Stories From the Shadowlands (15 page)

Day 24041

My mood today is one of general irritation. The Guards are complaining about their training schedules, particularly because the Mazikin have been so quiet lately. They are losing their discipline—I recently discovered that in the past twenty days, no fewer than three Guards have misplaced their scimitars and had to go to Michael for replacements. Scimitars! How do you lose a two-foot-long, razor sharp blade? Why wouldn’t you treat a weapon like that with every respect? No, I refuse to lower our readiness just because the threat may be gone. This has made me a very unpopular Captain, but I cannot worry about that. If we find that we have truly rid the city of Mazikin, then perhaps I will relent. But not until then.

Day 24756

My hopes have been crushed. Every day since we destroyed the nest east of downtown, I have allowed those hopes to grow. It has been quiet throughout the city. No signs of Mazikin activity. All the Guards began to look at me differently, with begrudging admiration, maybe, instead of their usual suspicion and resentment.

That’s about to change. I was patrolling north of downtown, east of Harag, when I caught the unmistakable scent of incense. It has been hundreds of days since I smelled it, but my body’s response was instant and powerful, my gut clenching and saliva filling my mouth. And a bitter, black, cold sense of failure filling my chest.

I followed my nose. By the time I got to the source, all I found was an empty table, smoking urns, and ropes stained with blood.

Day 25487

I have noticed something, but I do not want to make too much of it until I am sure.

I realized this morning that I had not eaten in two days, and I have not felt the need to drink in at least that long. I have simply not felt that hungry or thirsty.

I am merely noting this here. It could be nothing.

Day 25500

Ana noticed my lack of hunger and thirst. She pointed it out while we were sparring, but I was not willing to talk about it yet. She tried to beat me, remembering how weak Takeshi was in the end, no doubt, but I am still myself, and still strong, and she ended up on her back with my foot on her throat.

She seemed relieved.

I do not know if I should be trying to give her hope—I have not eaten a single bite in eight days. Nothing to drink for seventeen days.

I really do think my time in this city might be coming to an end.

25508

I am leaving the station immediately to hike north through downtown. There are reports that Mazikin ambushed a pair of Guards and that one of them has been killed. I do not like what has been described to me and I am going to investigate it myself.

25509

The reports were true, and the surviving Guard confirms it. He was gravely wounded and is going to be retired, but he told me that a large group of Mazikin set upon them—and in the battle, the Mazikin managed to steal their scimitars.

Fadel is the name of the Guard who was killed. He is the first inhuman Guard to be killed in the line of duty in thousands and thousands of days. And the first to die on my watch. I swear, he will be the last. I have dispatched runners to every outpost to warn them of the threat.

25515

Another Guard was ambushed and killed yesterday. His name was Hamal. West of downtown, south of Harag. He was felled by a scimitar, judging from his wounds, and his scimitar was taken. Now the Mazikin have at least three of the blades, and it appears at least a few of them know how to use them. I don’t know what is happening, but I need to figure it out quickly.

25523

A third Guard gone. This time it was Issam, and it happened just north of the Sanctum near the wall. Another scimitar strike, and one of the surviving Guards told me Ibram, a known Mazikin enforcer, was the culprit. The Guard was able to describe the body this Mazikin is currently possessing, and told me Ibram fled west. I am preparing to go on a long patrol to track him. This has to stop. I hate the way this has shaken the Guards’ confidence in themselves—and in me. They are saying Sil and Juri are also in the city, and that both have learned how to use the scimitar. Ana says to ignore it, but I can’t. She’s coming with me on this patrol. I need her by my side.

Day 25528

I am preparing to leave again. The last day has been difficult. Ana and I were patrolling in Harag and decided to separate. I walked south and followed a scent onto a sidestreet, where four Mazikin awaited—each with scimitars. I’d never seen anything like it. I killed one of them, but in the fight was wounded in the shoulder, a deep slice. They stripped me of my weapon, so I used my staff and took down another two, then faced Ibram, who was exuding a confidence I have not seen in a Mazikin in a very long time.

He was actually able to block my knives with the scimitar blade. At least now I know what happened when those Guards misplaced their scimitars [ref. Day 24041]—they were probably stolen by clever Mazikin. Because it is clear that Ibram is well-practiced, and by the recent reports from other Guards, Juri and Sil are as well. Ibram nearly sliced through my breastplate, and he shattered my staff. I charged him and took him down in hand to hand, but it was a near thing.

Before I was able to slit his throat, I heard a noise in an alley and went to investigate, because I thought there might be more Mazikin. Instead I found a terrified girl, a resident of the city, who had tripped and fallen into a pile of garbage. I directed her toward some apartments, because the Mazikin are clearly recruiting in Harag. But when I emerged to finish off Ibram, he had run away. I gave chase, but became dizzy with the blood loss and could not keep up.

Part of me wonders if I am weakening, if the fact that I am not hungry or thirsty signals that my body is not getting what it needs here. Those were my thoughts as I sank to the sidewalk, my sleeve soaked with blood and my arm hanging useless at my side.

Fortunately, Ana found me. I might not have made it back to the station to be healed if she hadn’t. It was a miserable hike back, and especially through the dark tower, with my arm wounded and my body weak. But as soon as we got back, I summoned Raphael and demanded that he heal me while I was awake—I had no time to spend in dreamless sleep while Guards are dying and Mazikin are going on the offensive with our own scimitars as their weapons. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt, but it was over quickly.

There have been reports of increased activity near the city wall in north of the Sanctum, so I will be patrolling in that area today. I’ve sent Ana to patrol south of downtown today and speak to the Guards in that area, to see if they’ve seen anything unusual. We’ll meet back here tonight.

Day 25529

I captured Sil yesterday and brought him back to the station. This is a huge development—I will force him to tell me what the Mazikin are up to. I heard him talking with Clarence about breaching the wall, a disturbing bit of news. I don’t know where they’d end up—in the Countryside? Another realm within the Shadowlands? This is something I cannot allow.

But even stranger than that is the girl who was captured and brought here. The Guards were sure she was a Mazikin—because she attacked and stabbed Amid—and they obeyed my orders to bring any live Mazikin they capture back to the station for me to question.

Unfortunately, Amid, whose dearest friend Issam was killed recently [ref Day 25523], decided to question her himself. He nearly killed her, but I asked Raphael to heal her.

And then I questioned her. She is not Mazikin. That much was clear almost immediately. But the story she told me seemed too bizarre to be true. She claimed she’d come into the city to find a friend of hers, a girl who had committed suicide. She bears a tattoo of the girl’s face on her arm, and she was showing it to people in the city, asking if they’d seen her. I have never, in all my days as a Guard, heard of such behavior. She wanted me to release her into the city, and had the same comically indignant line about her rights as that Mazikin who had possessed an American man. So she is American, and young
, and beautiful, with caramel skin and amber eyes and disorderly hair and she smells like the sea, fresh and wild, and
She clearly does not belong in this city. If she stays, she will starve.

I promised her I would take her to the Sanctum myself, but she rejected my offer. And then she did the most deceptive and clever thing she could possibly have done: she touched me. She tried to seduce me. She tried to kiss me.
And oh, I came so close, so close to giving in
. I did not fall for it.

Her name is Lela Santos. And I will admit that now, as I prepare to put on my armor and weapons and retrieve her from her holding cell to take her to the Sanctum, my heart is beating very fast. I will be glad when she is gone. She is a distraction.

Day 25534

I am back at the station after a long, strange odyssey. Lela is a puzzling, dangerous girl, but she is also strong—and she saved my life. But only after causing a great deal of trouble.

She was so determined to rescue her friend that she colluded with Sil to escape, not realizing what he really was. In their breakout, Sil killed Lutfi, who I had specifically assigned to guard Lela because she had been brutalized by Amid and I didn’t want her to be mistreated again. I encountered Sil and Lela in the hallway as I arrived to take Lela to the Sanctum, and watched him drag her out of the station and into the city.

Ana and I tracked them, and I made a decision that I hope I will not regret: I assigned her to play decoy. All the Mazikin—Sil and Juri and Doris included—saw Ana’s face. But we had to act quickly to get Lela away from them. In the fight, Juri bit me. And to my surprise, Lela tried to help—instead of running when she had the chance, she hit Juri with my staff and gave me the opportunity to slit his throat yet again.

Ana had gone after Sil, and if it hadn’t been for Lela, I would have collapsed on the street and died on the way back to the station. But somehow, she got me into an apartment building. And more amazing than that, she stayed with me for days as my body healed. She wiped blood from my skin and watched over me.

Thinking about that does strange things to me. Looking at her face does strange things to me. I suddenly feel raw and naked and new, as if my armor and everything else has been stripped away. When I am close to her, it is very difficult to keep my thoughts in order. She is defiant and rebellious, but also amusing, also vulnerable, also brave. She reminds me a bit of Ana when she first came to us, though Lela is more controlled and reasonable than Ana was at that stage.

And perhaps because of all that, I made her an offer. It came out of me on impulse, but the longer I spend with her, the more certain I am that I did the right thing. I want to help her find her friend. I realized I have seen this friend—she is the girl I found in the alleyway the night Ibram sliced my arm on Day 25527. She was in Harag, and I directed her to an apartment. It’s very likely she could still be there.

But that is also one of the most dangerous areas of the city, especially now, with Mazikin running loose and wielding scimitars. I have been informed that yet another Guard—Mandhur—was killed while I was away. The ambush was north of downtown, and the other Guards said the group of Mazikin fled to the west—toward Harag.

I sent Lela off with Ana while I met with the Guards and gave them their patrol routes, and I also went to visit Michael.

Our interaction regarding Lela’s armor was exceedingly awkward. My cheeks were burning as I described her approximate dimensions, and Michael seemed to enjoy that very much.

Ana and I will train her tonight, and we will leave in the morning.

And I still have not had the desire to eat or drink. The hunger and thirst are gone. If we find Lela’s friend, perhaps she will be ready to go. Perhaps the three of us will go to the Sanctum, and instead of leaving them there, maybe I will ask for an audience with the Judge, too. And maybe he will set me free. I cannot dwell too heavily on that right now, though. My first priority is preparing for this mission.

Day 25535

I am in so much trouble. I have just come from the tower, and this time, I was not alone.

There are so many reasons why I did it. Ana, Lela and I trained for several hours last night, and Lela worked so hard. She is so fierce. Even Ana was impressed. And after Ana retired, I worked with Lela on hand to hand techniques.

That was when things veered off course. Because Lela has so obviously been hurt before, and when I attacked her from behind, she had a very strong reaction. As if I had brutalized her. As if I was the one. And after that, I wanted nothing more than to get away from her, but she asked me to continue, to help her learn to fight without being taken down by her memories.

When I think of that, the look on her face as she demanded I enact her worst fears, to enable her to conquer them, my admiration for her is like a living thing inside me, one that’s growing so fast that it’s taking me over. So when she asked me to show her what I “do for fun around here” (another phrase that seems very American to me, but very alive, too), I decided to bring her up to the tower.

And somehow, I ended up with my arms around her.

Suddenly, I am hungry again. But not for food.

We leave in a few hours. I should try to get some sleep.

Day 25538

I knew things might go badly, but I did not anticipate this. Perhaps I should have.

Ana is gone. She was killed as we tried to destroy the nest in Harag, as we tried to rescue Lela and Nadia. She’s gone.

I killed her with a grenade, a blast that also destroyed most of the surviving Mazikin, who had ambushed her. She asked me to do it, screamed for me to throw, as the Mazikin were carrying her away. And I did it, because I had no choice.

I have sent word to the Gate Guards to watch for Ana in case she comes back into the city through the Suicide Gates. I will not let her wander the city alone. If she’s come back in, we will find her. But I hope the Judge has decided it is time for her to move on. She and Takeshi might be together right now. That is what I will hope for.

We rescued Lela’s friend, whose name is Nadia. But she is clearly very much a resident of this city, very lost. I have put her in Ana’s quarters for now.