Red Wishes Black Ink

Uicha de Orak, Wildcard of the 6th Renown, representing the Forgotten One, in for a taste test

Peplucaria, Alchemist of the 4th Renown, Gen'bi Nomads, overbearingly rich

Lavicta, Elementalist of the 10th Renown, Gen'bi Nomads, extremely sour

Sosupacia, Quill of the Gen'bi Nomads, a lingering aftertaste

22 Blossum, 61 AW

The Gen'bi desert

38 days until the next Granting

"It'll be my first Granting, too," Peplucaria said. "I was hard for it, boy. You know I was. Who don't want that power, huh? They made it out like a big honor, practically had me begging the old bastard to get that quill out. Come on, daddy, send me to the worm, you know?"

Uicha cleared his throat. His mouth felt dry, even though Peplucaria had been the one doing all the talking. "Yeah," he replied.

"We usually wish for shit like lizards whose meat don't go bad, or fat horses that make water." Peplucaria reached over the paddock fence to slap a horsasis on the rear, the beast twitching its tail in response. "Come to find out, they got suicide planned for this year. I start thinking, damn, did they only invite me so I could get ripped apart by the blondes? You seen the blondes, Uicha boy?"

Uicha shook his head. "I don't know who you mean."

"Crucifalians," Peplucaria said with a whistle. He tilted his good ear toward Uicha, which he did on those rare occasions that it was Uicha's turn to speak.

"Oh, I did meet a Crucifalian," Uicha said. "But she was with the Ministry."

"No husband? That's found money right there, Uicha boy." Peplucaria pumped his eyebrows. "I can think of worse ways to go. Getting crooned into an early grave by Buddy Banjo and his three big-titted wives? That's the heat right there. The absolute heat. I'd buy a finely detailed sketchbook of that shit, boy, if it was happening to some other chump and not me, you know?"

Uicha felt like he had back in Ambergran when listening to older boys talk about each other's sisters—slightly uncomfortable and a little embarrassed. With every sentence, Peplucaria's voice got higher and louder. He was more animated than any of the other Gen'bi tending the garden or enjoying the pool, who mostly murmured to each other in clipped sentences. Uicha got the sense that the nearby Gen'bi, forced to eavesdrop whether they wanted to or not, were as agitated with Peplucaria's presence as Uicha. While the Gen'bi here in Messoratia's fortress had been indifferent to Uicha's arrival, they cast frequent sidelong glances toward Peplucaria. The animosity of his people only seemed to make Peplucaria talk louder.

"Hey, Uicha boy," he said, leaning closer as he spun off to a new topic. "Let me see it, huh?"

"See what?"

"The crimson, baby. Your marks." Peplucaria tongued one of his studded canines. "Shit, how'd it even go down like that? Nobody asked me. Nobody gave me the option. I'm the screamer's ace, Uicha boy, and he don't even give me a look? How'd you do it?"

The Gen'bi's fingers wiggled near Uicha's chest, but fell short of actually touching him. Uicha resisted the urge to take a step back, instead staring down at the shorter champion.

"I was empty," Uicha said, recalling Kayenna's words. "A blankness of spirit."

Peplucaria snapped his fingers. "That's the heat, Uicha boy. Empty. That's the hardest shit I hea—"

"Shut the fuck up, Peplucaria!"

Lavicta approached on long strides with her slingshot in hand, twirling the weapon so that with every revolution the leather slapped loud against her wrist. Relieved, Uicha took a subtle step away from Peplucaria, who tittered at his fellow champion's words.

"I should put one between your eyes, boy," Lavicta continued. "Right into that hollow head of yours."

Peplucaria put his hands on his hips, elbows back, and puffed his chest like a rooster. "You always talked so damn annoying, Lavicta, and I like the sound of it even less now that I've got my Ink," he said. "Like you're the hero of some campfire story and the rest of us are just assholes."

"You are an asshole," Lavicta said. "Running your mouth. Going to get us all killed."

"I got clients, you hag. Need to prepare them," Peplucaria replied. "Man, you old asses spend your whole lives running around like wild horses with fleas. Oh, what's biting me? What's biting me? Pathetic shit, right, Uicha boy? I'm actually trying to—"

Lavicta's hands blurred. In less than a second, she loaded a smooth stone into her slingshot, aimed at Peplucaria, and fired. To his credit, the young Gen'bi had sharp reflexes. He dove over the paddock fence, into the chalky mud churned up by the horsasis. The rock hit the fence with a sharp thwap. Peplucaria didn't respond with any violence of his own, instead scuttling backward into the paddock, and out of sight.

"You shouldn't have talked to him," Lavicta said, clasping Uicha's upper arm.

Uicha let her lead him toward the pool. "I didn't do much talking."

Lavicta snorted. "Sosupacia will speak with you now."

The Gen'bi Quill sat at the far end of the pool in his undershorts, dangling his scrawny legs in the water. He didn't look like he intended to get dressed on account of a visitor. Sosupacia was skinny, his old bones starting to curl, probably the same age as Uicha's grandfather. He wore a wide-brimmed hat tilted way back on his sunburned bald head. A red-dyed beard shaped into a point made his face look like a knuckle-knife.

"What am I supposed to say?" Uicha asked.

"The truth," Lavicta replied. "He's old and useless, but he ain't dumb. Maybe he can help you. Maybe we can all help each other."

Those were as many words as Uicha had ever heard Lavicta string together all at once. They almost sounded encouraging. She released Uicha's arm and let him walk the last few yards to the Quill on his own.

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"Hello," the old man said. "I'm Sosupacia."

"Uicha. But you know that."

"Yes." Sosupacia stuck a pinkie in his ear. "I've heard of you."

"Sorry about that," Uicha replied.

"Somehow, I don't think it's your fault."

Faced with the seated Quill, Uicha didn't know how to position himself. He ended up lowering himself into an awkward crouch at the corner of the pool, so the old man didn't have to look up at him.

"Feel free to put your feet in," Sosupacia said.

"Maybe later," Uicha replied.

"Lavicta told me about your situation. Do you mind if I get a look at it?"

Uicha didn't have to ask what Sosupacia meant. He glanced over his shoulder. Lavicta kept at a distance, Peplucaria was nowhere to be seen, and the rest of the Gen'bi had gone back to studiously ignoring him. With a shrug, Uicha pulled his cloak open and tugged loose the strings on his shirt, exposing first the crimson box on his neck and then the symbols that spiraled down his chest. Sosupacia pulled on the corner of one eye, as if to see better.

"And it doesn't come off?" he asked.

"No."

"We had plenty of ours try to mess with it," Sosupacia said. "Thinking went, for a while, that we could use more builders like Messo. Saw a man get a line wrong and his skeleton ripped right out of his skin, bones stacked up on themselves like a house. Nobody slept that night, on account of the laughter in our heads. Didn't seem too funny to me. Anyhow, we don't get so many folks playing around now. Not even your new friend Pep is that reckless. Maybe that changes, though, now that they got a glimpse of you."

"I didn't get this from playing around," Uicha said, trying to sand down the bitterness in his voice. "It was forced on me."

"Maybe that's so, but nobody dragged you here."

"I suppose not," Uicha said.

"So, what did you come for?" Sosupacia asked. "You looking for more?"

Uicha started to answer no, but that didn't feel entirely truthful. At the mere mention of more chanic, he felt the heat on his chest rise. His stash was gone now, used to make a gargoyle into a champion. He'd been avoiding using those last vials on himself, but he liked knowing they were there.

The pause lingered too long and Uicha sensed a wariness creep into Sosupacia's eyes.

"I don't know what I'm looking for," he said. "Mostly, I needed a place to hide. There are people after me. I needed to lay low and figure some things out."

Sosupacia nodded. "Good place to hide. Nobody wants to look here. Not so great a place to get your head straight."

"I'm learning that."

The Quill pursed his lips, then bent forward with a popping sound, and cupped a handful of water. He dumped this across his own chest and let it trickle down.

"Lavicta says you don't know what it is," Sosupacia said. "The screamer. She said you don't know more than we do."

"It's a god," Uicha said. "There's a god trapped under your desert."

Sosupacia's hands trembled. "You make that up, just now?"

"No," Uicha said. "I don't know how, or why, or what it wants exactly, except for more people like me, with its mark."

"Is it good?" Sosupacia asked, his voice small like a boy's. "Or is it bad?"

Uicha considered the question. "I don't know."

"Are you?"

"Good or bad?"

"Yes."

"I think I'm good," Uicha said. "I mean to be, anyway."

"Who doesn't?"

Uicha rocked back on his heels, unsure how to respond to that. Sosupacia reached down to trace patterns in the water with his index finger. Looping figure eights, over and over, though never overlapping. There was no reason to the movement, yet it almost felt hypnotic.

"Long as any of us can remember, we been wandering this desert, driven by a voice that don't shut up," Sosupacia said. "Always yelling. Always angry. Always in pain."

A sharp cry echoed through the fortress. A baby's cry. The birth had been successful.

"And yet, we never leave," Sosupacia continued. "We make new Gen'bi. Some think that it's our duty to stay, to endure. Some think it's our duty to search until we satisfy the screamer. Your god."

Sosupacia plunged his fist under the water—turning it, turning it.

"Years back, we found the first pockets of chanic, bubbling up from the sands. Like the Ink of our champions, but red. Blood of the ge'chan, someone decided. The gods of magic busted an artery in our desert. As good a story as any, I figured. The screamer, your Forgotten One, he led us to those places. He showed us where to dig. And dig we did."

Sosupacia lifted up his hand and wiped it dry on his shorts. Uicha waited for him to continue.

"We ain't monks out here. We want things. Word got out and the outsiders came." The old man began ticking off his fingers. "The Bay. Crucifalia. Magelab. They can dig in our desert, but they don't have to listen, like we do."

"I didn't…" Uicha shook his head. "Like I said, I didn't seek this out."

Sosupacia held up a finger. "Some of us want to search. Some of us want to dig and they don't mind the help from these others. Some of us figure that if we let the screamer out—let his chanic flow free—then maybe he'll shut up and leave us alone. But then, some of us figure the opposite. They think we're here to endure, like I said before. That we're guards. And like any prisoner, the screamer is rattling his cup against the bars, trying to make us lose control. Baiting us into our last mistake. You see?"

"Which do you believe?" Uicha asked quietly. He glanced over his shoulder. "What about Lavicta?"

"I'm an old man. I don't make my mind up easily anymore," Sosupacia said with a forced smile. "The more important question is, what do you believe?"

"Me?" Uicha tilted his head. "I'm not a Gen'bi."

Sosupacia twirled his finger at Uicha's chest. "You could be, though, couldn't you? You could take the scorpion's tail, just for a little while."

Uicha pulled his shirt and cloak closed. Behind him, he heard the leather snap of Lavicta's slingshot. She'd started turning it over in her hand again. He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his head. Uicha wondered what she might be tempted to do if he used [Disloyal] and made himself a Gen'bi.

"No," Uicha said. "I don't want to."

Sosupacia frowned. "Why not?"

"I don't want to hear him," Uicha said. "I'm afraid he won't go away."

"Fair enough."

Sosupacia twisted his gnarled body and hooked a satchel on the ground behind him. He tugged it over and pulled free a garnet-colored fruit covered in twinned spines. A viperfruit.

"You look hungry," Sosupacia said as he split the fruit open with his thumbs, the spines breaking off against his palms. "Lavicta's a hard traveling companion. Get some food, some rest, and we'll talk more later."

Uicha accepted the chunk of viperfruit. He looked down at the dripping crimson flesh.

"I know what this will do to me," Uicha said.

"Oh?"

"You won't be able to hurt me. And I won't hurt you," Uicha said. "I'm not sure what I said wrong, but I want you to trust me."

Uicha scooped the viperfruit into his mouth. It felt cool on his tongue and tasted sweet, with only the faintest hint of bitter copper. He finished the whole thing while Sosupacia watched, then sucked the juice off the rind, and off his fingers.

"I told you I saw a man whose bones ripped right out of his body when he tested the chanic," Sosupacia said.

Uicha nodded. A heaviness was already spreading through him. It felt like sinking. He wobbled forward, out of his crouch, and Sosupacia caught him in his skinny arms. He eased Uicha down alongside him.

"That man was my lover," Sosupacia said. "I been back-and-forth my whole life, until that day."

The sun was going down. Uicha leaned his head against Sosupacia's shoulder.

"You tell that gods of yours, he ain't going nowhere."

When Uicha awoke, it was night. Pitch black. Cold stone pressed against his skin, gently cradling him. He stirred. His head felt fuzzy, but otherwise his body seemed intact. Of course, it would be. Like he'd said, the Gen'bi couldn't hurt him. They could only inconvenience him. Uicha stretched and—

Light poured in. Above him, the Firstson's wings parted, and Uicha realized that he'd been sleeping in the gargoyle's arms, shielded from the sun by the monster's broad wings. The Firstson softly set him down in the sand, next to a single canteen, Uicha's satchel, and his scimitar.

"Sleep," the Firstson declared. "Too much."

Uicha waved him off. He reached for the canteen and took a swig. The water was foul in its heat, so he used [Ice Mastery] to chill it. At least he didn't have to worry about dehydration. He could make more ice than he'd need. If the Gen'bi had been kinder, he could've showed them.

The fortress was gone and so were the Gen'bi. The desert empty and vast, as usual. All of it looked the same to Uicha. The Firstson helped him to his feet and he started to spin about, to decide which direction to go, and that's when Uicha realized they weren't alone.

"Uicha boy, you didn't tell me you got a man-goyle," Peplucaria said. "You should've chiseled him a cock. It's embarrassing."

"Fuck," Uicha said.

The Gen'bi slouched atop a sleek horse with back legs like scythe blades. He held the reins of a second similar animal. Peplucaria grinned at Uicha, his jewelry flashing brightly enough to make Uicha wince.

"I told you not to eat the fruit," Peplucaria said.

"I thought it might…" Uicha waved his hands. "Prove something."

"Proved you're a dumbass." Peplucaria shook the reins. "You want to ride with me or not?"

Uicha sighed. "Where are you going?"

"I got a client to see. Old business, new again. This bitch, she got the biggest balls I've ever seen." Peplucaria pushed down his hat and pointed into the distance. "I'm going east, Uicha boy. You ever been to Beacon?"