Your Free to Reave, Chapter 1

1 In the Libraries of the First Father torch lit he stood among the books 2 The books so many books so much knowledge 3 He would put all books to the pyre 4 The soldiers came but saw the wisdom in the fire. 5 The soldiers made their own pyres 6 Two burners turned to four and four to eight until the whole city was burning then the nation then the world 7 The first burner saw the flames and it was good
Libriam Humana, Book of the Burning, Verses 1-7
Cold gear grease, that was the smell filling his nose the gelatin like grease that gathers in the teeth of the gears in the deep of winter. That smell penetrated his nose, but it wasn’t helping him forget his current predicament. He wasn’t sure what he did. It would be easier to list the things he did right than the myriad of things he had done wrong. Victor was getting twitchy, when your superior summons you to his office, then leaves you for hours well that obviously can’t be a good thing. His mind was spinning and being in a round room wasn’t helping. Round rooms have a disarming effect, the mind can’t find solid footing. This was Kenbasa’s office and his quarters, save the top three floors, it was the highest in the Reavery. A glass tower jutting fifty feet up in the center of the Great Hall towering above so many gas lamps and scribble desks, a tower within a tower. Victor gazed out the windows down on the hundred some odd reavers sifting through bits of paper gleaning every ounce of information from every letter. In a round room made entirely of glass it gave Kenbasa a view of the entire hall but also gave the entire hall a view of him. Is a guppy in a bowl the watcher or the one being watched?
The windows were tall with a slight curve, just enough curve that end to end they formed this perfectly circular room. If not for the iron bars with copper rivets separating each pane it would be a perfect glass tube. The glass rose twenty or twenty-five feet into the air terminating in panes that curved inward to the center of a flat center disk of glass. The center glass was constructed of several concentric circles of thicker glass that formed a bullseye at the center. Victor could make out mechanical shutters above the center disk. Two long steel chains fixed with metal loops made their way across the curved ceiling and down the glass wall connecting to a pair of levers mounted behind the reavers desk. One up, one down one decorated with green glass, one decorated with red.
The tension in the room was palpable had to do something. Victor pushed up on the red lever and nothing. He pulled down the green and could feel the tension of the chain give way. As the chain pulled down the red lever slowly pushed into the upright position. Following the mechanical sound of gears grinding Victor looked straight up at the ceiling and through the blurred glass he could see the shutters opening. Suddenly a bright light burst through the center disk, diffusing through the concentric circles flooding the room with bright but soft light. The diffused light filled every nook and cranny illuminating the mahogany appointing’s of the room, several bookcases, tables and leather chairs. The tables and cases filled with every book of every type the quantity of which only wealthy men had the coin to afford. The largest of which was a red leather-bound book open to the middle, A Zoological and Anthropological Study of the Thousand Peoples Tribes of the Burn. This was an interesting book considering it was forbidden by law to enter the Burn. Basically, if you weren’t going there to kill the burners then you were couldn’t go there. But it was a very old book maybe it hadn’t always been that way. Victor could hear the footsteps clanking up the metal steps toward the room. He quickly ran behind the desk and switched the levers the room silenced to the pale light of the gas lamp on the desk.
“Good evening Mr. Rabchinko, sorry for keeping you waiting.” Victor had seen the Kenbasa before he had wondered in and out of the academy since Victor first arrived. But here in person he was huge, a massive man standing six five or better. Amazing standing in the same room with a man only second to the Grand Reaver. Reavers were usually small in stature the smaller the better. Finding and stealing things especially things others didn’t want found or stolen was hard. So as far as advantages go the mores the better and being small was an advantage. Kenbasa was a huge man, a black man, an obsidian man, skin so dark that the gas light almost reflected off his shorn head. He was as broad as an ox across the shoulders with tree trunks for arms. He cut a fine form for a rifleman but a strange reaver. Even stranger the tweed coat resting mid-thigh covering that red waistcoat. Reavers were not the suit and tie kind of guys. But age was catching up with the obsidian man his beard was grey, and silver rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose meant the sharp eyes were dulling.
“I know this seems strange, but I have an assignment tailor made for you.” Victor twisted the medallion on his necklace measuring his words carefully. “Sir, no disrespect but there are literally thousands of reavers more qualified for whatever this is.” Victor tensed his shoulders waiting for a response. “No, you are the cadet with the best exams. Not academic but definitely in the physical and craft. Your marksmanship with sidearm and multirifle are well above average as well. All of that is well and good but none of those are the assets that are relevant to this assignment.” Kenbasa pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and polished his glasses “Victor the Grand Reaver is not dead and more over he may be a traitor.” Kenbasa let the words hang in the air. Heavy words hanging in heavier air. Victor was lost he wanted to say something, but it seemed like the words were stuck somewhere in the back of his throat.
“Ramairez marched into The Lion’s Library and stole books from the High Historian’s own collection killing a Reaver, two Copymen and three Riflemen in the process. Unique books, one of a kind books, books that were written by the Copyman Curtain Trillis in 2189. He then ran back to the Reavery set fire to the upper floors and escaped by airship. I guess he hoped everyone would assume he died in the fire. Or just give him a bit of a start on his escape.” Victor sat up a little straighter and eyes wide reached down and fobbed with the symbol around his neck. Fingering each letter on the circle Idest Ut Alii Aequo, repeating it in his head I Bear It So Others Are Unburdened. Every school boy knows the story of The Great Heretic. Burned on the Rock in Park Central along with all his manuscripts, books and research along with his twelve assistants. They each had their tongues cut from their heads, so they couldn’t scream as they died.” It was a thousand-year-old story told to frighten school children. A poetic legend of the day the Order of the Broken Ring was founded upon the burning flesh of heretics. But if Trillis texts still existed then that is not how the story really ended. What else about the story was not true. “If the twenty-one burned Trillis, his twelve henchmen and all his writings then how are there still books around a thousand years later?” Victor’s question just filled the room with more words hanging in the air, the room was getting crowded.
Kenbasa was stalling, measuring his words. Trying to decide if one boy was worth such a big secret. Reavers spent a lifetime cultivating the ability to hide a secret. Kenbasa wasn’t sure if this boy had even the start of that skill. But he didn’t have the patience to give the boy a lifetime to develop the skills. “All of Trillis’s writings were not destroyed that day on the stone. Also, he wasn’t a Copyman he was an engineer. The twenty-one felt that his work was way to dangerous to be in the world, yet it was way to important to be destroyed. They didn’t cut out their tongues to prevent their screams, they did it stop them from speaking to anyone before their execution. Five books were kept, copied and encrypted. Encrypted by a Cryptic using a code no one had ever seen. One of the first reavers cut the Cryptic’s throat and burned the originals. When the Prime Historian found him dead clutching the five encrypted texts. The Prime took the encrypted copies and locked them away in what would become the Lions Library. Those are the books Ramairez took and the High Historian wants them back.” Now the room was practically stifling filled with words that couldn’t be put back in the jar.
Humanity nearly choked itself to death on ash and smoke and chose to do it repeatedly, and it nearly didn’t return this last time. The Order of the Broken Ring had stood up to the tide of heretical text, artwork, music. Rising out of a century of suffering to stand for ten centuries. Fighting against all the heretics leading humanity back down the path of the Burning. How many people had lost their lives, their reputations, their entire existence for this goal. The old knowledge must never escape once the box was open it couldn’t be closed again. And now with a few words Kenbasa had crumbled that fortress to the ground. Every High Historian for a thousand years had violated the one rule that governed the clockwork that was the Order. The Order was the last bulwark against the chaos and anarchy that burned the world. And now Victor knew that the wall wasn’t solid that it had chinks. Chinks big enough to pass five books through.
“I don’t really know where you find yourself. Your proctors had the feeling you were rather neutral when it came to the king and country ideal. That is another reason you were chosen. You chew on what I told you but understand it doesn’t change what is at our core. Or how we carry that mission forward. No one alive today knows what was written in those texts. As a matter of fact, that even a thousand years ago only the Prime and Trellis knew. But the Prime must have thought the texts were so important to the future of humans it was worth protecting their perpetuity. Important enough to violate the laws that he had just laid down. But also, dangerous enough that no one should take reading them as a flippant undertaking. We, and by we I am speaking on behalf of the Twenty-one and the High Historian and all members of the Order, do not know if Ramairez can decrypt the books or what he plans to do with them once they are decrypted. But the Historian wants them back safely within the walls of the Five Spires. We chose you because simply no one knows who you are. You are not ordained therefore you have not been added to the rolls of the Order. We don’t know how deep this treacherous act runs or who is involved. Ramairez spent a lifetime cultivating assets inside and outside the Spires. This mission must be completed by, to be blunt a nobody. Being a nobody could be your best advantage”
He wasn’t wrong, Victor knew deep down in his gut that he was never that attached to the ceremony as much as the reaving. So Kenbasa wasn’t wrong. He stood up and shook the Reaver’s hand. Kenbasa passed him a ring in the hand shake. A simple ring copper ring a silver inlay rolling around the band a motto a remembrance Idest Ut Alii Aequo. “You understand Reaver Rabchinko at this time you can’t take your ordination and you can’t receive your first mark at least not until this assignment is complete.” He let it sink in he could feel the tinge of disappoint welling up in his eyes.
Victor had thought about the first mark from day he saw his first reaver. The first mark was important because it set the style for each mark that would flow across the Reave’s body. Eastern Reaves used ancient oriental design, Old Landers used Keleti or Viking design, but Imperials used marks of red, white and blue. Flowing stars and eagles, spears and arrows or the Great Imperial Seal. There were the reavers that followed the darker paths. The path of the skull was a silent guild within The Order. They didn’t call them assassins but that is what they were. They were not sent to reave secrets but to reave lives. It came at a cost. In the bathhouse laid bare a skull often found themselves alone stripped bare it was hard to hide the skulls inked into their skin. So, a skull would be a lonely path.
Victor couldn’t show his new status openly but inside he did walk tall. A realization of a dream of sorts. At least he wouldn’t follow his father into the Stokers Guild Spending the rest of his days scooping anything that burned in the furnaces of the steam plants dotted about the bowels of the city. When he was sixteen and seeing his fathers shrouded corpse laying on the bin floor with the dancing lights of the furnace gates giving the body an orange menacing hue. Even dead he could feel his father’s meaty hands knocking him across the room for even the slightest disrespect. The stokers filled his pockets with magnesium and aluminum dust plus a plethora of other shaved metals. As his body began to burn a blue green smoke bellowed from out of the stacks. This was a quite memorial that marked the death of a stoker. Then without hesitation the other stokers picked up their shovels and forks and heaved refuse into the hellish gates. Victor vowed that day it would be the last time he saw this city from its fiery bowels. Either he would sit atop one of the spires or die climbing in that direction.
The Reave slid a ruddy leather journal along the desk’s edge. Inside were blank pages, tons of blank pages and several thin charcoal pencils. Victor flipped the pages forward and back trying to get hope to fall from its pages but only finding more blank pages. “The back page, what your looking for is on the back page.” The back of the journal had a pocket concealing three vials of milky yellow liquid viscous but rough like watery oil. “Take a pencil and shave off just a little of the wooden parts. Drop the shavings into a glass of water add several drops of the liquid from the vials. Stir the contents until the whole glass becomes yellow and milky. Then spread it on the last page like a brush, don’t soak the page just light strokes until the words appear.” Victor took a whiskey glass from the decanter. He cleaned it with the edge of his vest. Placing it on the desk next to the journal he took his pen knife and shaved a few long slivers of a pencil. He pulled a vial of the viscous out and popped the cork dropped a few drops on top of the pencil shavings. The shavings began to dissolve sinking from the meniscus to the bottom of the glass. Before the very lower edge touched the heavy crystal base it was gone. He stirred with his finger until the liquid took on a putrid yellow white milky murkiness. As he dripped tiny drops onto the pages spreading the liquid evenly across the paper letters appeared then words. Words that formed names cities and people and dates and as the page quickly dried the names disappeared. The first name Millie Trillis-Chikago- 4 April 3193 so his first lead was a heretic blooded girl in Chikago. “You have two weeks till she disposes of the supplies we hid with her. Each of those entries comes with a name, a place and an expiration date. If you do not contact that person by the date on the page they will destroy, sell or keep the supplies we gave them. Its just a precaution to cover the tracks, yours and mine. The rest of the Spire doesn’t know about my helping you. I am not going to lie to you this is dangerous and almost impossible, but The Order never takes chances and we use multiple prongs of assault. Now don’t you have a train to catch the clock is ticking. I bear it, so others are unburdened.” The Reave pointed to a leather sea bag sitting on the couch next to the door. Victor threw it over his shoulder and walked to the door spinning around the round room one more time. The glass and copper widows glinted in the gas light he drank it in he might not be back this way again. “I bear it, so others are unburdened” The glass door rattled a bit as it closed.
Victor padded down the spiral iron stair slowly at first then faster moving form gaslight to gaslight trying to move across the dark spaces quicker and quicker. An odd thought crossed his mind the darks spots seemed more comfortable than the light. Reaves live in the shadows darting in and out of the light. Apprentices of the craft do their best work when not being seen. But affection not vocation seemed to be drawing Victor there. That orgasmic spot just before light gave way to dark. It felt like the nape of a beautiful girl’s neck, a point of ultimate power, surrender or the spot where the most tender kiss could be placed. He was always more comfortable in the scary places.
The spires split the sky creating a valley where the Library of the Lions sat. Each spire as differing in appearance with its purpose. The Candle with its white gilded glass windows spiraling around bleached stone walls forming the tallest of the towers. Twenty-one floors capped with the portcullis covered fire pit belching flames as the wind blew through its arches. The Reavery with is black glass and copper trim the hard edges and balconies casting long and ominous shadows. The Twins constant vigil over the Iron Gate, polished granite grey and blue with each stone opposite reflected in its twin. But it was the bland unpolished granite of the Cannon that had always called to Edwin. The moss and vines coating its sides and the wet and antiquated iron and wood doors. He had often spent his twilight years sitting below the hermaphroditic statue crowning its height. The First Law had said the rather unsettling monolith showed the balance the law should give. A balance between the caring love of the mother and the stern but fair father. The First Law had written that it was the firm hand of her father that gave her the strength to be the first to strike the fire at the feet of the Heretics. Edwin was not sure she had much of the mother in her.
Edwin stood in the shadows of the column way watching the Reavery. It was a good plan and Kenbasa had attested to the young man’s skill if not skill then his potential. Kenbasa had explained that the young man’s mother had been a Reave of the Skull long before she fell in love with a Stoker from the pits. It had been an ill fit but by then she had a son and she took the abuse for the sake of the child. She really understood her faith and the oath she took Idest Ut Alii Aequo indeed. This boy was a legacy of four generations and didn’t even know it. Regardless a plan with five tines still had a high chance of failure.
A Reave he was not, lost in complete contemplation the white-haired old man didn’t notice the young women who had sauntered up beside him. She cleared her throat loudly “First Law, do you think it is safe for our highest magistrate to be resting his feet on solid ground. Shouldn’t you be in your quarters where you can be better protected23?” The old man stiffened his back trying to seem more solid and foreboding “Magistrate Anhassa, Teesa this is a conversation free of the Hall.” She nodded agreement if not understanding. “In just a short time a very no descript young man will be emerging from the Reavery. I need you to follow him and aid him as best you can. The weight of a Magistrate’s seal could be of some use to his endeavor. I can see the questions swirling in that head of yours, but this is important and must be done without question. I had the dispensary put a pack together for you tube me with updates of your progress.” The First Law raised his finger to cover lips before she could speak. “You must do this for me without knowing why. Nod if you understand.” She moved her head back and forth slowly. He grabbed her shoulders and placed a small kiss on each cheek and another on her forehead. She picked up the pack just a Victor emerged from the Reavery. “That is the young man he is going to Grand Central. He will be on the Zypher, car six, cabin four A. I have purchased cabin four B for you. Your traveling to Chikago from there it is your discretion. Now go.” She waited for a few seconds then followed the man onto the street. Edwin whispered into the wind at her back “I bear the burden, so others live unburdened.”
It was getting late in the season the cool crisp air pushed the smoke down to street level head height and above was lost in a hazy darkness. Even the stars were not visible. The steam carriages puffed along the street gilded and shiny in the gas lamps lining the streets. The eclectic mixing of the city’s citizenry filled the streets from merchants from the northern districts to the soot cover trainmen just leaving shifts. New York was not just the Imperial seat it was the center of the universe. Victor thought he caught a glimpse of someone following him as he left the Spires. Darting between the dead spots of the gas lamps Victor looked back into the crowd trying to catch a glimpse of someone out of sorts. Grand Central was one of only a few buildings to survive the Burning. History books said Rex Imperious John Thomas Morgan beat back burners and with his four sons defended this station. The first emperor was so taken with the opulent beauty of the building that he dedicated three hundred craftsmen to restore it to its former glory. Down the polished granite and marble steps to the platforms, Victor was a little more than excited like anyone starting an adventure.
Victor watched as the trainman bared the outside door and smashed the lead seal through the holes in the iron rod. It was smart couldn’t have a child fling door open as the train sped to its destination. This was the Zephyr a non-stop route from New York to Chikago. The cabin came with two red leather benches and a table that retracted into the floor. The benches would slide forward and down to form an almost king size bed. Above the foreword bench was a brass and iron shelf to store your livery. The after bench had a fold down addition rumble sleeper for children or those short of stature. The water closet contained all the amenities a discerning traveler needed to start off the morning clean shaven and pressed for the day. Victor had splurged on the in-cabin meal delivery, it was five crowns but better than slumming in the first-class dining car. This was by far his most impressive journey by train.
Victor had once traveled with his mother and father to the island to see his grandparents. His mother had grown up on the small farm, but he only got to see it once. They grew carrots and potatoes and had chickens’ cows and a horse. The ride was awful they were forced to buy the standing tickets and being only five he spent the entire ride with his face firmly against the ass of a painted lady. He assumed a painted lady fresh from the job and in sore need of a bath. It was one of Victor’s best memories the train ride not the painted lady’s ass. He rode the horse and chased the chickens and listened to his grandfather’s stories of his time at the Earthworks. Grandpa Cleary was an Imperial Rifleman in the Emperors’ Royal Watch. A fancy name for the men and women that manned the earthen wall on the western border. A fifty-foot-tall wall of sticks and mud that followed the Great River from the northern territories to the coast of the Southern Sea. It was muddy and cold and barren, but it separated the empire from the Burn. When the Burning ended not every man gave up their torch. The army pushed back as far as it could until the Great River there they held fast neither could push or be pushed. For 108 years the army held the line while Royal Engineers and captured prisoners pushed up the earth until it was too high and to steep to climb. But it didn’t stop the burners stripped naked and painted red and green they flung themselves at the Earthworks day after day after day. Either falling from exhaustion or the precise aim of a Rifleman. That was a thousand years ago and still grandpa said they would run at the wall, not the red naked hoards of the Burning but still enough to scare to shit out a civilized boy from New York.
Victor remembered the day that Rex Imperious Robert the seventh declared everything east of Babylon property of the Crown. The farmers and fishermen were compensated but not nearly enough to cover generations of holdings. Some townsfolk stayed but only to be turned into servants and attendings for the nobles and the royal family that began to build large estates from which they could escape the city. Grandpa moved to the city and was good for a few years, but he caught the lung disorder and coughed up blood till he died in his sleep a year later, grandma followed just a few months behind. The Hospital burned the bodies they wouldn’t even let the family near them for fear of spreading the disease. As his memories stretch and hummed along Victor fell fast asleep, a hard sleep, he needed the rest it had been an eventful day.
Victor awoke to darkness with orange flashes of light. His head was throbbing, and the world was fuzzy. He could see the amber green eyes of a women staring into his. She looked like she was shouting but all he could hear was a muffled ring. She jerked at his arms it is when he realized he was on his back on something hard and uncomfortable. The women continued to tug and yank pulling Victor to his feet. The air felt heavy and warm he smelled the dry smells of fire. Her voice was getting louder “We have to run, they are going to kill us!” His ears were clearing the cobwebs pulling free from his mind. He spun around to see the mangled mess of steel and wood that had been the Zephyr. He could make out gun fire and fires burned in multiple places. He ran back to what used to be his cabin, she clawed at his shoulders “We don’t have time for this, we have to go!” He pulled free and pawed at the wreckage to get to his pack. He fled after her into the forest.
They ran for what felt like forever. On a moon less, night the trees were slapping them in the face. After yet another fall onto his face he grabbed the woman’s arm pulling her to a complete stop. “We have to take a break, I don’t hear the screams anymore and I can’t see the glow of the fires either. “Can I catch my breath?” She fell back against a tree and slipped to the ground. Victor slipped his hand into the leather back not sure what was in it in the first place. He could feel the polished drift wood handle of a side arm. Not waiting to see if it was loaded or not he whipped it out pointing the barrel in the stranger’s face. She cringed pulling away and to the side to try and escape the hand cannon pointing at her face. “Lady as much as I appreciate you saving my life. Let’s face I don’t know who the fuck you are?” She slapped the barrel of the sidearm away from her face. The loud crack deafened both of them as the copper slug shattered the bark of the tree beside her. Well that answered his first question the sidearm had at least one shell in it. Her eyes grew wide and her throat dried up a little. He could see her cheeks flush against her dark olive skin even in the faint moon light. “What the fuck is your problem! A person saves your life and your first inclination is to blow her fucking head off!” She stood up and brushed herself off. He heard the thick accent of an Islander. He lowered the sidearm and released the hammer. “You’re a magistrate. The long braids, the accent and you may not be wearing them, but I can see multiple holes in that left ear.” He squatted down on his heels to go through the sea bag Kenbasa had given him. He might have something in there to get him out of this pear-shaped mess he was in at present. “So, magistrate what urgent mediation calls you to Chikago?” He paused glaring in her direction. She pouted her lips “I am not a magistrate.” She tried to sound convincing. “Well my dearey” he tried to fake the Islander accent “You’re not a fucking farmer or a trader or indentured.” She was trying hard to not be indignant, but it was showing. “Then what am I? It is my understanding that reaver are trained to smell deception and to sniff out the truth.” He stood back up. “And how are you so sure I am a reaver?” If a woman on a train could spot him then he really wasn’t that good a reaver. He scanned her top to bottom. Her dark wiry hair long and pulled into two tight braids one on each side disappearing down her back uniting somewhere above what he could assume was a spectacular backside based on the curviness of her hips. She had ditched the loose shirt and linen coat of a magistrate for a bodice and cotton button up. The bodice laced on the side and was pulled so tight that if she inhaled some helo those breasts just might get her off the ground. That sealed it though the tight leather pants struggling to hide those hips were the kind the craftsmen wore at the Spires. “So, sweetie did you steal those trousers, or did you just grab them off chair as you snuck out of your boyfriends’ room in the Candle?” He may have not been smart enough to find his way off a burning train, but he was smart enough to recognize a classy lady hiding as western train tramp. She mustered up her best puppy dog eyes “Let’s talk.”