Chapter Eleven

‘The second tier of the afterlife belonged to Paria. She led with an iron fist and controlled the second lowest portion.’ 

Caid would have gnawed his fingernails down to the nub out of anxiety had it not been for Alis and her idea to whittle. She provided him with a small chunk of wood and a carving blade, and he went to work. There was nothing particular he made, nor was he sure he could even make something if he wanted to. It helped to calm his nerves, however. It also helped to pass the time.  

Across from him, Alis had also started to tinker with something that started as hundreds of metal pieces, which she slowly turned into a small unrecognizable contraption.  

Caid had been willing to fight, but with Alis’s help, he had done something more. She had slipped what she called a two-way radio into Rawn’s room after following Caid into the Wardens’ compound. Alis explained it was a small piece of metal just tiny enough to be overlooked, but large enough to pick up every sound emitting from the room.  

So far, nothing of interest had happened, but Caid waited patiently; well, as patiently as he could.  

Caid stopped for a moment, looking down at the gnarled piece of wood. It resembled nothing. He was going at it with no sure idea of what it was supposed to be anyhow. He threw the wood onto his bedroll; his hands were getting sore.  

Alis looked up from her tinkering but said nothing. Her eyes quickly darted back to her work.  

Caid squeezed his eyes shut, knowing he wouldn’t sleep. He needed to clear his head and stop thinking about everything. If he could find a moment’s rest, he could recover and become his old self again. Then he could do the job he set out to do.  

That moment never came for Caid. The first noise across the radio was that of a door opening. Then he could hear the low, muffled laughter of someone who sounded an awful lot like Rawn.  

Caid sat up straight, forgetting about his desire to rest. This was now the most important thing in the world. He scooted closer to the speaker. Even Alis stopped what she did to listen. 

“Long day,” Maddog said.  

Caid heard a small sigh and a chair creaking. Caid could even imagine the exact small chair next to the wall.  

“The beginning of many long days,” Rawn replied. “Get your damn feet off my table.”  

“Sorry,” uttered Maddog. 

Caid could imagine Rawn shaking his head. Maddog would never have been Caid’s first choice as a confidant.  

“At least everything went as planned. No one is the wiser to us helping take the overseer and everything can continue as we had discussed.” Rawn’s voice was smug. He sounded like a proud child.  

“What do we do next?”  

Caid moved closer to the speaker, even though he could hear perfectly fine from where he sat.  

“We wait, that was the order given to us. So that is what we will do.”  

Caid looked over at Alis, who sat still with her work held in her hands. He heard confirmation that the Wardens had been the ones who kidnapped the overseer. Who had paid them to do it? How long had they been planning this?  

Caid knew for sure now what Geth had died for. He was the first in a series of deaths that had to occur for the Wardens to get involved in this game. Rawn must have known Caid would never agree to carry out something this messy. This was how things got out of control.  

The Wardens had taken high profile jobs before, and Caid never blinked an eye at taking them.  

The difference here was that they were doing it so loudly and boldly. They were not killing an overseer like the Wardens’ former contracts. They were taking him captive and making themselves into something they weren’t. The killing or capture of the overseer like this was how wars started and how thousands of people died. In the past, they would have done this quietly and the overseer would have appeared to have had an accident. Even if everyone knew different, it would have been impossible to prove. Not now though, Rawn allowed things to get out of hand.  

 “What do you think the city is doing right now?” Rawn asked after a few moments’ pause.  

“I can imagine they are excited that anything at all is happening. How boring it must be to be one of them. Work, sleep, death¾it’s all they have. This provides at least a dab of spice in their lives.”  

Caid doubted anyone found it an exciting prospect, but he had been in the city and hundreds of people were already rioting and losing their minds. It had been just what Maddog said, an excuse to step out of their everyday lives.  

“Well, they will see a lot of excitement before it is all said and done. This is only the beginning. The work in the mines will change everything for everyone,” Rawn said.  

This made Alis drop her work. The soft clatter onto her blanket drew Caid’s attention. She leaned forward, looking like she was ready to spring through the speaker and into Rawn’s chambers.  

“I am tired,” Rawn continued. “Go check on the overseer and make sure everything is as it should be. After that, get some rest. I think we are all going to need it.”  

Caid could hear Maddog pushing himself out of the chair. Rawn’s words were so casual. Although they had kidnapped the overseer, he spoke as though they had done nothing more than taken an evening stroll down to the docks.  

Alis started to pace. Something Rawn had said seemed to have made her even more anxious than Caid. She looked wound as tight as one of her metal springs. Caid reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping her.  

“What are you doing?” 

Alis blinked.  

“Did you not hear them?”  

Alis’s voice strained, as if she held back all her emotions.  

“I heard them; they have the overseer. We thought as much already, but it is shocking to hear, I agree.”  

Alis shook her head before Caid finished speaking.  

“That isn’t what I am talking about,” she said.  

Caid let go of her hand, and she stayed rooted.  

“What are you talking about, then?”  

“The one whose rooms they were in,” Alis paused.  

“His name is Rawn,” Caid answered the implied question.  

“Yes, Rawn, he said the activities in the mines would change everything.” Alis paused again as if this, more than the captive overseer, should alarm Caid.  

“We don’t know what he meant by that or what is going on in those mines.”  

Alis looked like she wanted to jump up and down in frustration.  

“That’s the point. People are dying in the mines. People are disappearing, never coming back. Don’t you think it is important? Why else are the Wardens going to the mines?” 

Alis almost sounded as if she pleaded with him. Caid wanted to be concerned. He wanted to feel the hurt of what it must be to lose parents, but he had no memories of his own parents, and the death of a loved one was still so foreign to him. He had killed many, but Geth was the first death that had ever really affected him.  

 “We have to figure it out before it’s too late.” 

Caid stood too.  

“Too late for what? We have no way to know what it is down there. What we know is the city will fall into civil war without the overseer. That is something I may can do something about.”  

Alis looked on the verge of tears but held it in.  

“You have to help,” she said, then paused, turning around. “You have to finish my training and then you can do whatever you please, but I need your help and you promised.”  

Caid let out a sigh. He needed to figure out where the Wardens were keeping the overseer. He needed to avenge his only friend’s death. What he didn’t need was to be babysitting a small girl with fantastical ideas of becoming a warden. He had told her he would train her, however, and what was a man without his word? 

“We can’t do anything tonight. We need a plan. Let’s sleep on it and figure out what we can do in the morning.”  

Caid finished talking; not awaiting an answer, he killed the lights, feeling his way back to his bed. Before long, he heard Alis sobbing softly into her pillow. She was, after all, just a normal girl.  

*** 

When Caid had been a little boy, it was always hard for him to get to sleep. The daily training combined withexcitement of the warden life thrilled him beyond imagination. After the initial excitement wore off, everything became routine and his sleeping problem faded away.  

Over the last few days, emotion-based insomnia had returned. Every time he closed his eyes, he only saw one thing- Geth. Not always did he see him in the same way. Sometimes he saw him just before death. Other times, he saw him lying in a puddle of blood, which was an exaggeration of his mind. Then, there were many instances of times where he suffered a slow, agonizing death.  

Caid had failed Geth. And he had failed a lot more since then.  

After not sleeping the night before, the sun seemed even brighter when Caid and Alis got outside; Caid used his hand to shield his eyes.  

“Try these,” Alis said from beside him.  

Caid looked down at her outstretched hand where she held a small pair of metal-framed spectacles with dark lenses.  

“What are they?”  

Alis shrugged. “They have no name, just put them on to block out the sun.”  

Caid put them on and instantly, the brightness of the day turned darker.  

“Thanks,” he said.  

Being able to see, as it turned out, wasn’t a blessing; it was a reminder that the nightmare in the city was real. It showed Caid his failures.  

“They are scared,” Alis said, looking at the citizens.  

Caid shook his head. They were all indeed very frightened. Maddog and Rawn may have thought they would be excited at the prospect of change, but Caid could see the real fear in their eyes.  

No one walked with their heads down in papers this morning. Everyone watched their neighbors, making sure they were safe from being the next person taken. Everyone was on edge and some were even throwing out the social norms and stealing from vendors or heckling without shame.  

The envoys were out in full patrol, and if Caid’s eyes could be trusted they were out in double patrol.  

“Paper, sir?”  

Caid looked down at the small boy carrying the overly large stack of newspapers. On a normal morning, the boy would have already sold out, but today people were too nervous to pull out their coin. They were more interested in getting off the streets, gossiping in the bars, or starting small pockets of resistance.  

Caid took one from the boy, scooting him along.  

“You should have paid him,” Alis scoffed. 

“Don’t have the money, remember?”  

He had already opened the paper, skimming the contents, but he could imagine Alis’s face scrunched, displeased with his actions.  

Caid ignored her. The small paperboy was the least of their concerns. The streets were ready to combust. The paper painted an even worse story. 

City on Edge: Protests pepper the districts, some in celebration of the overseer’s disappearance, others in protest of the lack of response.  

Caid expected the districts to divide into sides. The Wardens had taken the overseer, but Caid had no way to know why. He knew it had something to do with the mines. He also knew the political landscape had changed the day Maddog, and he had perched in that building in Parian. The overseer had declared his allegiance to helping the districts against the use of coal and other mining tools. It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that the mining districts were in full control of this kidnapping situation. Rawn had said he followed orders. 

“Isn’t that the man you keep calling Maddog?”  

Caid took a moment to pull his eyes from the article. Alis’s words sat on the edge of his consciousness for a moment before finally registering. His eyes shot up over the paper, instantly spotting two very familiar men. One was indeed Maddog, who he knew had the overseer somewhere in the city. The other man was Creaton, the Head Envoy of Parian. The two of them working together still boggled Caid’s mind.   

Deciding not to charge headlong into the two of them, Caid instead watched them disappear into a cart together, then travel up the road and out of sight.  

“What do you plan to do?”  

Caid had been with the Wardens since he was old enough to have memories. He had grown up in the compounds, learning all the secrets of every man around him. Yet, in all of that, he felt that no living man in the world knew him better than Creaton. If he could get any of his former friends to talk, it would be the Head Envoy of Parian.  

“I need to talk to Creaton,” Caid finally replied.  

Alis was already shaking her head, and Caid could see her internal wheels turning. Aside from Geth, this little girl may have been the most loyal person he had ever met. Caid walked over to her, putting his hand on her shoulder, drawing her back from her thoughts.  

“This is something I really need to do alone. Not because I don’t think you are capable. You have proven you are capable of many things. This is just something more personal. I need to talk with Creaton alone, and maybe I can get him to tell me what it is we need to know.”  

Alis searched Caid’s face; he knew the last thing she wanted was to be left behind. 

“I promise I will come back and tell you everything I find out,” he assured her.  

Some tension dropped from her face.  

“You had best come back,” Alis said.  

Caid nodded. “I will come back, don’t you worry.”  

*** 

When Creaton had left the Wardens to join the Parian Envoy, Caid still visited him when he could. One of Caid’s major complaints about his move, aside from Creaton just giving up on his warden family, was that the windows in Parian were too large. They seemed like glass gateways to the street. Caid never felt completely shielded behind them, and he always had the sense of being watched. Hence, he called Parian the district of no secrets. In time, he came to realize Parian was all secrets.  

Everyone hid something, and most people were hiding from even themselves. Caid only visited Creaton for a short time after his transition. Creaton’s attention became focused on other things, and Caid, as well as the Wardens, were thrown to the wayside. Creaton moved up in the Envoy ranks, and by the time he became head envoy, he was a faded memory.  

Caid had found other ways to spend his time. He thought of nothing but the Wardens, moving up the ranks himself. He aligned with all the right channels, and when it was time to take what he had earned, he felt indifferent to the power and gave it to Rawn, making the worst decision of his life.  

Sitting outside those same windows made Caid realize not only did the clear glass windows enable people to peer into each other’s lives, they also provided a point of entry.  

Had he not been a warden, or if his mind had still been cloudy, getting in would have been difficult, but Caid had a moment of clarity, and he was thinking clearer than he had since Geth’s death. The anxiety of talking to Creaton pushed Geth and the Wardens from his mind for the moment.   

Caid covered the flowered ground by staying hidden in the alcoves. He saw no guards, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Using the energy from his daliwin, Caid jumped higher than a normal man could achieve. Creaton’s bedroom window was on the second story of the home, but luckily not decorated with the flowerpots some other windows had. Caid grabbed the window ledge and dangled for a moment, pulling more energy from the daliwin and he hoisted himself up onto the ledge. He peered in through the window. He gathered more energy from the daliwin and created a small blade that he wedged into the space between the windows, unlocking the small clasp lock.   

Creaton looked up from under the covers as another form jumped up to his feet. The second man, who Caid did not recognize, covered himself, giving out a small squeal. Creaton pushed himself to a sitting position; a smile crept over his face.  

“Boy, you can go,” he said without looking over to the naked figure near his bed. The young man grabbed at a pile of clothes on the floor, hurriedly putting them on. With a look of scorn, he walked opposite of Caid and out of the door.  

Once the door slammed shut behind him, Creaton laughed. “I always wondered if you would make your way to my rooms again.”  

Caid wasn’t there to play any games. He was sure Creaton was on a power high after taking the overseer and turning on his own people a second time.  

“Sadly, you don’t look very happy to be here, Caid.”  

Creaton hadn’t moved from under the covers. Whatever his plan was, he had to know Caid could kill him easily. Creaton was naked and Caid highly doubted the two men had hidden a sword in the covers before they decided to play.  

“Come sit down with me, get under the covers for old time’s sake,” Creaton laughed.  

“Creaton,” Caid let out a sigh. “You know why I am here, don’t you?”  

Creaton shrugged. “I am starting to doubt it is a social visit.”   

“Don’t play games, Creaton, it is beneath us at this point.” 

Creaton moved to the edge of the bed. “Well if we won’t get under the covers, can I at least put on some pants? Or do you plan to slay me naked in bed?”  

Caid shook his head. “Maybe if I trusted you to just put on pants, but alas, I do not. So, I think it best you stay where you are for now.” 

Creaton stayed in place, not moving a muscle. “I assumed as much. So, what is it you want, old friend?”  

“Where is the overseer?” 

Creaton shrugged again. “How am I supposed to know the answer to that question?”  

“Considering you helped kidnap him, I would assume your friends would at least let you know where they are keeping him.” 

“I will assume you think you know something about what happened to the overseer. You would be wrong to link me to it. I am on the side of those who were benefitting by the man, why in hell would I kidnap him?” 

“You know as well as I the Wardens have taken the overseer, but to answer your question, I don’t know why you would do such a thing.”  

Creaton laughed. “You assume just because they didn’t want you anymore, they must be the ones who stuck their paws in this, huh? Is that what you thought when we no longer saw eye to eye? That I had become something evil?” 

“They killed Geth and struck me from my home,” Caid replied, feeling the anger building in his chest. His intentions had not been to kill Creaton, but that was now presenting itself as a possibility.   

“I don’t know if they killed Geth or not. Rawn had no choice but to eliminate you, Caid. He had to choose between you and a civil war. There were murmurs in the ranks of rising for you. If they allowed you to live, the Wardens would have destroyed everything we were building together. It wasn’t anything against you personally.”  

“You always were a crafty liar, Creaton.”  

“I am not lying, but if that is what you have to believe, then believe it. I wish there had been another way. If it had been up to me, I would have just let you leave the city. I never agreed with Rawn’s decision, but it was made and that was that. You know how orders go, sometimes you do things you don’t agree with for the greater good.”  

Caid thought back to the night Geth died. Those same thoughts had run through his mind. He had told himself he was just following orders, even if he didn’t agree with them. Those orders found his friend dead and eventually lost Caid his home.  

“I may have believed that at some point, but standing in front of you, I no longer believe blind allegiance is the best route.”  

Creaton laughed. “No one ever believes in ideals once they have been used against them. However, it is silly for us to debate. You came here to get information on something I know nothing about. The Wardens and Parian are not at fault for the overseer’s disappearance. I promise you that on my life, Caid, which you hold in your hands right now.” 

Caid stepped forward. Creaton was either lying or stupid, both of which were possibilities. Caid had been stupid. He had followed the path blindly and had almost lost his life for it.  

“Kill me if you must, Caid, but you are wrong about this.”  

Caid knew the truth; he had heard Rawn say the words with his own ears. How much did Creaton really know about what he did?  

Caid kept moving forward without a solid plan for the situation he was in now. The sound of the doorknob turning stopped Caid dead in his tracks, and both men looked at the opening door. Caid’s instincts kicked in; he bounded toward the window. He still had the drop on Creaton and could take him out, but who had Creaton’s partner alerted and did he really want Creaton dead? 

At the last minute, Caid turned, jumping backward onto the windowsill. He watched, with his heart pounding, as the door opened all the way. Creaton was still staring at him sitting very unmoving on the bed.  

“I see you are already ready for me,” a laughing voice said. Caid looked over to and saw Creft, the Seer of Parian, in a white robe, his long hair falling across his shoulders.  

Creaton turned toward him, taking his eyes off Caid. “I am always ready for you.”  

Caid took the opportunity to escape; he knew well enough what this meeting was all about. It had been the reason Creaton left the Wardens and Caid. Caid landed on the ground. There may still be an alarm, but Caid didn’t care, he walked slowly away from the home, let them come. He needed an outlet for his emotions.