Blades and Dust (Prologue & Part 1)

By: John Kelley

He dreamed.

This was his reality.  There were no rules and no limitations to what could be.  Things – unimaginable things – were so commonplace to him that he never questioned their nature or dared to doubt their tangibility.

He believed.

This was his world – his whole universe captured into a single plot of land.  It was everything he could ever want it to be and more; it was even some things he never knew he wanted.  He was a simple farmer in his mind, true, but others would consider those things that he grew and the way in which they did grow acts of pure fantasy.  He required a horse – tendrils of delicate brown snuck up through the soil to twist and twine their way around a form that would soon be recognizable as a mare.  The vines left slivers of foliage standing erect that quickly became course hair.  When its nostrils flared with the expulsion of a great breath, life had truly come into the creature.  Another harvest reaped.

The silver grass tinkled gently in the breeze – one as soft as a lover’s sigh – as he passed through his fields.  Something was off.  The wind, the grass, the soil – nothing was different.  Nothing was wrong.  Ever . . .

The image burnt away from his eyes as the liquid surged in to meet his newly exposed retinas.  It poured down his throat as he gasped for the air that was not present and seeped through his fingers as he pulled bandages from his hands furiously.

Where was he?  What was happening?  Something had gone horribly wrong.

He had awoken.

The milky liquid did more than sting his exposed flesh – it blinded him.  Things hung from his body: tubes, wires, electronic boxes suctioned directly to his skin.  It was necessary to struggle in order to free his limbs enough to move.  Marveling at the fact he had not yet drowned, he lunged upwards on shaky legs towards the surface of the liquid . . . and found only a few inches of air before meeting a ceiling of very solid glass.  The walls around him, too, were glass, thick, and stained.

A test tube?  “A test tube,” he repeated to himself, his voice sounding unsteady and fragile.  How in the bloody hells could he find himself in such a situation?  He flailed pointlessly at the confining glass walls neither making any progress towards his escape nor paying any attention to the figures moving slowly outside.

Swallowing his frustration he pressed his face against the glass; it was warm and slick with the fluids that still surrounded him.  There were several other huge tubes near his, their bulk reaching from floor to uneven ceiling.  Shelves spiraled around the circular room at precise heights.  They were filled with flasks, parchment, and electronic equipment flashing dimly in its turquoise radiance.  A table had been meticulously placed against the far wall and piled with neatly rolled papers.  Two men in dark, well-kept, red robes sat rigidly at the table.  They were locked in a heated debate and pointed furiously at a document in front of them, tracing lines on the parchment as they illustrated their points.  Slowly, one rose from the table and began pacing some three feet away.  The other drew in a sharp breath and began making intricate gestures with his hands.  The light that had been emanating from the ceiling grew brighter as he finished.

So they were wizards . . . and the pacing one had taken notice of him.  His lips moved for a brief second, brushing gently against a chain hanging across his face from nostril to nostril, and causing it to sway.  The man in the tube squished his face up because he failed to understand the wizard.  The red-robed man spoke again in a yell.  “As I was telling my,” he sneered around the next word, “friend, here, it seems you’ve awoken at last.”

He tried to speak, to ask, to plead with the man – anything to escape his glass prison.  His only reward was a wave of nausea and sputtering as more liquid poured down his throat and clung to his insides.  His head banged against the glass dully.

“I assure you the glass is quite strong.  Flail away if you want, but you won’t escape.”  He emphasized his point by reaching out to gently stroke the glass.

As his hand approached the glass, something stirred inside the nameless man.  Something reached out, and then all hell broke loose.

There was a gold ring on the wizard’s finger forged from metal stolen from the earth and, at this point, just awaiting its own destruction.  As it touched the glass, reverberations shot forth from the contact and sang their dissonant choruses against the harmonies of every object in the room.  With a keening of sheer destructive energy, things began to shatter.  Bottles, beakers, the test tubes: every glass object exploded in a shower of shining slivers.

Broken and bleeding, the foremost wizard fell to the floor gasping for air through his torn throat.  Water from the test tubes rushed towards the outer most reaches of the room pushing the body limply to its side.  The other wizard moved to the back of the room clutching his ears and searching for a dagger stashed away at one of the back tables.  

One very sodden and weak man knelt where once stood a large test tube – the very best that money and magic could create.  Gasping and sputtering, he pulled tubes and machinery from his flesh.

A circular row of symbols shimmered at an eight-foot radius from the outermost test tubes.  As the milky water passed the symbols, it winked out of existence.  Could this be a trap?  Would he, too simply disappear if he moved out of the symbols’ area?
He took that chance.

Stepping through cautiously, he let out a sharp breath as the remaining IVs dissolved from his form, their weight no longer a hindrance.  Apparently, the spells of creation could not work outside that area.  At least it didn’t kill me, he thought.

The remaining wizard had recovered.  He crooked a finger for a slight second before straightening it once again.  A ray of energy arced outwards to strike the other man in the chest.  It froze the skin where it struck while numbness invaded his body.  The cold was so very intense.  Despite the pain, he lunged forward to grapple with his assailant.  Normally, he would have been far stronger than the wizard would, but in his weakened and fatigued state, he dared not trust his muscles, alone.  They wrestled for several agonizing seconds, knocking over elaborately placed furniture and files before the wizard was stripped of his weaponry and pinned to the floor.  He hardly managed a yell before being disposed of.

The victor stood still for a long minute to catch his bearings and then liberated his fallen enemy of his coins and trappings: no sense running around naked.  He had but a few seconds to reexamine the room he had slumbered in for so long.  It was dark – much darker than he had thought it was a few minutes before.  Perhaps the spell sustaining the light in the room was wearing out.  It smelled of mould and phosphorus as well – the byproducts of a damp room and spell casting.  He idly thought that he must be underground somewhere.  He had been napping under dirt for gods knew how long.  How fittingly ironic: he might as well have been dead and now the world that he had created for himself was dead as well.

He moved to exit the room through the only visible doorway but thought again and gathered some of the papers the wizards had been arguing over.  Later, he thought to himself.  I’ll read them later.  Footsteps and the clank of armor echoed outside the room.  Time to go.

Outside the door was a chiseled, stone hallway.  It was massive and lined with full-sized, stone statues ranging in appearance from knights to demons.  Figures were rounding the farthest corner.  He moved to the nearest statue and curled up behind it.  He would not be captured.  He would not be put back in a tube to dream away the rest of his life.

Footsteps were growing closer.  Thirty feet . . . Twenty feet . . . Ten feet . . . Just a few more steps.  Four soldiers walked by hardly even glancing his way.  They looked tense; white knuckles gripped sword hilts.  Two wizards followed closely behind, their hands held aloft and ready, their fingers flexing in anticipation.  They were all afraid.  Of what? Of him?  That couldn’t be so.  

One more figure was approaching with sure steps – not the nervous shuffling of the others.  Swish.  Swish.  The sound of his robes marked him as another wizard before he was even visible.  The scent of burnt hair and oil heralded his proximity.  He moved up and stood in front of the statue.  His robes were more ornate than those of his companions were.  Embroidered patterns marked his apparent power.  One arm was tucked against his chest as if in a sling – apparently the result of some tragic accident.  However, the most mysterious thing was the mask: silver and gilded, it hid his face with that of a perpetual, ghastly frown complete with gutting teeth.  Yes, he had to be powerful to be so obviously disfigured and still survive.

With leaden eyes, the nameless man could no longer wait to see if he would be discovered.  The world, the hallway, the statue, the man: all were fading slowly.  He simply had to close his eyes; he could not help it.  The man was chanting, and could that have been footsteps moving away?  He was too exhausted to wait and find out.  The world melted away into a glassy oblivion.

The world he had before his awakening swirled through his dreams.  Could he be any farther away?  Why is he here?  There must be a reason for all of this.  He would find out before it caused his mind to fester and rot.  He simply had to amputate at the source of the gangrene.  He lucidly dreamed of all he had lost one last time.

He awoke with dry eyes and cracked lips.  Dust covered him in a thick, chalky layer and mud squished up around his body.  The wall he had been propped against was gone in a three foot square.  All that remained was the dust and mud he laid in.  This day could not be more peculiar.
He was now halfway in a living quarter.  A bed, dresser, and stand stood square and neatly placed in the room.  Everything was clean – obsessively so.  Even the ever-present mould had been scrubbed from the walls.  At least it wasn’t occupied.  Searching the room, he found another handful of coins and clean clothing.  He dressed once again and looked at himself in the mirror.  Gods, he looked awful.  His hair was matted and greasy, and suction marks littered his body.  Veins stuck out of his flesh where the needles had been pulled out too harshly, the skin around the pinprick already becoming black and blue.  He was strongly built, at least.  His black hair and gray eyes seemed so dull.  Overall, he was not necessarily handsome – just average.

His dress left something to be desired.  He looked just like one of them – the wizards.  A flowing crimson cloak, loose silk pants, and a braided black belt cinching everything to his waist completed his attire.  “Oh well.  It can’t be helped.”

It was time for him to make a plan.  He still had no idea who he was.  He did not even know whom he was up against.  Nevertheless, he could find out.  Yes, that was one plan that seemed most obvious.  They knew who he was.  They would tell him.

He left the room at a crawl.  Clinging to the walls and moving on the balls of his feet, he moved as silently as he could.  The hallway formed into a T just ahead of him and a lone wizard leaned against the corner smoking a cigarette.  His dour face contorted into a sick grimace as he exhaled a lungful of smoke and broke into a fit of coughing.  The nameless shadow had been waiting for this opportunity.  He broke into a quick sprint and did not stop until he had bowled over the wizard.  The cigarette went skittering down the hallway to rest by a set of huge double doors.  He twisted the man’s arm behind his back until it popped, effectively pinning him to the ground.  With his other hand, he pressed his bronze dagger to the wizard’s larynx.  

“I have questions and you have answers.  Understand?”

Upon hearing his voice, the wizard simultaneously bit back a curse and a spell.  He was terrified.  “Ask.”

“Who am I?”

“Kat-Katran.  Your name is Katran.”  He stammered as he spoke.

“But who am I?”  He needed more information than that.  Much more goes into the making of a man.

“You’re no one.  You’ve never been anyone – just a mishap.”

He – Katran – acted before he could even think.  He jerked the blade back suddenly and tore his throat away.  Gore splattered across the hallway all the way to the doors.  The cigarette was extinguished in the spray.

Talking and laugher could be heard through the door.  It was the obnoxious, slurred speech of intoxication.  Guards?  More wizards?  It was best not to find out.  Katran began moving up the hallway once again.  The statues were different here: carved in the likeness of individual guards with varying weapons and red, stained armor.

His senses tingled with the anticipation of a trap.  He was moving near the surface, that much was apparent with the mould becoming less prevalent on the walls.  They certainly would not just let him walk out uncontested.  A right hand corner loomed ahead, but before he could make it, one of the statues moved almost imperceptibly.  Katran broke into a run in an attempt to escape without a struggle.  Around the corner, he found a wall.  A dead end.

“Just my luck.”  He knocked on the wall with the pommel of his knife.  It was thin and cracked.  His assailant rounded the corner at a steady pace.  Katran took a few steps back and launched himself into the wall several times shoulder first.  There was some kind of invisible barrier blocking his path an inch in front of the wall.

A dagger clanged off the wall near his leg.  The stone guard then launched directly into his attack.  No conversation; no wasted movement; this guy knew what he was doing.  Katran fended him off as best as he could, but his dagger was quite inadequate for the task.  He could feel the plasma leaking out of him in steady drips.  He answered his opponent’s attacks, scoring several shallow hits of his own before loosing his grip on the weapon.  His whole body was going numb with pain.  So this was it then.  The guard’s sword was nearing in a perfectly aimed thrust.

“Of all the days to die it has to be my first.”  The blade was drawing nearer yet.  The world seemed electric.  He was close, once again, to the dream world.  The sword struck home and instantly flared to life in a green light.  The next second it was gone and both combatants were blinded but unharmed.  Katran stumbled backwards and felt himself pass through something – apparently the wall – before tripping over a short flight of stairs.  His vision returned slowly, and purple dots flooded his vision.  He was in a storeroom, surrounded by crates marked as containing foodstuffs.  He took the stairs three at a time; he was still being followed, after all.

A beaded curtain separated him from a very hectic scene.  The fragrant aromas of wine and food assailed his nostrils and appetite.  If only there was time.  It was busy.  The crowd parted as he approached.  Most gave wary glances his way, and some showed outright fear at his appearance.  Perhaps he should find some different clothing.  He took off his cloak and raped it across his arm.

A figure passed behind the beaded doorway.  There was a grunt of disapproval before they faded from view.  

Katran approached the bartender trying to be casual.  “Ehm . . . Certainly a nice day, isn’t it?”

“Sure.  Rain and smog.  Like always.”  His sentences were clipped and impatient.  So much for the subtle approach.

“Why are you so uneasy?  The robes?”  No response.  The barkeep busied himself with pouring an overly well-measured drink.  “I’m not one of them.  Really.  They’d rather cut me open.”

“You won’t get sympathy here, bub.  I may be uneasy with them but I really don’t want their enemies in here.”  Suddenly the place seemed cold.

“At least tell me who they are.”

“Find answers and drinks elsewhere.”  Time to go then.  He could use some rest, and maybe a strong drink.

A whole city waited.