"Come on, Tulann, don't be shy," said the man Jack, Enzen in disguise.
Tulann uttered neither a word nor a glance to his once-friend. Jack had betrayed him, after months of pretending to be an ally. Now he was bound in a chair with ropes too thick to cut with air. Seven of his ten fingers were missing a fingernail, no thanks to Jack with pliers in his hand.
"I'll try it again, politely," sighed Jack. "Where did you pawn it off?"
"Someplace... y'er quite familiar with," stuttered Tulann.
"Where?"
"Where ya keep the other half of yer face," Tulann answered. "Ya two-faced mongrel."
Jack cupped his forehead. Bubbles of rage boiled in him, but if he transformed here, he could interrogate Tulann no longer.
"Tulann," he said, pinching the tip of his fingernail with the pliers, "You don't have to make me do this. Why? Just tell me where you pawned that package off, and I'll leave you alone. The nine Naraks, in fact, I'll pay you!"
"Ya should've said it sooner."
It was too late for Jack.
Had Jack asked nicely, Tulann would have simply said that he hadn't actually pawned it off, and the package that came out of the wall likely returned to the boy and his inn. But Jack committed a blunder in abducting him first and then throwing him this question – now it was easy to tell that the package held some great importance. If he revealed that the package went back to the boy and his little inn, Jack was sure to go after them. Now that he knew what kind of man Jack was, and what he did and could do, Tulann didn't have the heart to reveal the truth. That boy and the innkeeper were the only people in a long while that had shown him kindness ever since his fall from grace, and if his life held any meaning at all after the indignity of the decade, it would be to repay that kindness. They out of all people should remain safe, and just like FOUNDER ARTAIA who had granted Tulann his Maht, he was going to stick to his conviction, the only shred of dignity he could now choose to exercise.
"Tulann, I know what you're running from. I know how far you fell, what you've seen, what you felt. I can help you rise again."
"Ya know nothing about me," retorted Tulann.
"Oh, but I do. Mr. Tulann Salir, Republic of Valderan, 53 years of age. You once owned a rail-laying company called 'Salir Steel & Co.' You worked your bone off since you were twenty-seven. That was until Alexander Heriz expanded to Valderan in 1875, and your services were no longer considered competitive in the eyes of the public. You racked up two million denaros in debt from bankers, to invent a more efficient type of rail, only to realize later that the bankers you borrowed from were loan-sharks. You had a wife and son, who left you before you took a turn for the worse. The creditors were going to get their money back no matter the method, so you ran, you ran, and ran, sleeping from place to place, taking up odd jobs, never staying in one place for too long, always saying you're from Gaya instead of Valderan in case your creditors are still on your tail. You found your way to Ascension half a year ago and came to the docks, because it has a reputation among the desperate for being a place where one can work without having too many questions asked. Is my knowledge true, or am I bluffing?"
Tulann's eyes were wide. Who in the world was the man named Jack?
"Screw... screw you! Damn you! Laying me bare like this! Alls a' want is freedom from the past, 's that too much to ask, huh? 'S that too much to ASK!?"
"No, not at all, because I can give it to you. I can set you free from your debt. I can help you be with your son and wife again."
"– What?"
Tulann's heart flickered at the possibility of being reunited with his family, of reclaiming the world he'd lost.
"You've forgotten what it was like to be treated with respect, to be seen as a fellow human being, haven't you? You lost even that respect from your wife and son," consoled Jack, seating himself down on the floor in front of Tulann.
Yes, he'd forgotten. The warmth of a meal he bought with his own money, and not procured from the pity of passerby; people who looked at him eye-to-eye, who did not divert their gaze as if he was an untouchable creature; people who heard his voice and trusted his words, and not discarded it as a litany of deceit; the warmth of his wife's kiss upon his cheek, the sweet laughter of his son.
Yes, he missed all of those. If only he could begin life again! To live as a human being!
"It's not your fault that you lost these things."
Tulann drooped his head and began to weep, weeping at the world that he lost.
Jack stood up and hugged him deeply.
"Tulann – I'm just like you. Trying to make a living. I lost everything too a decade back. That's why I'm forced to do things like these," said Jack, throwing the pliers away. "Listen. I can help you. I can help you if you help me. I was just going to do my job, but seeing as you weep, I can't just stand and do this without tears from my eyes, too."
Jack's cruelty was entirely absent from his being, replaced now by a display of the deepest empathy. But there was something hideously incongruous and sudden about the change.
And that incongruity stirred in Tulann a memory from a past, as if from a forgotten dream.
He remembered faint glimmers of a story that was read to him by his great-grandfather long ago, when he was still a child. It told that there were people like Jack in the shadowed corners of the world, who only appeared to people that had lost everything. They promised those fallen people a way out, a salvation, but if they accepted, they were chained to an even deeper debt, one that even death could not overcome.
And if Tulann ever met people like Jack, then he was to run. If he couldn't, then he should...
Perhaps then he should see the truth for himself. What more did he have to lose? His breath? He didn't care much for it now. He just wanted dignity and truth.
Tulann began to heave with pained breaths in anticipation of what he was about to do.
Finally, thought Jack, relieved to be hearing the start of a sequence that he observed when people finally relented.
Then, without warning, Tulann sank his teeth with all his might into Jack's neck and shoulder. With a wild movement of that small portion of the neck not immobilized, he swung his head back and tore a stone's worth of flesh from Jack, breaking the viscous miasmic mass underneath.
Jack staggered back, absolutely dumbfounded at what Tulann had done. Without thinking, he gathered his strength to regrow that piece of wounded miasma and – crap.
He flicked his eye towards the ceiling, and suddenly felt a wave of terror seize up his pretend musculature, for he knew that he could not fight what was above.
The enemies to his HIGHNESS were here.
Tulann spat the miasma away, gasping in hurried breaths. "So s'true! My great-grandfather spoke the truth! He once tol' me that people like ye existed, deep, deeper than inny shadow that haunts the world! He told me that if a' were ever to meet a person like ye, a' should never accept any deal posed to me, because there never 's a free lunch. If a' couldn't run, he said, a' should tear off a piece of their flesh to find out who they truly are. A' told him that was a bunch of bollocks. That he made up the story to scare me. Now a' realize he was right! That the stories he told were real! Y'er one of them, aren't ya? Y'er one of them! Everything my great-grandfather said was true!"
"My congratulations," said Jack, flicking a finger to drive a spear of ice deep into Tulann's chest, driving it until it emerged from the back of the chair. "Sadly, you realized too little, too late."
Blood spurted from Tulann's mouth.
"Tulann, it's a shame that we couldn't work together. You would have made a wonderful partner," chided Jack, miasma oozing from the gap in his neck and shoulder. "If they weren't above me, I would've considered devouring you, so ripe with the taste of solitude and dejection. But it's a pity that you are old and not fresh. Now I have to prowl the docks again for another lackey to pick. Who knows if anyone is as suitable as you!"
A puddle of blood formed beneath Tulann's bloodied chair. He sputtered and heaved with efforts to breathe.
"Try to keep that icy spear frozen," said the imposter. "Aw, I forgot – your Maht is Air, isn't it? That's a real shame."
"Farewell, you beggar," said Jack, as he slipped away underneath the rubble like a writhing mass of purple snakes, cackling, cackling as he felt Tulann's elation at being understood for the first time in a decade extinguish like a solitary flame.
***
Professor Aionia moved to untie Tulann from the blood-soaked seat of splintered wood, and drew rivulets of water from the atmosphere for him to drink. Tulann, barely conscious, was closing his eyes shut.
"No, no, no, not yet – stay with me, stay with me!" she sputtered with desperation, as she tore a long piece of her cape and bandaged his wound tight. The icy spear, which had now melted, left a gaping hole in the middle of his torso, and blood was pumping out of the exposed artery. The sight was gruesome to see. She could halt the blood loss by icing the arterial wound, but there would be no blood flow. Professor Aionia clenched her teeth, and worked to maintain the man she did not know until help arrived.
She threw open her portable transmitter and spoke with hurry.
"Kana, Kana, are you there?"
"Yes, what's your status?" a voice crackled.
"We need the RDR right away. Corner of 8th St, Skylark Avenue, next to the Grand Library, two basements down. Open ceiling."
"Casualty report?"
"One life-threatening injury. Extreme blood loss. He has 15 minutes at best."
"Right away."
The crackling voice turned into static, and the receiver switched off.
No, the situation was more desperate. 15 minutes was optimistic. She would need to reach deep into his nerves and blood. The exercise of techniques in the Arts that interfered with the contents of another person's body was constitutionally forbidden, except a provision made for a distinguished few with good purpose and license, such as surgeons and emergency medics. Her license had long since expired, and if she was reported, Professor Aionia would face capital punishment. But life weighed heavier than law, the rigid rules of which were made to safeguard life in the first place.
Without hesitation, Professor Aionia felt for that vast and intricate web of Ori that pulsed around the man's being. Atoms in the body of living beings were the most difficult to reach and to control; trillions of threads emanated from every atom, each syncing to a specific rhythm and melody, unlike most other objects that sang less than ten. But she knew what her target sounded and felt like, and recognized the tune of the heart playing haphazardly, irregular and shrill amidst the chaos of noise, antaric sparks pulsing and waning in the muscles of tissue.
There it was, the man's heart, twitching, but just barely and with alarming irregularity, the flame of life about to be snuffed out. With sweat forming upon her brow, she pulsed the reserves of her Kaha into that dying melody, igniting the weaves with brilliant gold, jolting each atom in each nerve-cell of the heart to match hers, for the heart to contract, release, and contract, bringing the man back from the clutches of death.
With a sputtering and violent shake of the body, Tulann's heart began to beat again. But it was insufficient to reverse the starvation that had seized his head. And so Professor Aionia reached deep beyond the billions of weaves from his flesh that obscured his bloodstream, and feeling the unmistakable rhythm of their beat against her senses, grasped them all, and pulled and pushed them with the rhythm of the living. To intertwine one's own Kaha with the weaves of another person was taboo without prior agreement. However, she once made an oath to protect the peoples of the world and help them, even if it would place her beyond the rules humans made to entrap themselves; she never lied to herself.
The distant sound of stretchers and alarms drew closer, and antaric searchlights began peering from above.
"OVER HERE!" shouted Professor Aionia, amplifying the power of her voice by stretching its peaks across the air.
Down came a graceful figure clad in robes of turquoise and hair of fading cerulean shade, slowing her descent with air.
"Irina!" said Professor Aionia.
"Thank goodness we were able to find you in time," said the graceful figure, motioning the others to come downwards at the same time. "We'll handle it from here."
Three others jumped down with various medical equipment and apparatuses and quickly patched up the rest of Tulann's body that Professor Aionia hadn't been able to mend. But he was still in critical condition, and unconscious.
"The Central Hospital, now." The three medics, holding Tulann in the ready-made stretcher, flew up towards the open ceiling and into the night sky above.
The two were alone now. Then Irina spoke.
"He shouldn't have been alive by the time we arrived." She gave Professor Aionia a long admonishing look.
"Yes." Professor Aionia looked down.
"Thank you for saving him," said Irina. "We will catch the culprit together."
She extended her hand to Professor Aionia, and took her hand. Together, they flew silently into the night sky towards the direction of the hospital.