced like reflections on smooth glass.

He willingly stared into her eyes. “You shouldn’t stand so close.”

With a gasp, she stumbled back, and her kanaber in Rogii’s hand ripped free of her waist. As she collapsed, the Knalcal Absolute called a larger laser knife from his boot and aimed it at Rogii’s middle.

Rogii pushed it upward just enough to send it into the arm that trapped him. He spun free, foot slamming into the Knalcal’s ribs. The Absolute bowed, lessening the blow as his arm wrapped Rogii’s waist, lifted him, and flipped him. Upside-down, Rogii slashed with the bloodied kanaber but only hit walls of hardened air.

Darkness. Distance. Every cell called out, isolated, receiving no answer. Rogii pushed further, forcing those calls to ring louder, stronger, faster. He found the larger kanaber pointed at him and mustered just enough focus to stop it, equaling his foe’s pull. The weapon hovered, wobbling as they battled. With every shift of angles, Rogii struggled to keep track of it.

The third Absolute joined in, a needle in each hand. Rogii slashed at him, was deflected by a needle, and launched a series of kicks. The Lettaplexal dodged, dancing closer to the hovering kanaber.

The Knalcal lunged, and Rogii evaded, advancing on the Lettaplexal. Two more sidesteps brought the Lettaplexal’s spine close enough for the dagger’s blade to singe the back of his robe. Unable to override Rogii’s pull from this distance, the Knalcal switched his hold to his comrade’s clothes and threw him.

Rogii spun under the Knalcal’s next attack. His foe rotated with him, eyes widening as he realized his mistake. A forcefield blocked the weapon in Rogii’s hand, and the Knalcal slowed the kanaber coming at him from behind, but Rogii shouldered into him. The Knalcal Absolute toppled backward into the dagger’s laser point. Spine severed, lung punctured—life left him before he hit the floor.

Rogii leapt over him. The last Absolute swung a needle-armed fist. Airborne, Rogii caught his wrist and used it to curve his landing, feet flying at his enemy’s gut. At the last moment, they veered around another defending needle-fist and hit nothing.

Dropping full-length on the ground, Rogii scrambled back. He wanted to steal those pointy sticks and plunge them into their owner, but just holding that kanaber aloft had been too much. His ’netic muscles screamed. Hammers beat the inside of his skull. The room dimmed and doubled. It seemed he faced not one foe, but a dozen, all moving similarly and within close range. He couldn’t tell which was real.

Was the Messenger still here?

To kill a Truth was a crime worthy of a horrid death. He had just killed two, and he had to kill the third. The Absolute knew what he shouldn’t, and even if Per’nyé reworked his memory, not knowing might kill him anyway. He would seek answers until he found them.

Rogii slashed with the small knife in his weaker left hand. Again, a needle-fist blocked it, but his right hand curled around one of those sticks. His ’netic command could barely be called that. It was a cry, a sob, and it tore the needle in two. Half fell to the floor with a soft ping.

The other half turned between its master’s fingers and jabbed into the back of Rogii’s left hand. The Lettaplexal moved like water. They were back to back, then another needle stabbed Rogii’s right elbow—a clean in and out.

With a yelp, Rogii jerked, but the Absolute held his left hand in a crushing grip. His right arm went numb, responding sluggishly, if at all. Yanked in a circle, he tripped over Sarana and hit the wall again.

Knocked from her ear, Sarana’s sys switched to public mode, broadcasting the commentary on Per’nyé’s match.

A needle raced toward Rogii’s heart, a massive palm holding his shoulder in place. Teeth gritted, he caught the Absolute’s fist, and with his final mote of strength, he extended his arm toward his foe’s face. The movement was languid but stern, uncoordinated but resolute, and with it, he invoked his greatest ally.

The Absolute’s breath fled, and so did Rogii’s vision. He moved on instinct, pushing the pain to the back of his mind. Blood ran down his face. The longer he held the air, the harder the Lettaplexal swung, but Rogii clung to him, blocking what he could. Punctures littered his arms and legs, their sting like stars speckling the heavens.

As the last Absolute sank, the shymgo announcer with his twangy accent heralded on, painting the scene in the spherical stadium far below. Narkom lay unconscious in a pool of blood. Injured but heeding her Controller’s every command Mikana defended Per’nyé from three opponents, and more neared.

The Absolute fell on his back, skin cold, sticky. Rogii landed on him, shoving a needle between the man’s ribs.

He no longer felt a life-signature from any of the Absolutes, but his ’netic senses weren’t reporting much of anything. He didn’t have time to rest here. Per’nyé losing? He had to do something.

He crawled to Sarana’s side, tried to lift her, and failed. He glanced at each of the archways, dizzy and lost, searching for the Messenger.

“I’ll put you out of your misery,” the Aylata had said.

“Don’t give up yet, folks,” the announcer went on. “We all know victory is sweeter when the moment seems bleak.”

Rogii barely heard him. Nothing made sense, not the blurred blotches of color, the torture brought on by each breath, or the disjointed throbbing in his ears. He had saved his Truth, but at what cost?

He tried to hold her to him, but for all he knew, he was a puddle, a smear on the glass floor.

Continued in Chapter 25

Thank you for reading!

*A version of the complete, three-verse ballad can be read here: https://theprose.com/post/327334/ratio