Blurred Weaponry (Saints of the Void, Book 1)
by Michael Valdez
Copyright 2016 Michael Valdez
[Rural Alliances (Saints of the Void, Book 2) to be released Spring / Summer 2017]
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Table of Contents
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Afterword
~~~~
Prelude
Old Words
“You cannot help everyone. You choose. And even then, that choice may not bear fruit if the ones you choose to help refuse it, or if you make too many mistakes in execution. Loyalty, surprisingly, may be equally treacherous, equally confusing.
“Would you lie for fear of the reaction to the truth? If you saw a perfidious act in play, would you allow it to hurt yourself or your charge if it meant keeping a high status? Would you make yourself a monster to keep another from appearing worse? That can all be counted as loyalty. I ruined myself to keep faith of those who were not keeping faith in me. I did all of this, and what came of it?
“Nothing. The system stands as if I did not exist. It has pushed me aside, but only after having ground me to dust. With that said, I propose to finally take this action we have thought of for so long. We will break a system that we agree is broken, allow our patrons to abandon us in order to become, once again, true to our initial morality. There will be fire set to a diseased forest, allowing for new growth.
“The anomaly we devise will disrupt this great mistake we have made. And from those whose bonds we break, I only ask – and pray – to be understood.”
-Honorary Saint Junal Bin-Haak, circa 185 PCE
~~~~
Chapter 1
Origins and Explosions
Three friends sat in chairs around a desk, preparing for an “incredible” story to be told. It wasn’t going to be much of a story, and the narrator knew it. Although, he couldn’t let that be without a touch of flair, right? With a mysterious tinge to his delivery that would pay off in a few minutes, the narrator began the tale of his rebirth as an ineffective god:
It was the middle of the night in Davranis Central and a small crowd was shaking off the after-hypnosis haze of having been involuntarily made to do some necessary street repairs. The people, men and women of varying qualified ages, were chatting and milling about, doing their best to pretend like they hadn’t all basically been kidnapped from whatever they were doing. One man had a smudge of red, chunky sauce on an otherwise clean light-brown shirt – he may have been eating dinner nearby a few hours ago when he got roped in, spilling something on his way out.
A dark-skinned, wooly-headed, ten-year-old boy stood quietly near a closed sandwich shop, his form hidden in the shadows between two streetlights. He looked at the lingering crowd for a few minutes as they got their heads on straight. His heart sank when their delaying ended and everyone started walking away in different directions. The boy had been hoping someone would come get him, take him to where he belonged, call out his name, whatever it may be. The last handful of people left together, headed for the all-night bar down the street to drink away the actual and imagined stains of forced labor.
“No kidding,” said one of the listeners, oblivious of the fact that he was interrupting. “I was taken once, only once, and immediately got shit-faced.”
“A minute in and you’re already cutting in. Are you kidding me?” asked the narrator.
“What? I’m just commenting, being an excited audience member.”
A woman with a husky voice, the third person in the present-day room, piped in. “Audience members are typically quiet. So be quiet.”
“Fine, fine,” said the male listener, “I’ll zip it. Well, go on.”
The narrator cleared his throat and got back to his story.
As a mild rain came down, the boy sat on the edge of the sidewalk, this time under the light of a lamp, his form in full view. He was far too young to be taken by the Social Cypher for anything at all, but here he was. His arms and legs ached, a stinging soreness in all his extremities from the work he was made to do. Worse, he couldn’t remember where to go now, who he was, who cared for him. He thought he recognized the names of streets on the signs he could see, felt a familiarity with the arrangement of stores and short apartment buildings, but nothing else. So he didn’t go anywhere at all. The boy sat there and cried as his confusion circled around and around in his mind. When the rain began to fall heavier, he still didn’t move, and let his tears join the falling drops of water while his body shook from the cold and his sobs.
“Wow, that’s super sad...”
The woman sighed meaningfully, shuffled some paperwork, and the narrator tapped the table with an admonishing finger.
“Sorry, sorry.” An apologetic wave meant the story could continue.
The boy cried aloud until his throat was sore from it, then made himself sob quietly so it wouldn’t hurt as much. A little while after that, he couldn’t tell how long, he heard footsteps. The sound was growing in clarity, getting closer. It was a different noise than a sleeping city, rain hitting concrete, or his own misery. The steps made him finally open his eyes, which hurt like his throat by this point.
His tear-blurred vision registered three people across the street, not wearing rain gear or using umbrellas, their clothing casual and unremarkable. The three of them walked between two parked cars of the exact same model and strolled onto the street, heading directly for him. When they were under a light near their side of the street, he saw their eyes, colored like bars of silver. He couldn’t remember any people important to him, anyone at all honestly, but he still knew things, had basic knowledge. Those incredible eyes belonged only to Saints.
The constantly-interrupting jackass made a small noise under his breath that might have been an enthusiastic “yeaaaah.” The narrator ignored it so he could finish.
The three people – an older man, a middle-aged woman, and the middle-aged man leading them – walked until they were illuminated by the same streetlight that the boy sat under, and stayed a respectful distance away.
“Hello?” said the nervous boy after several seconds, the single word cracked in half because the syllables sent needles into his throat from the pain. He didn’t recognize his own voice, ruined as it was.
The man in the lead took the invitation and stepped forward.
<
br /> “Hello, son. Are you alright?”
The boy couldn’t help it and sobbed openly again. The middle-aged man knelt on the rain-slicked concrete. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, slowly, unsure if it would be shaken off.
“Clearly,” the man added, “you aren’t.”
“I don’t know... how to go home,” the boy said between sobs. “I don’t remember my parents.”
“Neither do I, not really. Glimpses here and there, the basic shape of a face, but nothing more. It’s terrifying, I understand, but you have a new life ahead of you, and we’ll do our best to make you part of our family.”
“I... what? Who are you?”
The middle-aged man laughed. It was bright and charming and real. “I’m a Saint. I’m sure you knew that. My name is Lonoj Ornadais.”
“What do you mean I ‘have a new life ahead?’”
“Well, you’re certainly doing better than me at this point,” Lonoj said after another, smaller laugh. “I distinctly remember throwing things. Thank you for not doing that. And by a new life, I mean a new life. Your old one has been taken from you. It’s not your fault, and there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
The boy was more confused now than earlier, and when he looked over at the other two Saints, they were calm, showing kind faces despite their strange eyes. They felt for the boy, for his situation, that was clear.
“I can’t go back?” the frightened ten-year-old asked.
Lonoj shook his head slowly, and got off his knee with a sigh. “I wished for a long time that I could, too. Many years. After becoming more and more of what I truly was, though, those feelings weren’t as strong.” He paused, scratched his head, wiped back his wet, thinning, graying hair. “Ugh, I’m sorry. That was really bad wasn’t it? I had that planned in my head for an hour and it sounded terrible out loud. I’m supposed to comfort you, and I think maybe I’m screwing that up. Sorry, son.”
The older man behind Lonoj laughed, it was a throaty, delightful rumble that made the boy smile. Then the woman’s composure broke, too, and she giggled.
“Let’s get to it,” Lonoj said through his own smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling until he got a hold of himself and made a somewhat straighter face. “I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that you’re not a normal person anymore, some kids fantasize about this after all. From this point on, you are a Saint. There is no place for you in this world that will be truly safe on your own. Some people hate us, some worship us as gods, but in either case, you cannot learn to be what you are without help from others of your kind.”
Lonoj extended his hand, the movement gentle, and waited. The boy stared at the hand for too long. He didn’t have anything else, not anymore, and these kind people were here for him. They showed up when he was broken and were offering to put him back together as a new person. What choice did he have? If he remembered who he was, maybe he could leave them and go home? For now, he wanted to be anywhere else but this cold street, in the dark and rain.
The boy extended his own hand slowly, and took the offered one. Lonoj helped him to his feet and smiled again. “Your name will be Cosamian Dastou, and I certainly hope you’ll make it easy on me as I teach you what was taught to me.”
Dastou sat still in the present day, waited, his story done. He kept quiet a little while longer, and smirked knowingly until he got what he wanted.
“Wait... There’s nothing else? Is that it?”
“No,” Dastou answered with cheeky joy. “And yes.”
Several seconds passed, and then the interrupter let his disappointment be known his usual way.
“Oh, you goddamn son of a bitch!”