Pariah Chapter 25: The Ulterior Motive

Zackrah had left through the lower chambers of the foyer, her footsteps clanging with a jeering noise as it rattled through the darkness. The soft, blowing sway of her robes smelling slightly pungent, she had the stench of a dirtied soul hang upon her sleeves as they whistled into the quiet ebony shadows. Qing had stood still, calm and compliant atop the stairs, looking at the etching endlessness before him. His chest rose and fell, his fingers tapping their thumbs as he turned around. There would be another way.

For throughout the massive, living, breathing being that was Salamunga’s warship, Qing knew that there was nothing he could do about the labyrinth-like tunnels that led to the entrance. It was her entrails. Salamunga’s intestines, swirling and twisting in a steel fashion as it prickled and stabbed through the columns, each and every single one like a marrow picket upon an infinite spine. Nerves ran along the fish-like line, the flashing of electrical currents high above his head, still warm to touch, without harm.

He remembered his goal. To escape.

Carve a path, a swath of thought and effort, through the large hallways and towards the massive gates – that was his goal. He turned, believing that perhaps he may find another route, his long sleeves dragging behind him, until a brisk of wind had touched his neck.

But he was inside.

So it was that the wind was only a prickle as the gust smashed its deep and powerful fist into his back, his stomach churning in a unfathomable pain, launching Qing several feet forwards as he tried to regain balance. He coughed, having trouble breathing as each gasp became more and more painful. Turning, Qing stared at a single figure standing, his hands behind his back, his eyes strong and intense, leading to a ruffle of knife-sharp hair. A small brown cloth covered his mouth, dried with old blood as small pocks of red stains lingered about. He stared quietly at Qing, unarmed. “Where are you going?” Kablos asked, unmoving.

“Out.” Qing answered back, his hand sliding into his sleeve as he touched the edge of a hidden blade. “Nothing else, Kablos.”

“No, you’re not.” He said, taking a single step forwards, as Qing took a single step back. “See? You know something. You’re planning on something. But what is it?” He charged.

Before Qing could react, Kablos was standing in front of him, his height equal to Qing’s, his long arms stood behind his back as Qing looked back at him with equally fervent eyes. Kablos refused to back down. “Qing, if you don’t tell me, I will tell your mother. I will explain your treasonous acts altogether. How you have come from nothing, to everything.”

“Threats aren’t going to work against me. Not when a brute makes such claims.” Qing answered, his hand touching the handle of his blade quite tightly.

Kablos did not look at his hands. “Why are you doing this?” He asked. “Why are you so intent on leaving?” He didn’t have the air of a General. He didn’t have the air of a man who was genuinely concerned either. He was a practical man, who looked at the leaving of one being as another failure of his species.

To be integrated from the highest classes of power, to the low rungs of an immutable genus.

To fall from grace. That was what he feared.

“Are you really adamant on this?” He asked, looking at Qing. “Are you sure?”

The sky hung over the moon like a blanket. The fans whirled slowly, turning and twisting as they opened up to reveal the grace of the heavens. The blades of the fans distorted the ice-cold lunar sunlight, as porcelain apparitions were elongated upon Qing and Kablos in ebony paint. A kiss in blackness, touched souls as Kablos stared at Qing, his eyes intent and fierce. Just one stare.

Kablos struck, headbutting Qing, sending Qing reeling back as Qing frowned, his sword readied before Kablos rushed forwards, his fist smashing into Qing’s stomach, pushing him back. Qing lifted his left leg to strike down, but Kablos had already twisted behind him. Pulling, he sent him down, forcing him to strike the floor as a single blade ejected towards Kablos’ eye, striking him as blade was sucked into his eyelid.

“Fuck.” Qing murmured, lifting himself before another kick had smashed into his abdomen, the noise of cracking revealing his armour underneath shattered, shrapnel-like pieces digging into his flesh as he was pushed by the turn kick. Another side strike with the head, the slight tip of Kablos’ forward smashing into Qing’s left eye, nicking his lid as the skin tore slightly, blood trickling out onto his cheeks. He grabbed the wound, and Kablos took advantage of the situation.

Fist into the stomach. Arm hooked over to grabbed the lowered head. Pull down as a strike to the back of the pelvis to lock up the muscles. A stomp on the foot, and a swing into the wall as Qing tried to get up.

“I will beat some sense into you, Qing, if I can’t do this with civility.” Kablos threatened.

Qing struck, his sword swinging down, Kablos twisting his head back and then lunging it forth, smashing his skull into the side of the handle, hitting Qing’s fingers as blood spurted from his nails, Kablos’ fist from his left hand striking the edge of his lips with incredible speed, tearing the skin apart. He continued the momentum, his elbow straight as it smashed into Qing’s nose, sending him reeling, and Kablos continued to strike.

Sword up, Qing stabbed, as Kablos dodged easily, but a single strike came with a swift slash, the blade aiming his throat when Kablos punched it away, shattering the long blade. There was not a single scratch upon him. Qing was struck with confusion and forlorn regret, unable to figure out what had just happened. “It’s useless, Qing. Just give up quietly, and don’t ever think of doing this again.”

“What did you do?” Qing asked, his hand still over his cut eye, his lips bleeding and his teeth blood red. “Why didn’t that do anything?” He only stood there, dumbfounded.

“Only with your bare hands can you change anything. By yourself.” Kablos preached, standing over the broken and battered body of his fellow Pariah, looking at him with disgust and distaste. “You should never, as what you are, rely on your ability. Otherwise you become nothing but a weak fool. A slave, a poor and unwanted lingering scum of society. A broken mess of a man.”

His shadow overlapped Qing’s as the silvery moonlight cast through the fan.

Meanwhile, as Zackrah walked, so did Salamunga herself. She felt and followed every footstep the battle princess took, but there was not a single shadow of her. Only a slight humming noise, as she left lifted more than two feet off the ground. “What do you want?” Zackrah asked Salamunga, walking defiantly as she followed her.

“I want you to return home, Zackrah.” Salamunga asked, her voice noting a tone of mixed dismissal and desperation. “I want you to come to your senses, Zackrah.”

“I did, a long time ago.” Zackrah continued walking, defiant. Salamunga kept pace. “What are you following me? Do you really plan on stopping me?”

“No, I could never fight you and win, Zackrah.” Salamunga replied. “But I know that you have your weaknesses, and that you love Qing very much, correct?”

“What did you say?” Zackrah stopped in her tracks.

“You love him, correct?” There was no noise. Only the humming. “Am I correct?”

“What if I do?” Zackrah retorted back. “You shouldn’t care. You shouldn’t bother.”

“He is in love with someone else, and you are helping him, Zackrah! How thick can you be?” Salamunga implored, standing still as Zackrah stopped suit. Zackrah stopped after Salamunga this time, her pace slowing down. “Why are you so willing to give up your love and your union with him?”

“Because it’s best for everyone.” Zackrah answered, as Salamunga looked at the bundle clutched in her arms.

She stood, silent. Salamunga, finally, out of the impossible silence, had broken it. “Zackrah, are you ashamed of yourself? That you would be unable to begat a child that would please my son, and that he would be a father to a better woman?”

“I don’t think any of that, Salamunga.” Zackrah answered coldly.

“You do, don’t you? You think that you aren’t worth as much as one of the natives. A primitive ape that only knows how to recreate and make war. Your child is worth as much a son as any other child, and I would be glad to have no heir other than Sierra. Now that Selethrim’s waged war in the south, I too must take up the mantle, and I will never know when the world can fall apart on us. Do…do you understand, Zackrah?”

“It’s my choice. I want him to be happy.”

“How naïve. He’s leaving you and your son for another woman, Zackrah! And you’re helping him! You’re helping him grow into a promiscuous fiend without motive!”

“And what, Salamunga, in your infinite wisdom, would you have me do?!” She broke, his hands brandishing the spear, her eyes without tears yet infuriating. “Do you want me to stay? Sit there and do nothing?!”

Salamunga stood there, thinking. “I will fix the problem for you.” As she stood still, silent and cold, the wreath of the world had placed its thorns about her head. A crown of needles piercing into her mind, something filled her soul. Zackrah then, did not know what, but it was foreign. It was unnerving. It was subtle.

And Salamunga, she worked on that.