Glass

Some fiction for Draw Steel wherein we meet the iconic Talent, Glass.

“Shadow Two is here to see you, sir.”

Rhamose held up his left hand, index finger pointing up, while his right hand glided across the vellum. He wrote the popular, simplified script in something like calligraphy. Tiye knew this meant it was an internal memo. He saved the symbolic script for interdepartmental memos because he knew it annoyed his peers who could not easily read the old hieratic. 

“Did she finish the pact on guild investments in Capital?” he wrote as he talked.

“Ah, I believe she did, sir.”

Rhamose finished writing, grabbed the blotter, blotted the wet ink, placed the vellum into a folder, placed it in his out tray, sat back in his chair, folded his hands across his chest and looked at his secretary. “Then you may see her in.”

His secretary opened the door to Rhamose’s office and Shadow Two walked in. She had a stack of folders tucked under her arm.

“Tiy?” Rhamose said as his secretary was closing the door behind her.

“I know,” Tiye answered and closed the door.

Shadow Two was short, bald, her eyelids were deeply kohled as was the fashion. She wore boots with a low heel and tended to stop around in an inelegant manner. Shadow One once described her as “walking like a centipede missing 98 legs,” which was simultaneously accurate and baffling. 

She stood in front of his desk with an annoyed look on her face. Like she forgot why she’d come here.

“I uh….,” she said, eyes focused on nothing.

Rhamose sighed. “I think you’ll find the redbook says only I am allowed to make dramatic or cryptic entrances.”

Djedkare dropped into the wicker chair opposite Rhamose’s desk, the folders stacked on her lap.

“Have a seat,” Rhamose said.

“I think…,” Djedkare began, uncertain, marshalling her thoughts.

“Good place to start,” Rhamose said. Dhedkare ignored him.

“I think Ajax or..I guess, Mortum, might have, or are trying to cobble together, their own academy for special talents.”

Rhamose said nothing, the fingers on his left hand drummed idly on his desk. 

“Well that’s certainly worth a visit to the third floor,” he said finally.

“It’s not…,” Djedkare removed a folded piece of parchment from her vest, unfolded it and read it again. “It’s not immediately obvious but based on this report I was just handed by the action staff and sort of…reading between the lines, it’s my first guess.”

Tiye entered with a tray holding two lemon sweets in tall clear glasses.

“Thank you Tiy,” Rhamose said, and he and Djedkare leaned forward to take their glasses.

“Mm,” Tiye said, looking disapprovingly at Rhamose as he sipped the chilled drink. “How many of those have you had today?”

Rhamose swallowed, smacked his lips and smiled, brilliant white teeth against jet black skin. “Only enough. I’ve got a meeting with the Vizier in an hour. You wouldn’t want me to fall asleep?”

“Marginally better than having a heart attack,” Tiye said as she turned to leave.

“Tiy?” Rhamose asked.

“Mm?” She was halfway through the doorway. Tiye had deep bronze skin like Djedkare, but wore a wig that gave her long black hair and severe fringe framing her face. It was fashionable when Tiy was younger.

Rhamose looked at Djedkare. “How many pacts do we have circulating right now on Ajax?”

“Mm,” Tiye looked at the ceiling for a moment. “Six. Three with recommendations awaiting signatures and three in preprint.”

“How many reference Mortum?”

Rhamose knew his reputation was founded, at least in part, on the fact that he never needed to remember most of what people told him. Tiye remembered it for him, freeing his mind up to focus only on what was actionable. It was for this reason that the director’s secretary had High Silence clearance. 

“Only two,” Tiye said.

“Bring them to me before they go out.”

“Right you are.”

Rhamose waited for the door to close. “Have you taken this to Shadow One?” he asked Djedkare.

“I did; he said after Port Amar it might be better if I brought this to you myself.”

Rhamose held out his hand, Djedkare leaned forward and handed him the report from the action team. “Port Amar wasn’t his fault,” Rhamose said.

“I know sir,” Djedkare said.

“Well it’s been over a week, time to stop sulking…,” he pointed to Djedkare. “Don’t let him sulk anymore.”

“No sir, I won’t sir,” Djed said obediently. 

Rhamose read the report. “I’m…not sure I see…what you see.”

Djedkare leaned forward in her chair. “Mortum sent out a decree…I mean, it went out under Ajax’s name but it’s not hard these days to tell who wrote what. Anyway the decree offered a bounty on any young people whose friends or families suspect them of being a…, well he used an obscure term, but it amounts to warlock in Vaslorian.”

“Warlock?” Rhamose frowned.

“It’s a word that covers a lot. It’s an obscure term for a void mage, it’s sometimes used to describe a diabolist. It’s sort of a catch-all term that means ‘anyone using evil magic.’”

“Warlock,” Rhamose said. “Why young? Why that language; ‘suspected by friends or family?’ It all sounds like he’s dancing around something.”

Djedkare smiled. “You don’t miss much, sir. Yeah that’s why I think it means they were recruiting talents. The talent looks a lot like sorcery and the thing is: it manifests at or around puberty. So, he could be talking about any number of things, a new cult, but I think based on this he’s trying to source a crop of talents. And not just talents, young talents. New talents.”

“Talents who can be trained. Molded.”

“Exactly,” Djedkare said, excited. She enjoyed these moments with her director when they were both working a fresh problem.

“Alright,” Rhamose said. “Draft a report.”

Shadow Two smiled. “Yessir, what were you thinking in terms of a recommendation?”

Rhamose leaned back in his chair, sighed. “I was planning on leaving that to you. Much as it pains me to say it, this doesn’t sound like it’s going to lead anywhere actionable. This isn't a job for a Shadow.” 

Djedkare extracted one folder from the stack on her lap.

“According to the action staff, we have an agent in Blackbottom.”

“An operative?”

“Ummm.”

“Give it to me,” Rahmose reached out for the file.

Shadow Two leaned forward and handed the folder to her boss. Rhamose's eyes scanned it. “Wode elf. Orphaned. Raised by one of the guilds in Blackbottom,” he looked up at Shadow 2. “That's it?”

Djedkare shrugged. “She's not an operative.”

“What kind of training does she have?”

“No training, she’s a cut-out.”

Rahmose kept reading. “Ah, I see. There was an operation years ago, her parents got caught in the crossfire. And we took care of the child. To some extent at least. Short-term solution. We placed her in the guild as an orphan and it looks like…very limited contact with us since. So she knows we exist, maybe she feels like she owes us something. That seems pretty tenuous. Better than nothing, but …not by much. Do we have comms?”

“I…no. She was given a handful of codewords.” Djedkare shrugged. “She’s a cut-out,” she repeated.

“Well we need to get a message to her.”

“Alright,” Djedkare said. “I think we can manage that.”

“Edward Hightower is our station chief in Blackbottom,” Rhamose recalled. “You draft a message, I'll have his department head send it.”

“What should the message say?”

“Good question,” Rhamose said. “I suppose ‘what the hell is going on?’ is out of the question.

Djedkare smiled. “Bound to work sooner or later., sir”

“Just…Make sure she understands what a talent is. What a talent academy looks like. Message doesn't have to be short, we could send her some declassified stuff. What do we have on talent academies?”

“I brought them,” Djedkare said and placed the stack of folders on Rhamose’s desk. “Probables and possibles.”

Rhamose opened each one and read the name from across the top before closing it, moving it to the bottom and opening the next one. “The Society, I remember these folks. The Academy. The Grey Order. The Kiken Dansei,” he looked at Djedkare, “Probable or possible?”

“Possible,” Shadow Two said with a shrug. “The empress keeps a pretty tight lid on them.”

“Lot of possibles,” Rhamose said, flipping through the stack.

“Apart from bringing our agent in Blackbottom up to speed, what do we want her to do?”

“Hell I don't know,” Rhamose said. “‘Keep your eyes open?’ ‘If you stumble on something that looks like a talent academy,’” Ramos looked at the pile of folders, “‘And it's not one of these, let us know?’ Just…learn everything you can and report back.”

“No action then.”

“What were you imagining? “

“I don't know! I thought you would know!”

Rhamose looked at the report again. “Maybe we should bounce this down to intelligence.”

“They’d love that. They also love it when we say ‘bounce it down.’ I'm pretty sure they think they bounce things down to us.”

“Well, so? They would love it. At the moment I'd love it too. Give them something to do.”

Rhamose thought for a moment. The room was silent.

“Why did you include the file on the Danger Men?” 

Djed shrugged. “I dunno, because I think they’re a Probable I guess. If I’d written the pact they would be. Why?”

“In the pact you said you thought the Danger Men were an order of nulls.”

“I don't think that came from me, sir. As far as I know it's the same conclusion everyone comes to.”

“If they're nulls…are they born with it?”

Djed shook her head. “Depends on who you ask. It’s like the talent, sir; there’s just not that many of them. Hard to draw conclusions.”

“I’m asking you,” Rhamose said.

Djedkare thought carefully. Before she was Shadow Two she’d served on the action staff and knew there were times when the boss asked a question and whatever answer you gave, it was going to come back to you in the most inconvenient way possible some months or years later. This was one of those times.

“I think…,” she started slowly. She started again with more confidence. “The talent can’t be learned, sir. I’m certain of that. You’re born with it. I think there are people who live their whole lives without realizing they’re different. Sometimes they dream things that come true later, or they just seem…supernaturally lucky. But there’s no such thing as learning the talent. People have tried. If you could learn it, it wouldn’t be so rare.”

“And the Null Effect?”

Djed nodded slowly. “I think…if I were going to guess I’d say…there is some…,” she was hedging her bets enormously. Policy could hinge on her answer and she knew it. “...ah…ambient? psionic field out there. Maybe talents generate it? But I think it’s everywhere. Remember when you put a bar magnet under a piece of paper in school, and sprinkled iron filings on it? Well, I think the talents are like those magnets, but the field they project…,” she shrugged. “It could be infinite.”

“And the nulls….,” Rhamose prompted again.

“I think through sufficient training…a person could learn to tap into that field. It would take enormous discipline sir. They would be able to do things like a talent can, but it wouldn’t ever be the same. And I think they could learn to,” she made a gesture with her hands like she was stuffing laundry into a basket, “tamp down on the psionic field. Any field. Any supernatural phenomenon.”

Rhamose thought.

“I could be completely wrong sir,” Djedkare continued, “At the end of the day, we know the Grey Order are also a kind of talent academy. There is a relationship between the talent and the null field. Everything else is speculation. I’m sorry, sir.”

Rhamose waved his hand, dismissing her apology.

“Why did you ask about them specifically, sir?”

“Because it occurs to me our friend Ajax might be planting the seeds he needs to overthrow the Empress once he gets around to Higara.”

“Assuming he defeats us, you mean,” Djedkare said, and her voice was suddenly soft.

“It’s what we told the Pharoah,” Rhamose shrugged. He didn’t seem to feel one way or the other about it.

“You don't see…any other outcome?”

“You've read the same reports I have. You remember the pact we sent to the vizier. Did you disagree with anything in it?”

Djedkare said nothing for a moment. “I guess I was hoping.. something would develop.”

“Oh lots of things are developing, none of them appear to be developing in our favor.”

Djedkare said nothing. Rhamose noticed this.

“You wish to add something?”

Djed looked around the room and there was a trace of a caged animal about her for a moment. “I just feel like…,” she didn’t meet her director’s gaze. “Why are we pretending like it’s business as usual? Why aren’t we doing something?”

Rhamose cleared his throat. “What are you working on?”

Djed was suddenly put on the spot. “Ah, guild cashflow in Capital basically.”

“And what is Shadow One working on?”

“I…something about going back through our correspondence with the Actian School.” The School was a front for the Prince of Capital’s intelligence directorate. Possibly the finest spies in Orden. “I don’t know what he’s looking for,” Djed admitted in case it was important.

“Well,” Rhamose said, “if you’d read the file on the Danger Men,” he handed it back to her, “you’d have found some relatively new supplemental material in the back.”

Djekare flipped open the folder to the back. There were several pages of report written by Rhamose. It referenced a correspondence. She found what appeared to be copies of messages in open code between someone in the Combat Application Committee, presumably Rahmose, and someone inside the Kiken Dansei. Her eyes raced across the first page, then the second. “The Guilds, the Noble Houses, Capital, Higara. This is about who can afford us. In case the Heliopolis falls. Who can afford us and who has the infrastructure…. You’re trying to find a new home for the directorate.” Djedkare was in awe.

Rhamose shook his head as he held his hand out. Djedkare passed the dossier back. “Just the Combat Application Committee. Just the Shadow on the Surface of the Sun.”

“Alone?”

“And the Pharoah,” Rhamose said, and though his voice was perfectly casual, what he said caused Djedkare’s jaw to drop. Rhamose smiled.

“The Pharoah is a young man trying to enact great change. I intend to give him the chance. That may mean taking an extended vacation should the need arise. A working vacation. Possibly in Higara. Maybe in Capital.”

It was Djedkare’s turn to smile.

“Anyway,” Rhamose got them back on track. “You think the Danger Men are like the Grey Order.” It was a statement, not a question. 

Djedkare nodded. 

“It might explain why Ajax is looking for talents. If he’s looking for them.” Rhamose flipped through the other folders like they were a deck of cards. “I’ll read these while you’re drafting the…,” he stopped. He'd seen something flash by, and now he needed to sort through the stack to find it.

Finding the dossier that caught his eye he looked at it closely “Who’s this?” he asked while he read. Djedkare knew the question was rhetorical and kept silent. Rhamose pulled out the précis from the dossier and pointed to the title. “Is this for real?”

Djekare recognized the file. “It’s an alias, sir. He’s a baron of Sărda. Barony of Voyrik. Hence his…clever little…,” Djedkare didn’t think it was that clever and let the thought trail off.

“‘Baron Victor von Void,’” Rhamose shook his head. “Piece of work by all accounts. What’s he doing in here?”

“He's Vaslorian sir. He's clashed with the Society before. I threw him in there as the probable director of any such hypothetical talent academy in Vasloria run by Mortum.”

“Hm,” Rhamose said. “Well given your,” he looked at Djedkare over the top of the folder, “unique background which I have as of yet not seen fit to divulge to Shadow One,” Djedkare took a deep breath and focused on the floor in front of her boots, “A decision I see no reason to revisit at this moment,” Djed let her breath out and relaxed, “I am inclined to trust you on this. Hm.” He leafed through Baron von Void’s dossier. “This is starting to feel a little actionable.”

“Purely hypothetical, sir, but Mortum isn’t a talent. If I’m right, he needs a Talent Master and there are not a whole lot of them in Vasloria. Even fewer who might be persuaded to join Ajax’s cause.”

“No, I see your point. This says von Void is a Master Talent, are we sure?”

Djedkare shrugged. “What else could he be?”

Rhamose read some more of the dossier. “A null?” he asked.

Djed shook her head. “A Null couldn’t teach an academy of talents, sir.”

“Couldn’t teach a normal talent academy. But what about one trained to fight other nulls?”

It took a moment for Djedkare to absorb the weight of what her boss was saying. “The Danger Men.”

Rhamose extended the index finger of his left hand, pointed at the ceiling. It a gesture he used when he was in the process of summing up.

“Conquering the world means conquering Higara and that means defeating the Empress and that requires neutralizing the Danger Men. Among many other things. How would you do it if you were Mortum? You’ve got sorcerers, shadow-assassins, demons, The Faceless Guard, whatever they are. The War Dogs. What good would a talent academy do? He surely doesn't need any help with Vasloria. But a talent academy trained by a Null? Against the Danger Men? That sounds….”

“Actionable, sir?” Djed smiled.

“If you’re right about this.”

“If I’m right?”

“Ok, if we’re right.

Djedkare sat there in her chair, slumped down, suddenly exhausted. “Well,” she came back to reality, leaned forward, and stared picking the folders up “This is all hypothetical until we find something direct and that means we’re back to our agent in Blackbottom. I’ll draft a message. Shall I bring it to you, sir?”

Rhamose shook his head as he helped stack the folders back neatly. “Put it in front of Shadow One, if he puts his signature on it, it can go out.” Djedkare nodded.

“Welp,” Rhamose said, as he passed the folders back to Shadow Two. “Blessings of the Aten, little wode elf. I don’t know whether to hope you find our secret talent academy, or hope you don’t.”

“If she finds them, and they’ve already been trained by Baron von Void…,” Djed sighed and stood up, the stack of folders tucked under her arm again.

“I hope she has powerful friends.”

                                                                       *

Vaantikalisax’s unconscious body exploded out of the dark cell, flew across the room, hit the polished, midnight blue floor and traveled another full 30 ft before it ran of of steam.

The heroes looked at his recumbent form, and then as one turned to look at the black doorway he’d gone into only a few moments before.

Embers looked at Sir John. “Maybe someone with a little more tact.”

“Are you volunteering?” John asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“I think I thought I was volunteering you.”

“Me?!” John said, and looked at Vaant’s recumbent form. 

“Is he ok?” Jackson asked as their conduit went to examine the problem. “Because if he’s ok, that was amazing. If he’s dead I may get uncharacteristically violent.”

“He is not dead!” Dazar announced.

“Then that was fucking cool,” Jackson Bootblack said. “I volunteer to watch someone else try!”

“It should be you,” Embers said to John.

John shrugged. “I don't know what I would say that Vaant didn't. Maybe you should try.”

Embers shook her head. “People are a mystery to me,” she said. 

“Yeah but you're a woman, she's a woman. A girl, whatever.” But John’s heart wasn’t in it. He was reaching and they both knew it. He just didn’t want to give up.

“I will go!” Phek’ala declared and began striding toward the cell. “I have much experience with unruly bounties!” 

Sir John took a step backward so he was blocking Phek’ala’s way. “What?!” The kuran’zoi declared, but mostly to herself. She did not try to walk around Sir John.

“Maybe just Yogon,” Embers said, half-joking, to the Time Raider. The six-eyed, six-legged thraaz, hearing her name, looked from her mistress to Embers and wagged her butt wildly in a combination of anticipation and a hopeful desire she would soon be useful. 

John looked at Embers. “We need this girl?”

“At the very least, we need to understand what happened here,” she gestured to the artificial cave made of blue crystal they stood inside. “We need to talk to someone who knows what happened and where everyone went and why and that’s…,” she nodded at the last of the seven cells, the only one that wasn’t empty.

Watching the proceedings, Gwillyv remembered what Hightower had said to her years ago. "I knew your parents…” this looked a lot like what Hightower described to her that day. Seven years ago. 

She took a deep breath and stood up from her perpetual crouch, and started walking towards the dark cell.

“John,” Embers said, concerned. 

Sir John looked and saw what Embers saw. “I dunno,” he said. Gwillyv was good in a fight but John knew she thought of this group as something that happened to her, rather than as a team she was a member of. Now she was taking an active interest in something besides her own survival and John felt this earned her the right to be trusted enough to try…whatever she was going to try.

The group watched in silence as Gwillyv entered the last of the seven cells in the room. The only one still intact. 

                                                                       *

“No one here will hurt you,” Gwillyv whispered. And she was surprised to learn she believed it.

The girl sitting on the floor of the narrow, rectangular cell had pushed herself as far into the corner as possible. She was a devil, with deep red skin and twisting horns. Her clothes were old and stained. She wouldn’t make eye contact with Gwillyv. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen. She was terrified.

She didn’t react to Gwillyv’s statement, if she even heard it.

“The ah,” Gwillyv jerked a thumb over her shoulder, “the knight who came in here…he’s alright. You didn’t kill him.”

No reaction. The girl had wide, expressive blue eyes. They darted from one spot on the floor to another.

“So…if you were trying to kill him,” Gwillyv assumed her perpetual crouch. “You fucked it up.”

The girl winced and looked away. A good sign.

“I guess you weren’t trying to kill him,” Gwillyv said, mostly to herself.

“Did you….” she looked around, the cell was the same color at the rest of the place, deep cobalt blue crystals made the walls and floors and however it was made, the crystals had obviously been worked. The floor was perfectly smooth, the walls of the cell had filigree carved…or grown…into their facets. “Did you sleep here? I mean, do you sleep here?” There was no bed, no facilities. Was this an actual cell? Was she a prisoner? Gwillyv suspected the answer was yes, regardless of what the girl might have thought.

“No place to go to the bathroom,” Gwillyv said, her voice casual. “This couldn’t have been much fun.”

The girl reached up and pressed a rhomboid shaped crystal halfway up the wall. Seams suddenly appeared in opaque blue crystal walls, and a bed slid out of one wall, the sheets and pillow stained with age, and what looked like a toilet emerged from the other wall. If it had been possible to detect these devices, Gwillyv would have.

“Neat,” Gwillyv said. This was craftsmanship unlike anything she’d seen in Blackbottom. Didn’t seem dwarven but then…nothing about this place seemed remotely familiar.

The girl pressed the button and the bed and toilet retracted, the seams disappeared. Gwillyv resisted the urge to inspect them.

“Well, we’re communicating,” Gwillyv said. “A little.”

She looked at the girl sitting on the floor. She was so scared…she had to be even more scared of Vaantikalisax. Gwillyv had no real idea what to say, and so went with her instincts.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” she said, and now the elf spoke at something like a normal volume. “You don’t have to say anything. If you want me to leave, right now, I will and I won’t come back. Otherwise, if it’s ok with you, I’m just going to sit here a minute and talk.”

The young woman looked around her cell, eyes darting, furtive. Her brow furrowed. She took a breath and looked at the floor between them.

No reaction was a good sign. But now Gwillyv had to come up with something to say. Something that would coax the young woman out of her cell…out of her shell. For some reason, that thought tasted bad. “Say something to coax her…,” it felt manipulative and that was, somehow, wrong now. Why? Why not manipulate the young girl, if it worked?

In a complex sequence of thoughts and emotions Gwillyv would probably be unable to recount if pressed, she thought of A Mist Curls Around Dying Embers. About how disgustingly regal she seemed all the time. She was the Master of the Tower of Translation. She was a thousand years old. And yet…she deferred to John. She let John lead and, admittedly, things tended to come out all right.

The thought, unbidden, surprised her. What would Sir John do?

“You don’t have to come with us,” Gwillyv said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you want to stay here, if this is your home, that’s fine. We’ll leave you alone. We’ll leave right now, and you’ll never see us again. If that’s what you want. All we want to know is; you’re safe. You’re where you want to be. You’re happy here. If you’re happy here, then we’re gone.”

The young girl scooted along the wall. It meant she didn’t move much, but it meant she was closer to Gwillyv. She looked at the ground, and shrugged. 

A shock went through Gwillyv. It was working. Not trying to convince her…was convincing. Gwillyv was hit with a flash of insight. His strength lies in how he relinquishes strength. The more power he gives away, the more everyone trusts him, and the more power he gains. She was suddenly much more at ease with the thought of being led by someone outside the Clock.

Gwillyv concentrated and imagined Sir John. The girl, Glass, looked at the doorway, where Sir John and the others were. Gwillyv took this as a sign her transmission had been received. Against my better judgement, Gwillyv thought, in the hopes the young woman could hear her thinking, I trust Sir John.

The girl took a deep breath and it seemed like she relaxed a little. A very little. 

Gwillyv took a step back toward the doorway behind her, she turned and noticed there was another rhomboid crystal next to the open doorway. The way the cell was lit, it was almost pitch black seen from the outside. She leaned against the frame of the doorway and stuck her head out.

The rest of the team were all standing around in the large chamber beyond, watching her. “Progress?” Sir John asked.

Gwillyv looked at each of them, and then retreated into the darkness. She pressed the crystal set into the door frame and, as she suspected, a solid blue crystal panel, like a door, slid down from the ceiling.

In the dark blue light of the room, casting everything in a deep aquamarine color that made the whole room look like it was underwater, Gwillyv sat down in the corner by the door. She arranged her long legs under her to be comfortable and she noticed this got the girl’s attention. 

She didn’t say anything, but she was more alert now that Gwillyv had closed the door. 

“Whatever happens in here,” Gwillyv said, “it’s between you and me.” She was trying to make a connection with the girl but she realized that sounded like a vague threat. Well, Gwillyv thought, I am vaguely threatening. 

“My name’s Gwillyv,” she said. “That’s my real name, not an alias. The name my parents gave me. Or, that’s what I was told. I never met my parents.”

The girl looked at Gwillyv for the first time, and she seemed in pain, she was frowning. Then she looked away.

Gwillyv intuited something that had nothing to do with her training. “I guess we’re both orphans,” she said. 

The girl took a deep breath and there was an expression of enormous sadness on her face. She wears her heart on her sleeve, Gwillyv thought. Whatever happened here, they didn’t beat that out of her. 

“I don’t know…what to call you, but that’s not important. I don’t need to….”

Suddenly there was an image in Gwillyv’s mind of a pane of glass shattering, then a fine wineglass falling to the floor. 

“Glass,” Gwillyv said. “Is that your name?”

For some reason, even though Gwillyv was certain the images had come from the girl, the girl seemed suddenly scared. She tried to press herself further into the corner, make herself smaller.

Gwillyv shrugged. “Good name,” she said. If sharing her own name freaked her out this bad, Gwillyv wanted to be sure to react like it was no big deal. Like people projected symbolic images into her mind all the time. “Short. I like it.

“We got this lady named A Mist Curls Around Dying Embers. Like, that’s her real name. I’m an elf so that’s supposed to sound normal to me, but I don’t know from elves. I was raised by…well, a lot of people. Name like that just sounds so stupid, it makes me want to stab someone.”

Gwillyv thought about this. “Not a very good elf, I guess,” she said, and she felt something after she said that. A warmth, something like…something like a hug like…like empathy. She knew where this feeling came from.

She tried not to think, not to get excited, not to let thoughts, conclusions, jump into her head. Between her training in the Clock and her time in the College of Black Ash, keeping her mind clear was not difficult. 

“If it’s ok with you, I’m just gonna talk for a little while. You don’t have to listen but if this…if I’m wasting my time just…you know, make a noise or point at the door or something and I’ll leave.”

No response. “Well,” she said, “qui tacet consentit.”

This got the girl’s attention. Gwillyv smiled. “Something they teach you in the Clock. Means: better to ask forgiveness than permission.

“The Clock is a…,” Gwillyv thought of how to explain something like a thieves’ guild to a girl who, as far as she knew, had lived her whole life in this complex. “Well, they’re my family, I guess. Our guildhouse was bombed a few weeks ago by Ajax.” She paused, looking for any indication the name meant anything to the girl. Nothing.

“And now I’m with these assholes.” Seeing the girl was listening, Gwillyv relaxed a little. “I love the Clock,” she said with some wistfulness. “I don’t know what would have happened to me without them. I hope they’re still around somewhere.” She wanted to explain the coming of Ajax, the Hawklords, the Fall of Blackbottom, but she felt like she should start at the beginning.

She began explaining her history. Her parents, innocent travelers who’d been caught in the crossfire between two rival organizations. One of those organizations, feeling uncharacteristically responsible, made sure the baby Gwillyv had a home. With the Clock. Her name was the only thing her parents had given her before they died.

She talked about her training, about rising through the ranks, about being useful. How much she loved it. She showed promise and the Clock sent her into what they euphemistically referred to as “advanced studies.” The College of Black Ash. When she graduated and came back to the Clock, she felt like a sorcerer. She was given the exalted rank of Jewel within the Clock. A special operative. Not a normal cog or gear or spring. The assignments she’d been given were each like tale told by a troubadour in a tavern, full of magic and intrigue and extraordinary creatures and circumstances.

She’d been lost in her own reverie, and hadn’t noticed…the girl had moved. Slowly, in fits and starts, the girl had scooted along the wall until she was sitting right next to Gwillyv.

It took every ounce of her training and experience not to leap out of her skin when she realized how close the girl was.

Shyly, without making eye contact with Gwillyv, the young devil women who might be named Glass, held out her left hand, low, close to the floor, her small, delicate red fingers seeking.

Gwillyv slowly reached out, and took Glass’ hand.

                                                                       *

“This is the Field,” Glass said with her actual voice. That was as shocking as the translation. “This is where we train.” Gwillyv reeled for a moment then steadied herself.

They were standing in a literal field of green grass on slowly rolling terrain, a forest in the distance, the sky was blue, fluffy white clouds slowly migrated across the sky.

Without thinking too hard about it, Gwillyv trusted her instincts. She had so many questions and now it seemed was the time for answers. But she brought me here, Gwillyv thought. She somehow understood that, whatever revelations were forthcoming, she had to let Glass lead the way. React to the young girl, don’t try to control the conversation. 

“Train for what?” Gwillyv asked, looking around.

“He never said.” Glass suddenly looked down at her feet. “We never asked.”

“Because you didn't care? Or because you were afraid of the answer?” 

“We…I always assumed…I just wanted to do well. I wanted them to….”

“Accept you?” Gwillyv asked. Glass nodded and the scared girl was back.

Gwillyv desperately wanted to ask where the other talents went, but she knew she had to focus on Glass. 

“They left without you?” Gwillyv guessed. Glass’ non-reaction told Gwillyv the answer. “And now you’re alone. You’ve never been alone before, have you?”

Glass shook her head. Back to silence.

“Well, you’re not alone now,” Gwillyv said. “Not if you don’t want to be.”

Glass shrugged. 

Gwillyv felt like she was at a dead end. She breathed in and noticed there was no smell of grass. She didn’t think she was still in the cobalt crystal citadel. She was somewhere else, were the grass and sky an illusion? Something happening in her mind?

“Did you like it here?” Gwillyv asked.

Glass looked around. “Did I like it?” she asked herself out loud.

“Yeah,” Gwillyv said. “Did you do anything fun here?”

“Fun,” Glass repeated, her voice now dead.

“Ah,” Gwillyv was slightly alarmed at Glass’ reaction. “Yeah, you know…fun? Just…play?”

Glass looked confused. “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

Gwillyv held up one hand. “I’m not…we can talk about something else, I don’t care. I was just making conversation.” This whole experience was incredibly weird and very much outside her life as a master thief for the Clock. Admittedly, it was more typical of the new group she travelled with which included an actual alien from another world. 

“I mean, you brought us here. I didn’t mean to…what’s wrong?” Gwillyv asked. It seemed like Glass was about to cry.

“I don’t know,” Glass shrugged. “I don’t know why I’m…why I feel like this. It’s just…no one…,” She looked at Gwylliv. “No one ever talked to me like this before.”

“Talked to you like what?”

“No one’s ever…ever asked me what I thought. About anything.”

Gwillyv felt like she was sliding out over a sheet of thin ice and the slightest wrong movement would send them both plunging into the icy depths, there to drown in darkness and silence.

I have to ask the right questions for both of us.

“Where did your friends go?” Gwylliv asked carefully. It was time for answers.

Glass shrugged. “I don’t know. Master never said, he just said we’d all see after graduation. Everyone else was always excited but I…I liked it here. I didn’t want to go anywhere.”

Master, Gwillyv thought and instantly knew, as well as she knew her own name, that one day she and this Master would battle. She hoped Glass was there when it happened. And on their side.

Gwillyv needed to know more. “Can you…can you show him to me?”

Glass nodded, and reached out to Gwylliv with one hand. Even though she was two yards away, Gwillyv was suddenly pulled into Glass’ mind, a flood of images and emotions…experiences…blossomed in her memory. 

There were six other…students. GwillyvGlass knew she was the youngest. It was graduation day, she’d been looking forward to it for months, but now that it was here, she was terrified. 

The other students were looking at her expectantly, they were already gloating, sure she wasn’t going to graduate. The Master smiled at her encouragingly. 

The Master was tall, dark hair cut short. The others were just older children but Master was an adult. He was human, well-built. He wore a skin-tight uniform GwillivGlass now recognized as Wodeweave, a stretchy clingy fabric that could be cut or dyed and grown together. Master had the symbol of a dark star on his chest. He was so handsome. Dashing. At the same time, the thought came unbidden: he looks like a colossal asshole. Part of GwillyvGlass frowned at that thought.

The memory continued. GwillyvGlass looked around. Took in more details from the living memory. There were bodies on the floor around them. GwillyvGlass recognized them from the chamber outside. This memory was only a few days old. Memory? It was a nightmare.

Six corpses and one young boy, human, still alive, kneeling in front of her, no older than five or six, terrified. Looking up at GwillyvGlass for help, crying, pleading. Unsure what he’d done, why he was being punished.

GwillyvGlass looked at her brothers and sisters, at The Master. They were jeering at her, disgusted with her, laughing at how weak she was. It was such a simple thing, they had all done it. They had all graduated. But she couldn’t do it, couldn’t even imagine how to do it. She hated herself so much for being weak, she wanted so badly to be like them. To be strong. She wished she could just blink and it would be over, be done, be behind her. Why were they asking her to do this, why would anyone do this?

The Master shook his head, disappointed, disgusted. It broke GwillyvGlass’ heart. The Master gestured to Steel, and a young man walked up behind the kneeling, crying boy and….

Gwillyv pulled herself out of the GwillyvGlass empathic link, spun around, and heaved. Putting her hands on her knees she bent down and threw up on the green grass. She threw up a lot.

“Those bastards,” she spat. “They…they killed him. They killed all those children. In cold blood!”

There had been a test, an initiation to become a Jewel in the Clock. You had to pick the pocket of one of the Lords of Blackbottom. It was fun. 

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry-sorry,” Glass said reaching out to Gwillyv but not touching. The elf was only coughing now. 

“What the fuck?!” she said, and looked at Glass.

Glass misunderstood. “I couldn’t…I can’t…he’s just a boy!”

“You didn’t do anything wrong!” Gwillyv said, angry at even the idea that anyone could think otherwise. Gwillyv felt like she was being pulled toward the young girl, but there was no telekinesis involved, it was all the elf’s doing.

“I can’t…don’t…don’t touch me,” Glass said. “Stay away!”

Gwillyv had no choice. She advanced on the young woman. “What they did was…was evil. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Glass backed away. “Don’t!” she said. “I can’t…I can’t control when it….”

Determined, undaunted, Gwillyv threw her arms around Glass and hugged her. Hugged her until the girl started crying and hugged her back. Gwillyv said comforting things, and felt some degree of marvel that this young girl seemed only ever to have known a few other people in her life, all of whom seemed to loathe her in one sense or another, and yet she had opened up so easily to Gwillyv. Not the easiest person in the world to open up to.

When Gwillyv finally pulled away, they were back in the cobalt crystal cell.

Gwillyv pulled a piece of black velvet from her vest and handed it to Glass, who instinctively used it to dry her eyes.

“Listen,” the elf shadow said. “I think…I think your friends, this ‘Master,’ left here to do something bad. They left you behind because you…you aren’t someone who can do bad things. That’s good. That’s amazing. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to follow them and, if they are going to do something bad, stop them. I don’t know what that means for you but…if you want to come along…,” Gwillyv left it at that.

Glass looked around her cell. She pressed the panel that caused her bed and toilet to emerge. She looked down at her dirty sheets. 

After a moment in silence, she turned to Gwillyv, and nodded her head. Gwillyv was amazed, again.

“I’m glad I met you, Glass,” Gwillyv said, and was surprised she meant it. “I think we’re going to be friends for a long time.”

Glass smiled shyly.

“Come on,” Gwillyv said, and pressed the panel that opened the cobalt crystal door out of the cell. “Let’s go meet those…let’s go meet my friends.”