Reborn From the Cosmos

The guard was right; no one was allowed in or out of New Quest during suspicious hours without a permit and those were rare; the next guard squashed Khan’s idea to lie his way out the city by declaring only the few merchants of New Quest owned the required paperwork.

With nothing else to do until dawn, Khan retraced his steps. The guard advised him to ask for a place called Pits, but there was no one to ask; reasonable people were wandering their dreams, not the streets.

He was beginning to wonder if he should find a nice alley to take a nap in when someone found him.

“Oi!”

Khan turned to see a man approaching from down the road. He didn’t appear to be a threat; there was no visible sign of weapons or suggestions of hostility. The wanderer let the stranger approach, trying to put the other man at ease by relaxing his shoulders and stepping into the middle of the walkway.

They stared, each gauging the other. Finally, just as Khan was beginning to wonder if there was something sinister about his sudden appearance, the stranger raised his hand, his fingers closed around a thin bottle. “You drink?”

Of course he drank. There were few things that kept away the chill; liquor was one. The real question was whether it was wise to accept a drink from a man he didn’t know while trying to escape the clutches of the woman who owned the city he was lost in. There were no good answers…but he had nothing better to do.

“Sure.”

“Alright, come on. We got to be quick or there won’t be much left.”

Khan’s legs burned but the man kept his pace to a quick walk the northerner could manage. They skirted around one of the long communal residences the city had prioritized, entering through the back door. He had never been in one prior and marveled at the wide-open space, littered with benches and salvaged cushions. Against the far wall, separating two staircases, was an enormous hearth, the logs inside unlit for the pleasant spring night.

“This way,” the stranger said, directing him past the stairs and down a discrete hall. He stopped before a slim door, grabbing the lantern that hung beside it and lighting the wick inside before opening it. A staircase led into thick darkness, but Khan could faintly hear raised voices from its depths. It eased his worries about following a stranger into an isolated space, each step careful on the narrow steps.

The basement seemed to be used as a storeroom, though there was little to fill it. At the back of the space, there was another door, the source of the voices. The stranger opened the door, waving for Khan to proceed him inside.

The first thing that struck the wanderer was the light; it was bright as day and that was very strange coming from the darkness of being under the earth.

The second thing was the smell; it stank. Spilled drink, piss, and the sweat of too many men confined in too small a space combined into something nauseating. He knew from experience that the mind could endure worse things, but until his nose adapted, he couldn’t keep the grimace from his face.

But worst of all was the air, the mood of the men. There was laughter and jostling, things that suggested good cheer, but desperation poisoned it. A heavy despair weighed on them; he could see it behind their eyes when they turned to see who’d arrived.

If he didn’t know any better, he would say these men were marching to their deaths in the morning. Sadly, that meant he felt quite comfortable in their company. He let the stranger walk him over to a shoddy bar, where a grizzled man missing an eye stood wiping glasses with a stained cloth.

“Welcome to the Pits,” the stranger proclaimed with sarcastic grandeur. “Places to drink aren’t high on the city’s list to rebuild so holes like this have opened up everywhere. The Mutts already got wind of us, but they leave us alone. Means they know where to find us when they need to.”

“Mutts?”

“The guard dogs. ‘Cept they’re not proper dogs, are they? Just mutts the Bitch Lady slapped a bunch of collars on to make them think they’re important.”

Khan flinched but the stranger didn’t notice as he rapped his knuckles on the bar and set down the bottle. The old bartender took it and filled two glasses.

A drink was put in Khan’s palm and the stranger clinked their glasses together. “To the Bitch,” he toasted, raising his voice so the rest of the room turned to him. “May the brat learn to play gently with her toys and put them away when she’s done.”

The room cheered and tossed back whatever they held in their hands. Khan followed, doubting very much he wanted to taste the drink for long. What he did was foul, but the trail of fire to his stomach felt good. He motioned toward the bartender and his glass was refilled.

“I assume you’re talking about L—the lady of the city?”

“The one and only, long may she live.”

“…I can’t tell if you love or hate her.”

“Oh, we hate her guts. But since the saints haven’t seen fit to strike her down, we figure we’re stuck with her. Not smart to fight the inevitable.” He held out his glass to be refilled and threw it back as quickly as he did the first. “We’re hers now. Don’t got to be happy about it though.”

“I see.” Khan didn’t see. It sounded quite mad but if there was one thing he’d learn from Yulia’s social graces, it was never wise to tell someone their faults to their face. Much better to make them realize on their own. “Did you…lose someone?”

“Who didn’t?”

“Then why stay?”

“Why are you here, friend?” the stranger asked. “It’s the same thing. There’s no place for us to go. Nowhere better than New Grave.”

I suppose. There is…opportunity here.”

“If you can turn your eyes and swallow your sick, sure is. Our kids are going to be little nobles, learning books and doing the governing. Who would leave that?”

“Damn right!” a man said as he pushed his way in-between them; Khan took a step back to give him space. “Told my boy if he don’t become one of them judges, I’m gonna put ‘im back in my balls ‘n try again, ahahaha!”

The stranger waited for the laughing man to get his own glass refilled before roughly shoving him back from the table he’d come from. “Crude, but yeah. These young bastards have it made.”

“There’s opportunity for everyone.”

“Bah!” The stranger drained his glass. “Never been one for book learning. And hunting’s not the same. Never had to fill in papers to hunt beasts before. The Bitch got rid of guilds so she could run the biggest ever, ha!”

Despair overwhelmed good humor and the stranger’s expression fell. “I’m from a family of hunters. Never been good at anything, but because of my blood I had steady work. No chance of that now.”

Was he lamenting he was unskilled? Or that he was loathed to change and would be left behind?

“But no more of that. Drink up. No one with a future wanders the streets in the middle of the night. The Pits are for forgetting our troubles.”

Khan drank; he was more interested in probing the strange gathering for their reasons, but it soon progressed to a point where the stranger was in no condition to talk. When he dropped his head on his crossed arms, Khan shakily stood from his stool, idly noting that he had overdone it. His body wanted to lie down but he forced himself to walk, hoping the movement would sober him.

Ancestors, it was depressing. An entire room of people, strangled by prosperity. How useless did one have to be to be downtrodden by rampant opportunity? To flounder when the only obstacles were themselves, the amount of effort they were willing to put in, and their ability to go where others led?

It was so sad because he saw himself in those men. He could hate Lou all he wanted, but there was no ridding the world of her or separating himself from her rules. But he was worse than them. Because while Lou had taken from them, she had given back to the people of New Quest. She had given nothing to Khan but his life, something that should never have been hers to give.

He was alone in a world abounding with opportunity, and yet he felt like the world was ending. In the dark, lubricated and alone, he could admit, at least to himself, the endless possibilities terrified him.

Before, his fate depended on others. Little Water would be the one to decide whether to accept their union. His father would be the one to decide between tradition and change. Now, everything fell to him. Purely him.

A man who could bear responsibilities didn’t take to wandering the desolate ranges of the north. If there was a moment after he discovered the mystery of the estrazi through Little Water that he thought that he could, it’d been an indulgent fantasy his short imprisonment snapped him out of.

He wasn’t ready.

He didn’t have a choice.

“The moon is the eye of the world. It sees through the shadows of men and spirit. To lose your way is to be lost in self.”

Once more, a man stepped out of the darkness. This one did not carry a bottle and benign intentions. His slow steps were heavy with purpose, his dark eyes devoid of any emotion. The purple uniform of Lou’s servant barely creased when he moved and the gold buttons gleamed despite the weak light. His pale skin suggested sickness, though Khan didn’t let that sickly pallor fool him into thinking the man was weak.

Something that was quickly proven when Khan ran. He wasn’t his fastest, shackled by inebriation, but it made no difference. The servant was on him in a moment, an unnaturally cool palm clamping on the back of his neck.

Khan’s eyes flashed as around him the earth rippled, pulling them down. The servant didn’t even notice, raising his feet and pulling them both free. Khan didn’t have the clarity or luxury to try again. He grunted as his arms were wrenched behind his back and his legs kicked out from underneath him.

“Fate lies in the void.”

The cryptic message proceeded a sharp blow to his head, and darkness swallowed the scant light.

-

“—didn’t hurt him too bad.”

Khan woke to a familiar voice that brought him no comfort. It meant he had failed and terrible consequences awaited if he rose. A part of him, one honed by constantly sneaking between predators, warned that he shouldn’t open his eyes and lay prone till the dangers thought him dead.

Khan reluctantly pushed to his knees, a sudden bout of nausea stopping him from going any further.

“Cheh. I don’t care how pathetic you look, idiots don’t get healing.”

He bit back a whimper as a strong hand, stronger even than that of the unnatural servant, hauled him to his feet and steadied him. He was forced to meet strange purple eyes narrowed in a glare. It seemed what little consideration his position provided had been revoked; Lou used to look at him as a person, but now he was a complication.

“What am I going to do with you?”