“Bj?rck!” says the young Dreyling, trotting up. “What in the hells are you doing up here? Why aren’t you at the gate?”
He glowers at Jakob Oskarsson, fifteen years his junior and yet several positions his superior. Bj?rck is keenly aware of the rumors that Oskarsson is the son of one of the Dreyling city leaders who helped drive out piracy, and thus was instrumental to the formation of the United Dreyling States; but Bj?rck is also keenly aware of the other rumors suggesting Oskarsson’s father was in league with the pirates, and only backstabbed them when he saw the writing on the wall. Whatever the cause, Jakob Oskarsson’s father was powerful enough to get his son into a good place at SDC, despite Oskarsson having no experience in construction or seafaring, and certainly no personal virtues of his own.
“Delivery for the general,” says Bj?rck gruffly. Then he adds, “Sir.”
“Delivery?” says Oskarsson. He bites at a fingernail. “How peculiar. Did you check it?”
“Of course I checked it, sir. It is a sword, just a sword.”
“A sword?” says Oskarsson, agog. “Who is sending the general a sword?”
“It comes from the fortress.” Bj?rck shrugs. “I know better than to question that.”
Oskarsson leans back on his heels and scratches his chin, thinking. “A special sword then, from the fortress, for the general…You know, Bj?rck, perhaps I should be the one to deliver this to the general. It would be more befitting of someone of my rank, yes?”
Bj?rck chooses to fix his gaze on a light pole four feet to Oskarsson’s right, fearing that if he were to look at this impudent creature’s face he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from breaking it. “As you wish, sir.” He hands it over. “She did say not to touch it.”
“Who did?”
“The messenger. That is what she said to me. Do not touch the contents.”
Oskarsson thinks about this, then shrugs, laughs, and places the box on the seawall. “Let me at least see what kind of sword this is.” He opens it up and, like Bj?rck, gasps at its beauty. “My word…What a creation of a thing this is.”
“Yes,” says Bj?rck dourly.
“Yet who could possibly wield it? It must almost be too heavy to lift.”
Oskarsson stares down into the mirrored blade, transfixed. Then something changes in his eyes, and Bj?rck realizes what he’s thinking.
“She…She did say not to touch it, sir,” says Bj?rck.
“And this woman, is she deputy security chief? Or better? Is she the CEO of SDC?”
“N-no, sir.”
“And if the deputy security chief wishes to place security first, and hold the sword just to see if it is dangerous, is that a bad thing?”
Bj?rck can tell that security is the farthest thing from Oskarsson’s mind: he wishes to hold this thing, to feel its heft and power. “I…I—”
“No,” says Oskarsson. “No it is not. At least, it is not if any sensible guard does not wish to be placed on suspension without pay, at least.”
Bj?rck knows that Oskarsson does not make idle threats when it comes to suspension. He shuts his mouth and looks away as Oskarsson laughs. “Always so serious, Bj?rck. That is your problem.” He reaches for the sword. “So serious that no one can ever stand to be around y—”
He stops short when his hand touches the sword. Then he just stands there, apparently frozen.
“Uh. Sir?”
Oskarsson stares straight ahead, mouth open, face blank.
“Oskarsson? Sir? Are you all right?”
He does not respond. His throat makes a few low clicks.
“Should I fetch a medic, sir?”
Bj?rck shivers then, not from fear but because it is suddenly bitterly, bitterly cold, as if an icy wind just happened to snake down the shore and through his sleeves. He glances at the sword and pauses, staring at its blade.
Just a few moments ago the blade was facing Oskarsson’s face, the young man’s arrogant eyes reflected back at him. But now it’s different. Now the face in the sword is not human at all.
It is like a mask, perhaps made of metal, wrought in the image of a crude, skeletal face, eyes small and far apart, the nose a tiny slit. Strange, monstrous-looking horns and tusks blossom from the back of the mask, like some kind of depraved substitution for hair.
Bj?rck looks at Oskarsson’s face. It is still the same face, though his gaze is dead and lifeless. Yet the sword now shows this other, distorted creature standing in his place.
All intelligence slowly dies in Oskarsson’s face. A slow exhale escapes from his lips in a hiss. Then the hiss catches voice and becomes a low, loud humming noise—a sustained om that grows and grows. The buzzing, moaning sound does not seem to get louder, but instead seems to burrow within Bj?rck’s ears and even his body, resonating with his feet, arms, bones, then with the very brick of the seawall road, an endless moan that far exceeds the capacity of any human lung.
“Sir,” says Bj?rck. “What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?”
Oskarsson lifts his head to stare at the sky. A waterfall of blood erupts from his eyes and nose and mouth, pouring out of his face to run down his body. Bj?rck watches in horror as the blood twists around Oskarsson’s shoulders, congealing and blackening, turning a rainbow of strange and monstrous colors, almost seeming to harden. It is as if this rain of gore has its own mind and it is cocooning him, remaking him into…something.
Bj?rck shrieks in terror. Perhaps it is out of instinct—or perhaps it is due to his own long-suppressed feelings about Oskarsson himself—but Bj?rck darts forward and shoves Oskarsson, sending the man toppling backward, over the seawall and into the dark waters, still clutching the immensely heavy sword.
There’s a quiet sploosh. Bj?rck looks at his hands, which are covered in dark blood. Then, screaming, he sprints for the nearest guard.
***
“Hold on,” says Mulaghesh.
“Yes,” says Sigrud, bristling. “Hold on.”
Signe holds her hands up with the air of a schoolteacher asking for silence. “I have already considered your objections. You,” she says to Mulaghesh, “don’t want me around because you don’t trust me. However, I am likely the person who knows the coastline the best, as I’ve been staring at maps of it for what feels like most of my life. And I’m the one who’s been there. And you,” she says to Sigrud, “don’t want me to do it because you think it’s dangerous. You would prefer to do it yourself, because you are used to being in danger, and in fact you prefer to do this sort of dashing skullduggery rather than do what you need to be doing, which is staying here and inspiring the one thousand Dreylings working night and day to keep their national economy afloat. However, having seen morale hugely increase since your arrival, I will not allow it to now fall. Your place is here, with the people who are working for you. In the grand scheme of things, I am”—she grits her teeth, and seems to have to dig the final words out of some nasty part of herself—“less important than you.”