The Record of the Saints Caliber Read online

  Immediately the man was beset upon by a group of Sin Eaters. They descended upon him like a flock of crows and he seemed to disappear beneath their billowy cloaks as they took him away, screaming and struggling. Meanwhile, Father Tarask began reciting a prayer, asking Aeoria to forgive the man and his sins and to bless his family with food and health, but it was too late. Others began standing up, talking loudly and angrily amongst themselves. And then Mister Brumal stood up and shouted that his own sons were starving. Rook looked up at Mister Brumal, whose face had turned red with anger as he screamed at Father Tarask. And then he pointed a finger down at Rook and screamed, “For the love of Aeoria, they lost their father to hunger! How much longer must we suffer?!”

  At this Rook’s mother quickly grabbed him by the hand and they slid out of the pew quickly. “Come, Rook. We have to go.”

  “But—” began Rook, thinking desperately that this little uprising would certainly provoke some sort of giving of food, but his mother cut him off, saying that the Clerical Guard would be coming and they had to leave.

  Rook followed his mother, but couldn’t resist looking back as the people stood and yelled at Father Tarask. A few more families got up to leave as well. He turned back around just as his mother was opening the door and a group of Clerical Guards came bursting in, nearly throwing Rook, his mother and Ursula to the floor. They wore their red armor, lacquered and shining above their black bodysuits. Upon their heads were helmets that covered all but their eyes, their mouths covered by a grilled visor that Rook thought made them look like some otherworldly insect. Upon their rounded pauldrons was the holy star of Aeoria worn as a badge. In their hands were the heavy iron guns—bolt-throwers they were called—that made them so fearsome. Rook had only seen the guns used once before, on a man who had tried stealing a goat from the nobles. He was ordered to stop but starting running. That’s when the soldier raised the heavy gun in both hands. It roared to life with three quick blasts that sounded like a steel sledgehammer upon a metal anvil. The running man fell to the ground, his body torn open into mangled meat by the steel spikes—“bolts” his father had called them—fired by the gun.

  The guards shoved them aside but paid them no further attention as they charged into the church. Rook’s mother did not wait to find out what would happen, and grabbed Rook solidly by the wrist and exited the church, along with some other people.

  The fog had cleared by now, but the walk back home was as silent and somber as the gray skies. Ursula had begun crying again and Rook’s mother tried to comfort her as best she could until they got home. Like the others in the town, they lived in a modest sized house of brick, timber and plaster. Rook’s father had always told him that before the Great Falling these houses were for the wealthy and great feasts would have been had within them. The fireplace would have been alive and the walls decorated with art. Today most of the walls had cracks that had undergone makeshift repairs and been stuffed with mud and straw. Some of the interior walls had even been stripped bare for firewood. The roof had too many holes to be properly fixed, and the gray light of day shown through in numerous spots. There was no art on any of the walls, and the bedrooms had nothing more than straw piles for beds. There was wood for the fireplace and stove, but certainly nothing to cook.

  Rook’s mother sat down on the floor in the corner by the fireplace. They had long ago sold all their furniture for food. She tried to ease the crying baby. She looked exhausted and had that blank stare again. Rook placed some logs into the fireplace and soon had a nice, warm fire crackling. They sat there silent, staring into the fire for many long moments before Ursula began screaming again.

  “Shh, shh,” said Rook’s mother, rocking the child. “There, there, now.”

  “Momma,” said Rook, looking at his screaming little sister. “Can I make her some barley water?”

  “There’s no more barley,” said his mother softly, not looking away from Ursula as she rocked her in her lap.

  “Momma,” said Rook. “Do you think they’ll have any food tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” rasped his mother, and then suddenly she too began bawling.

  Rook wrapped his arms around his mother and patted her on her back. “It’ll be ok. Maybe one of the Saints Caliber will come soon,” said Rook. “Maybe like in the legends of Saint Bryant he’ll come and bring us food and save us from all this.”

  Rook’s mom looked up at him, tears streaming down her sunken eyes and cheeks. She touched his face and said through her tears, “There’s nobody coming, honey. It’s all lies. Everything they tell us are lies.”

  “No,” said Rook, pulling away and shaking his head frantically. “No! No, they’re not! They can’t be!”

  “I’m sorry, Rook.” said his mother, wiping tears from her eyes. She rocked Ursula in her arms, but the baby was inconsolable. “I’m so sorry I brought you and your sister into this world.”

  “No,” said Rook, unable to hold back his own tears. “No! Don’t say that! The Saints Caliber will come one day! They will! They’ll destroy all of the Unbound and restore prosperity to the lands! They will, momma! They will! They say the wars are almost over, and then they’ll come! They will!”

  Rook’s mother hugged him but he could feel she had too little strength to do it with any firmness. Ursula screamed out. Rook’s mother looked down at her with a tender smile. “Rook, honey. The knife in the kitchen. Bring it to me.”

  Rook stared wide-eyed at his mother.

  “Please honey,” she said. “I don’t think I have much time.”

  Rook could feel his heart racing. Something wasn’t right. Something about the way his mother was acting. She was breathing heavier too. Ursula screamed out again, and again his mother urged him to get the knife, saying she didn’t have the strength to get it herself. Hesitantly, Rook ran to the kitchen. Upon their table, barren of all but dust, sat a lone knife that hadn’t seen bread in a month. It was a rusty old thing. A steak knife his father used to call it, not that it had ever cut meat let alone a steak. He ran it back to his mother.

  Gently she took it from his hand and pricked her bony index finger. A blot of blood formed at the tip and she placed the finger delicately in Ursula’s mouth. She began to suckle ravenously. Rook could do nothing but stare in dread. He had heard whispers once. About people eating people. His mother and father had told him that stuff only happened in the cities far away from here, further west where there was even less food. Was it coming to that now?

  “It’s time I show you something, Rook. Your father made me promise that I show you one day.” rasped his mother. Her breaths were very ragged now. She seemed to struggle as she raised her free hand and pointed to the far wall.

  Rook looked at her, confused. He slowly walked to the wall she was pointing at. It was a barren, white wall. Dirty and stained with water that had dripped down from the ceiling. Something that used to be called wallpaper still clung to certain areas, but was faded beyond recognition.

  “The baseboard there,” said his mother.

  Rook knelt down and pulled at the loose board on the wall. It came off easily and he set it aside.

  “The floorboards too,” said his mother.

  Rook lifted one of the boards and it peeled up. He lifted another and another. Beneath the floor was stuffed rotten rags and hay, and beneath that Rook discovered a small pit dug into the very earth. Within it was a rusty old anvil and a hammer, as well as some other rusty tools. There were some things wrapped in rags as well, and when Rook unwrapped them he saw that there were two small ingots of copper and another larger ingot of some type of steel. It all had a strange but pleasant odor, like oil and coal smoke and burnt metal. “Wh…what is this stuff?” asked Rook.

  “In his youth your father was a blacksmith. So was your grandfather and great-grandfather, and theirs before them.” said his mother. She paused and her breath was wet and heavy as she sucked it in. “That was before the King forbid people to make their own tools and wea
pons.”

  Rook reached in and picked up the hammer. It was an ancient looking thing, full of rust, and it weighed more than he could properly lift. His wrist gave out and it clanked hard upon the anvil. He got another whiff of that wonderful coal smoke and metal.

  “Your father wanted you to have all that one day.” said his mother, adjusting Ursula in her arms as the baby still suckled at her finger. “He wanted you to know what was in your blood, and hoped that one day you could use all that to make something of yourself. He always dreamed of a better day for you. He always dreamed of being able to teach you the family trade.”

  Rook tried lifting the hammer again. Despite its age and condition there was something about it that was not lost on him. It had once been a very fine hammer. All of these tools had once been very fine, very expensive. Perhaps the top of their line. They had been well used and in his mind Rook could almost hear the hammer upon the anvil; could almost smell the oil and coal from the smithy; could feel the heat from the forge. Upon that rusty anvil Rook was certain that weapons of the finest steel had been crafted by innumerable blows from the very hammer he now held. Again Rook’s wrist gave out and the heavy hammer clanked upon the anvil.

  “Keep that safe,” whispered his mother. Her chest heaved as she sucked in a wheezing breath. “I…I want you to sell it. Trade it for food and things you and your sister will need.”

  Rook looked down at the rusty stash of items. “Sell them?” He picked up another tool, some sort of clamp.

  He heard his mother swallow hard and inhale some ragged breaths. “Me and your father…we held on to them, hoping for something better. It was foolish of us.” She paused again for another deep, ragged breath. “But you’ll need them now. You’ll need to trade them for you and Ursula.”

  Rook shook his head. “No,” he said, almost frantically as he dropped the heavy clamp to the floor. “No. No, we’re going to keep it all and one day I’ll learn how to use them. No. No. The Saints Caliber will come. They’re the ones that can save us.”

  Rook’s mother looked at him, her sunken eyes dim, fading. “The Saints Caliber are evil, Rook.” she said, almost a whisper. “They all are. They don’t care about us. We’re nothing but slaves to them, Rook. Rook…I’m so sorry I brought you and your sister into this world.”

  “That’s not true!” screamed Rook. He glared at his mother through red, tearful eyes.

  “Son,” she rasped. She heaved in a large breath. “The stories are all lies.” She huffed and wheezed again.

  “No! No!” Rook screamed, shaking his head violently.

  “It’s true,” wheezed his mother. “They are the servants of Apollyon, son.” She paused for a moment, her chest heaving. She was breathing hard now. Her head lowered and she seemed to look down at Ursula. She was mumbling, uttering softly to the little baby.

  Rook stood there, huffing with eyes red with tears as he looked down at the rusty tools beneath the floor. He looked at his mother, and suddenly something went off in his mind. She wasn’t showing him the tools just so he could sell them, she was passing them on to him. “No!” he cried, shaking his head. “No! You’re going to live and the Saints Caliber will come and they’ll bring food and we’ll all be fine! You’ll see!”

  Rook ran to his mother and grabbed her and hugged her. He realized how light her body felt in his little arms as she flopped over. “No momma! No!”

  Ursula was crying now. Blood no longer flowed from her mother’s fingertip.

  — 2 —

  SKULL OF THE FIRE DRAGON

  Saint Nuriel kicked in the door of the house. The wood was so ancient and rotten that her star-metal boot went through the wood rather than busting the door open. She rammed it with her shoulder, her glassy black star-metal pauldron impacting the door with a satisfying solidity and the entire frame collapsed inward, revealing the dark, cold, destitute interior of the hovel.

  A woman whose face was streaked with dirt and tears, dressed in nothing but patchwork rags, stood in the center of the dirt-floored room. She clutched a crying infant in her arms, bundled in threadbare cloth. A young boy with hair as deep brown as his mother’s and dressed in matching rags clutched at her legs, eyes red with tears.

  “Please! Please!” the woman begged, her eyes wet and raw. “Aeoria have mercy! They already took my husband. I’m all these children have. Please, have mercy!”

  Nuriel sniffled and tucked her golden hair behind her ears. She tried not to make eye contact with her or her children. “Come on.” she said, her voice nothing but a soft croak. This work sickened her.

  “Please,” the woman’s voice quivered with desperation. “Please, let my children go. They had nothing to do with any of this.”

  “No mama!” cried the boy at her side. He wrapped himself to her leg and it didn’t look like even grim death could pry him off.

  Nuriel’s hands went to her face. She sniffled. She couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t.

  “Aeoria, have mercy!” begged the woman. “You’re a Saint, show us the Goddess’s mercy, please!”

  Nuriel clutched the sides of her head. She turned and found her own, terrible reflection staring back at her from a dusty, cracked mirror that hung crookedly on the wall. Her eyes were as radiant as molten gold and her hair like threads of the same precious metal, but the dark circles beneath her eyes and the speckles of blood upon her narrow cheek somehow tarnished their brilliance. Like all of the Saints Caliber, she wore a white leather bodysuit beneath her Star-Armor. The bodysuit conformed well to her slender frame and made her arms and legs look long and sleek beneath the armor. The arms of her suit came up and over the top of her hand and formed something of a fingerless glove. Where her Star-Armor didn’t cover her bodysuit at her belly, collar and the joints of her arms and legs, it was red with spatters of blood.

  Star-Armor was impossibly heavy, only able to be worn by Saints. It was made of a glassy, black metal that was as opaque as night’s shadows but held a depth to it, like staring into the ocean at night. Nuriel’s chest was encased by her unremoveable breastplate. It was smooth and rounded, with matching pauldrons that cupped her shoulders. She had star-metal bracers upon her upper arms and forearms, and a skirt of feather-shaped plates made of star-metal that hung upon her waist. Like the rest of her armor, the star-metal on her legs was smooth and round, encasing her upper and lower legs. Upon her feet were star-metal boots.

  As black and glassy as the star-metal was, darker blots of wet blood clung to it like blights.

  Nuriel pinched her eyes shut at the sight of herself.

  “Please,” begged the woman above the wailing infant in her arms and the sobs from her boy at her leg. “Please, let us go! You’re kind, I know it! Aeoria have mercy!”

  Nuriel looked up at them. She sniffled and wiped a hand down her face, then reached up and grabbed the handle of the star-metal claymore upon her back. She looked at the woman. Her eyes were wide with fear; the baby was crying in her arms. The boy at her side looked up at her, bulbs of tears clinging to his eyes, and he released a bitter howl that chilled Nuriel to the core.

  She released her grip on her sword.

  She turned to leave and nearly bumped into one of King Gatima’s ramshackle knights. Behind him stood her mentor, Saint Isley.

  “There you are, Saint Nuriel.” said the knight. Like all of Gatima’s knights, his armor was a set of mismatched steel that was dented, scuffed and beyond the help of any polish. He held a sword in his hand that had obviously seen better days. His eyes shifted, looking beyond her and into the hovel. “Take them.” he said, pointing into the darkness of the room. “Those ones burn with the other dissenters. Gatima’s orders.”

  “No!” wailed the woman. “It was nothing but an axe he kept! What were we supposed to cut wood with? Please, it was but a rusty axe! Certainly the steel shortage was not so great that our glorious and exalted King would have needed it!”

  “They burn.” said the knight. He turned and left.

 
; Nuriel found Saint Isley looking at her with those tender, silver eyes of his. His lips pursed into a frown. “We must do our duty.” he said softly, his mild voice tinged with regret.

  Nuriel turned back into the room. The woman was broken by her own sobs and fell to her knees, clutching her baby to her breast. At her side the young boy screamed out.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  Nuriel was shaken from her haunted reverie by a rumble that consumed the volcanic cavern. She found that she had been staring into a deep fissure in the floor that radiated with fiery light from far below. She almost thought she caught a glimpse of the mother being consumed by flames, her infant’s cries being choked off by the heat as the boy reached a hand out through the pillar of fire that engulfed him.

  “Come,” said Isley. He was smiling softly at her from across the small fissure, holding out his gauntleted hand to her. His molten silver eyes—the same color as his hair—had a sincerity and tenderness that Nuriel found comforting, but the fiery light that reflected in them caused them to gleam with that fanatical blind-devotion he held upon all his intentions.

  Sweltering heat and a darkness consumed by a ruddy glow overtook Saint Nuriel as she shook herself out of the lingering memories playing in her mind. Her eyes caught her mentor’s again and Isley smiled. His star-metal breastplate was sharp and angled, as were his bracers and the armor upon his waist and legs. The glassy black facets of his Star-Armor caught the ruddy, volcanic light of the cavern and reflected it back upon him, making his leather bodysuit look more red than white. He looked upon her with that soft, youthful face that belied his thirty-six years of wisdom and smiled faintly at her. “Come, Nuriel.” he said.

  Nuriel grimaced. She didn’t like being here. She hopped across the narrow fissure and followed Isley deeper into the cavern. They were in a massive tunnel that had been carved into the side of the volcano. The sulfurous air of molten rock stung her eyes and nose, but Nuriel paid it no mind. Isley was speaking to her—something about helping Celacia here in Dimethica—but Nuriel wasn’t really paying attention to him either. Her mind was still a thousand miles away, back in Jerusa.