Sixty-eight’s mind wandered to the two other settlements in the World Tree she had visited in the past few months.

  One was a small town inside a cavern, creepy in that the entire population was some variety of one of the monstrous classes. It lacked anything that she could see to use in her escape plan so she had already dismissed it.

  The other was slightly bigger and placed on a platform hanging from one of the tree’s gigantic branches. She had dismissed that based on the fact that it was so high that it was above the clouds. Jumping off contained possibilities, but she lacked the means at the moment. It was a moot point, anyways, at least until she found a way to see what was below said clouds.

  An eidolon prattled on and on about some sort of end of their first year celebration festival and something about trials by combat.

  She didn’t care.

  Her lochos would tell her all about it at their next strategy session.

  The demigod children stood in their neat rows and columns in the assembly hall, while eidolons and other teachers stood on their raised platforms.

  “Sixty-eight!” a voice snapped. “Pay attention!”

  Her eyes widened a moment before every muscle in her body clenched.

  The floor greeted her.

  Iron graced her tongue.

  The eidolon had hit her with a small, corrective lightning bolt.

  Her pot boiled over.

  The spell would’ve killed the average person.

  It burned her a bit where it had struck her on the cheek.

  When the spasms stopped, she hopped to her feet with a feral snarl and leapt at the eidolon.

  …

  “Don’t move!”

  She woke up to Fifteen’s smug scowl.

  Her half-sister held green-glowing hands over her.

  “Don’t talk! I’m healing your jaw and teeth.”

  “She’s a kid. They’re probably baby teeth, right?” Eighty grumbled.

  “I don’t want to get it wrong. They said that they weren’t going to do anything to fix her.” Seven’s voice was calm as always. “Thirty-two, can you tell?”

  Her tall half-brother’s face slid into view upside down, blocking the painful ceiling lights.

  His huge, round eyes looked even huger and rounder with his brass-framed, multi-lensed oculus device of his own creation.

  He flicked through several different colored lenses until settling on one.

  “Um… she’s still got all her adult back teeth coming. You’re going to have to fix her front teeth.”

  Fifteen let out a theatrical sigh.

  “Fine, but I have to finish her jaw first. Then you guys are going to have to hold her down.”

  “Can’t you do something about the pain like the healers?” Eighty said.

  Fifteen didn’t dignify that with a response.

  Sixty-eight tried not to cry when Eighty held her tender jaw and mouth open and immobile, while Thirty-two sat on her legs as Seven pressed her front teeth back into her gums for Fifteen to heal with her magic.

  Her lochos exited the empty assembly hall.

  Eighty carried her like a wounded warrior, definitely not like a small child.

  One leaned against the wall. Alone, his lochos not in sight.

  He nodded toward her without the usual disdain.

  “That was very entertaining, weaseling!” His grin didn’t fool her. It might’ve been handsome and bright like the sun, but she knew the truth. He was no different from the rest of them. No better. Plus it was gross that some of the girls lusted after him. He was their half-brother for the Gods’ sake! “I don’t recall anyone taking that many corrections. One’s usually enough. But not for you. I thought for sure you would’ve stayed down after your teeth went flying!”

  Eighty grinned down at her.

  “You were firing everyone up! They had to lightning bolt all of us!”

  One chuckled.

  “Most of us are mad at you for that. But not me! It was all very entertaining!”

  “You want something, One?” Seven said flatly. “You’re wasting our strategy time.”

  The taller, bigger boy raised a hand in the sign of peace from his original nation or culture.

  Sixty-eight hadn’t cared to remember beyond that.

  “Easy, Seven. Just wanted to ask you what slot are you picking for the festival booth.”

  “Why? Scared to challenge our expertise?” Fifteen crossed her arms underneath her chest in that attention-seeking way that never failed to annoy Sixty-eight.

  “Maybe?” One shrugged. “Maybe I want to crush you yet again. So, what’re you picking? Breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks?”

  “We’re going to discuss that.” Seven pushed past One, who resisted for a moment before stepping aside with a grin on his face.

  “Don’t take too long, Seven. Staying back to heal the weasel gave everyone else a head start. I’m heading to put in our choices now. Dinner, lunch and snacks. In that order. And my whole lochos is signing up for the trials. You’re going to have to do the same if you want any chance of catching up.”

  They walked in silence until they were certain that One was out of earshot.

  “What kind of competition is it that doesn’t tell us how we’re doing?” Fifteen grumbled.

  It was a common gripe.

  Sixty-eight didn’t care.

  Winning or losing a nebulous competition was meaningless when she planned to escape.

  Was there a team competition? An individual one? Both?

  Where they being scored beyond what the eidolons and teachers had openly stated?

  The graded tests in their lessons were obvious enough.

  As had their field excursions.

  …

  They reserved a planning room in one of the school’s many buildings.

  It contained the basic equipment and resources to allow the planning of everything from an encounter challenge expedition to a battle to, apparently, a food-based competition.

  Her lochos filled her in on what she had failed to pay attention to.

  The end of the first year festival would bring in the most powerful and important people from all over the World Tree for celebrations and such.

  For some reason none of them understood each lochos would be solely responsible for a food booth in competition with each other.

  There were limited slots for each type.

  She realized that was what One had been talking about.

  “Does anyone know how to cook?” Seven said.

  “We had master chefs and cooks of every style and food type.” Fifteen sniffed.

  “We had people come and make our meals,” Thirty-two said.

  Sixty-eight nodded.

  She didn’t trust her eyes to remain dry if she spoke of her own house’s cooks.

  She remembered warm smiles and warmer food. Of illicit cookies slipped into her hands in the shadows that tasted of her home. Molochai, their main baker had shadow baking, which meant he could get his goods to her without her mother and true father none the wiser.

  “I can cook meats over fire and coals,” Eighty said.

  “I realize my privilege at this moment, for I cannot do even that,” Seven said.

  “There’s still a month. Can we learn? Or have someone else do it?” Thirty-two said.

  “I cannot spare time from my studies,” Fifteen said.

  Like any of them had free time to waste on learning to cook.

  Seven seemed to come to the same conclusion.

  “Eighty, can you handle taking charge of this. I’ll try to get us Lunch or Dinner.”

  The bigger girl brightened.

  “I think I know how to smoke meat too! I helped my mom and uncles a lot!”

  “Okay, good. We’ll have to fit in some time for you to teach us enough that we can help you.”

  Eighty shrugged.

  “It’s not like it’s complicated.”

  “Can you write these easy instructions down?” Thirty-two said with hope in his eyes.

  “Uh… I guess?” Eighty scratched her closely-cropped hair.

  “Good, good.” Seven took a deep breath. “Now, who wants to do the executions?”

  Sixty-eight blinked.

  What executions?

  She really should’ve paid more attention to the eidolons.

  Suiteonem Prime, Sonombera, Bathalas, 213917

  Miss Karagatan stopped training early to gather them for words.

  “At the tops sits their god.”

  Blasphemy.

  Every child of Sinaya had been taught that there were many Gods above even Sinaya.

  He knew of several in a vague sense.

  These other Gods, kin to Suiteonem, were worshiped by a fraction of his people.

  Suiteonem allowed that worship and for Sinaya so long as he stood above them all.

  Ragay glanced at the other potentials.

  Eyes had gone wide and not a few mouths had dropped.

  “He sits in his Golden Palace on his Golden Moon… at times. He does not stay upon our world but for a few decades every handful of centuries. You are familiar with the calamities that strike our world. Sometimes a region is sacrificed, sometimes several, very rarely the entire world is. Even the depths of Sinaya and the underworld can be sucked into the conflagration of suffering.”

  A hand shot up.

  It took a moment for him to realize it was his own.

  She nodded.

  “Is our… God here, I mean, now?”

  Dread sank a stone down his throat into his gut.

  “I do not know. In truth, nothing prevents him from traveling to our world at any time. He has been known to come and go as he pleases. It is only for a Calamity that he stays for years,” Miss Karagatan said. “Beneath him stand everyone else. The eidolons that carry out his will across our world. The Empyreals that carry out his will within the World Tree. And the Empyreal Guard beneath. The rest do not matter. Were you taught about them? The quality of education rises and falls like the tides across time. I do not know how much you’ve been taught.”

  “Yes, Miss Karagatan. I learned about all of them.” The oceanborn with the landsuit was freed from it in the water of the training chamber. Her translucent body brightened and dimmed with blue color as she struggled to control her emotions.

  “Then, tell me about the guard in terms of their strategic and tactical threat to our peoples.”

  The oceanborn girl glowed brightly then dimmed like a deep light show as she composed herself.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Um… historically they number from one hundred to one thousand. Never less or more, at least not for long. They serve in all ways Suiteonem requires. As honor guards, rulers, generals, soldiers, assassins and anything else, really. Oh! The most unique thing about them is that they don’t have classes.”

  “Good. Someone else continue.”

  The landborn with green scales raised his hand.

  “Their abilities are varied and possibly unique, which makes accurate intelligence critical in determining their threat. Only the strongest can be considered strategic threats. I was taught that this number varies. There are ten in today’s era, but there have been more and less across the past. Uh, they only accept people that have power equivalent to a Level 40 at minimum. The top ten’s power levels are not known, but past examples suggest that their equivalent power levels probably start in the Level 60’s.”

  “Good. Next.”

  The surprise lesson continued in that vein until each of the seven potentials had an opportunity to add what they knew about the Empyreal Guard.

  Ragay went last, which meant the others had pretty much covered the extent of his knowledge.

  Miss Karagatan appeared neither pleased nor displeased.

  She kept her customary expressionless mask on as she had always done.

  “Miss Karagatan, what does it mean that a guardsman tried to kill our people? The accords…” the stout, gray-skinned oceanborn said in his whistle-like voice.

  “I do not know. I do not speculate. I shall hear Sinaya’s words before I fix my mind.”

  “Will there be more?” Ragay said.

  “A correct question. I do not know.”

  “Does this mean a Calamity is about to begin?” the brown-furred landborn girl said.

  “I wasn’t born until after the last one. Though, I learned of if from Sinaya after she granted me the honor of Karagatan. There were many regional Calamities in that time and they were preceded by the Empyreal Guard becoming more active beyond Suiteonem’s Sanctuary and the World Tree starting roughly a decade before the Calamity began in full.”

  Ragay wanted to run to his room and warn Talima, Aunty Bilaya and his house.

  Miss Karagatan killed that plan.

  “You will not speak of this to anyone else. Keep to your training and practice. Think and plan how you would battle and foil the Empyreal Guard. Either alone or in teams. All possibilities. I shall be away for a time to seek Sinaya’s words. But do not fear excessively. If this is a sign of a Calamity then there are still years left yet.”

  Suiteonem Prime, City of the Sun, Ten years ago

  “Wake up, Zinna!”

  “Momma— what?”

  “Hush, get your coat.”

  “No coat.”

  “She’s just a child!”

  The gruff voice belonged to a scarred, leering face.

  The strange man loomed in the doorway to Zinna’s bedroom.

  “Lord’s orders. Not that we’re complaining. You’ve a fine shape, miss, and I expect your daughter will have one too in a handful of years.

  Her mother was in thin night clothes, like she was.

  The lights were on.

  New ones.

  Mage-made, but powered by electricity from the sun-catcher panels on the roof.

  Her father had explained how the new technology worked, but she hadn’t understood.

  “Come, Zinna! Just be quiet. It’ll be okay,” her mother hissed.

  Her father and her little brother stood in their new home’s large entertaining room with more scary looking men and one fat one in fancy clothes.

  “Ah! The whole family! At last. I see your children take after their mother.” He laughed. “Fortunate, I say. I, myself, are like you clockmaker. Unfortunate in matters of physical appearance, but more fortunate in wealth.”

  “I’m just a humble craftsman.” Her father bowed his head, keeping her little brother behind him. “How may I serve, my lord?”

  The lord held out one of her father’s hand clocks.

  Small enough to wear around one’s neck on a chain or around one’s wrist on a leather strap.

  “I’ve consulted master clockmakers and they agree that your innovations in… what did they call it?” the lord snapped his fingers.

  “Miniaturization, my lord,” the bull-necked man next to him said.

  “Yes! Amazing. Such simple elegance made available to the masses. You could have dressed this up. Gold, gems, perhaps enchantments and made a fortune selling prestige and rarity to nobles, such as myself. Yet, you’ve made something so plain, simple and purely mechanical. Why?”

  “I had many reasons, my lord.”

  “Summarize them, my good man.”

  Her father gave the speech she must’ve heard hundreds of times. Some of her earliest memories were of accompanying him as he sought investors and sources of materials, labor and other things needed to get his dream off the ground.

  It was only in the last few years that those efforts had born fruit.

  She loved their new, big house in a much better district of the city. She loved her personal tutors. She loved her new dolls, toys and clothes. She loved the books. The viewing orb. She loved her life.

  The lord’s fat face twisted like he had just walked past the butcher house.

  “You seek to raise the masses.” He sighed.

  “My lord, please?” her father said.

  “You’ve been quite successful, clockmaker. You’ve put these hand clocks in the… heh… hands of how many now?” He glanced at another of his men. This one wore thick spectacles and had the demeanor of one of the stray dogs that she secretly fed whenever she visited her grandaunt in their old district in the way he cringed at a mere look.

  “Z&T Clocks sold nearly thirty thousand units in the last two years. Net earnings—”

  “Yes, yes. Much earnings, much uplifting of the unwashed. You pay your workers too much, clockmaker. I mean, I saw the results of that mistake as soon as my carriage rolled into this district. Why? You could have secured a safer place in a district, perhaps two… well, maybe three levels down from mine—”

  A knock on the door.

  “Ah! At last!”

  One of the lord’s men opened her family’s door.

  “Inquisitor! You certainly took your time.”

  The inquisitor was clad in the rainment of his office.

  Golden armor and robes in black and red.

  His face hidden by a the blank mask of impartial judgment in the name of their God, Suiteonem.

  “What is—” her father began.

  “Silence, commoner filth!” the lord snapped. “You’ve reached… well… ironically, not high enough. The empire would have welcomed another newly wealthy easily enough, but you shared your wealth and that cannot be allowed. Our workers are asking for more pay, more benefits, more time. They say, why not us when Z&T Clocks does it for its workers.”

  “Inquisitor, please?” her father begged.

  “The emperor’s leave has been granted, Lord Malum.”

  “Clockmaker, here my words for they are the emperor’s,” Lord Malum leered. “Z&T Clocks now belongs to the emperor. Your wife now belongs to the pleasure houses.”

  A cry and a scream as the lord’s men ripped her from her mother’s arms.

  “Momma!” she cried.

  Her little brother whimpered.

  “Your son, I shall graciously take into my household.”

  Her father tried to fight, but the lord’s men knocked him aside to take her little brother despite his kicking and screaming.

  “God’s damn it!” the lord’s man snapped. “He pissed on me!”

  “Your daughter—”

  The inquisitor cleared his throat.

  Lord Malum frowned up at the looming armored man, who showed no concern at being surrounded by several rough, burly men.

  “The emperor claims that one as your tithe.”

  “He’s already taking the lion’s share of the wealth.”

  “You refuse?”

  Lord Malum laughed with wide eyes.

  “Absolutely not! I am in control of my greed.” He sniffed. “As for you, clockmaker. An example must be made for the commoners that you’ve given ideas to.”

  “But, I’ve done nothing wrong! I’ve always followed the emperor’s laws.”

  Zinna would never forget the way her loving father’s lips quivered underneath the gushing crimson from his nose.

  “I’m certain the Office of the Inquisition will judge otherwise.” Lord Malum scoffed.

  Zinna never saw her family again.

  …

  Suiteonem Prime, City of the Sun, December 2057

  Zinna Orologiaio was still in a dream.

  Or maybe not.

  She didn’t know.

  Her dreams and nightmares had never been so real, aside from the nothingness of the room she sat in.

  “What do you want, not-demon?”

  “I can’t tell you until the exact moment because there are things that might be able to read your thoughts and ruin everything.”

  “Then I have nothing more to say. Only an idiot would agree to something without knowing what is required in return. My soul isn’t for sale. It’s the only thing I own.”

  “I don’t want your soul. Although… some would argue what I ask could be considered along those lines. I suppose it depends on how you view the killing of other thinking beings. Then again you are a soldier.”

  “Not by choice, but I have no problems killing.”

  “And there are those you’d kill without hesitation.”

  “There are many.”

  “I only ask for two, possibly three.”

  “And you won’t tell me who until just before the deed?”

  “Timing is crucial. But I can tell you that you won’t regret putting a bullet through their heads.”

  “Oh! Wonderful! Because I can trust you! Strange, not-demon in my dreams!” She laughed, loud and high.

  If this was a monster trying to steal her soul or something then it wasn’t going about it like in any of the stories she’d heard.

  “There are others I can ask.”

  “Wait! My mother and brother? You suggested that you can bring us together.”

  “And find a safe place for the three of you to heal from the injustice the Empire of Men heaped upon you.”

  “I just have to kill a few people for you?”

  “I trust your markswomanship skills and Skills. But what I trust more is your will to do this.”

  “I need guarantees. I don’t even know if my mother and brother are still alive.”

  “They are and I’ll take them from their prisons immediately.”

  “Wait! I didn’t agree to anything yet!”

  “That doesn’t matter. I’m taking them to a better place regardless.”

  She didn’t get it.

  This was the strangest demonic bargain she could’ve imagined.

  “Why would I do this for you if you’d help me anyways?”

  “I’m not evil,” he said as if that was answer enough. “You accept and I’ll help you. You refuse and I’ll help you. There are others I can recruit. You’re just the best combination of ability, desire and will.”

  “No. No one does anything for free. That’s not how the world works. I’m not putting myself in any debt. You prove you can help my family and I’ll do it.”

  She made the decision quickly.

  She didn’t matter.

  This might’ve been the only chance she’d get to save her mother and little brother from the hell they must’ve been living the past ten years since that terrible night.

  Her father was beyond saving.

  She had been force to watch his farce of a trial.

  “I’ll reach you again when I have your family. You’ll speak with them. And keep an eye on the news for… some measure of justice for your family. After that I’ll keep in touch with instructions.”

  “I don’t consent to you touching me, whomever or whatever you are. Our bargain doesn’t include that.”

  “It’s a figure of speech. Not literal.”

  “Yeah, just make sure you don’t forget that, not-demon.”

  “Practice your shooting. Level as much as you can in the next year, year and a half. You’ll have plenty of opportunities.”

  That wasn’t ominous at all.

  …

  Inquisitor Bannyck di’Solari gazed upon his latest work.

  The girl lay spread out on an X-shaped rack.

  One that could change angles and even orientation for a variety of positions.

  He stepped away for a huge glass of cold water and a moment to admire the way the sweat glistening on his dark skin made the defined muscles of his torso stand out even more than usual.

  The holy work was dehydrating.

  “Girl. Now do you see your sins? Harlot. Given over to the weakness of your flesh. Lust. Only one fallen to that great sin would derive pleasure from force.”

  She glared up at him.

  Defiant despite the hours and multiple times.

  He tried not to smile.

  It was merely his duty and to take personal pleasure in the act was forbidden by the office’s highest law.

  “The evidence of your sins drips from you. I shall make you repent.”

  She spat, but he was too far away.

  “The mouth next? After that there is only one left. Will you repent before I must make use of it?”

  He went to the cabinet of his tools.

  If he was to punish her through her mouth he needed to muzzle her like a beast lest she bite.

  The inquisitor found the gag, taking a moment to hide his smile at the impending pleasure… er… punishment before turning back to the girl.

  He stepped, bare foot slipping on a patch of dry stone.

  The girl watched with wide, hopeful eyes as her tormentor toppled backward, somehow gaining speed as he slammed the back of his neck into the edge of his cabinet of torture.

  The crack echoed through the chamber.

  The girl gagged at the stench of Inquisitor Bannyck di’Solari, nobleman, soiling himself after death.

  Her restraints suddenly opened.

  A thought struck her.

  Get out!

  The path was clear in her mind.

  She knew it led to safety.

  The door opened.

  The torch-lit hall was filled with identical torture chambers.

  Every single door opened and others like her emerged hesitantly.

  The girl ran despite the pain in her body and soul along with the rest of them.

  They fled the inquisition house, past inquisitors and guards all dead in the oddest of ways.

  …

  Senior Inquisitor Barak d’Marea woke up to a nightmare.

  His first day after a promotion nearly a decade in the making.

  The price of being an honest man was to watch those with better connections and worse integrity leave him behind as they rose the ranks of the Office of the Inquisition.

  His first day as a senior inquisitor started with the chaos of what appeared to be a crippling number of deaths across the City of the Sun.

  He stood in his district house staring at a much diminished number of inquisitors and a relatively untouched number of non-inquisitorial support staff.

  Oh, he was also now the most senior inquisitor, which meant that he was in charge.

  His dark skin glistened with sweat despite the building being as cool as always.

  “I’m deputizing all of you. We’re move in groups. First we check on our unaccounted brother and sister inquisitors.”

  Word wasn’t good from all over the city.

  Preliminary reports suggested that every single House of Repentance in the city suffered some kind of attack in the night killing inquisitors and guards and freeing the penitents.

  He shuddered to think of the possibility that this… this vile attack was repeated across the entire Empire of Man.

  “Sir!”

  One of the young communications officers came running out of the communications room.

  “What is it?” he nearly snapped at the interruption.

  “The High Inquisitor’s Office demands your attendance! Sorry, sir!”

  “Thank you, er… thank you.”

  He forget her name.

  “Tell them I shall call them right away.”

  “Sir! They said in person, sir!”

  Reality set in.

  Catastrophe had struck them in the night.

  What manner of terrible monster or foe did they face?