It was the night of The Great Refrain. Laughter erupted in the bar, people danced, swaying into walls with beer spilling on their clothes. The room, well lit, with vast medallions hanging from the ceiling emitting vibrant yellow light. In the corner was a band, blasting their trumpets, creating a cacophony of wild music, enough to get anyone off their feets.
Daren sat still, his body shrouded in a thick black robe, the hode covering his face. He watched the wooden jug of beer in front of him, felt its rough edges, and drank it slowly. A beer these days should be enjoyed slowly, with every sip savoured to its utmost extent. The people around him wore long layered black robes, quite like himself, with wide sleeves. They wore high quality silk-bend slash, sometimes coming with a metal clasp, a short overcoat with patterned lining, made visible when they walked, and soft boots with embroidered trim. Most of them were embodied with the river mark, pale blue currents under the skin. The mark wrapped around their arms or legs, starting off as one thick main current line, then splitting into two, then four, then dozens of tiny tributaries, each branch splitting again into even finer branches.
They were the Yunari, thick-short black hair, brown skin, tall-limp figure and narrow eyes. They were a loud sort of people to say the least, at least that's what Daren observed from his short time here. They sang loudly, they talked with blaring voices, always in a hurry, always doing tasks quickly, weird to say the least.
Daren signed, he took the last chug of his mug, and slammed it onto the table, his head faced downwards.
"Gloomy are we? On a night like this?"
Said the elderly man serving him, his back hunched over, his figure looked as if it would collapse with the smallest touch.
Daren didn't answer, he just didn't care, didn't care for who they were, didn't care for their traditions, their value, he only cared about the job he came to do, the job he did countless times.
He got up from his seat, and walked towards the guards guarding a narrow passageway. The floor was made of crystal clear glass, showing the reflection of the whole room, each step ringing out like crisp, glassy pings.
The guards wore a short coat over a tunic, lamellar vests, a cloth cap under a light helmet and short arm wraps. In their right hands, they held a metal spear.
The heavy air became apparent, but Darren's heart remained calm, he showed no signs of fear and distress. Just get the job done and move on.
"Stop!" The guards said, pointing they're palms out as they glared towards Darren intimidatingly.
"I have a message for the king". Said Darren loudly and calmly.
"No outsiders allowed during The Great Refrain, come around another time"
"Come on gentlemen, surely an urgent message during a time when kingdoms are at each other's throats deserves some recognition don't you think? It could be the difference between life and death? "
The guards looked at each, their eyebrows raised and their muscles tensed.
"And who are you delivering this message on behalf of?"
"On behalf of the mighty lady Trunnel herself, you see she has a good relationship with the king and has sent me to deliver this urgent message."
"And where is your proof?"
" Right here gentlemen"
Darren slid his robe aside from his waist, revealing the emblem of the high court stitched into the inner layer, a depiction of a three headed cat.
The guards nodded, checked Darren for any weapons, and let him through.
It was easy, too easy, if this kingdom falls, it deserves to fall for their lack of stupidity, no check for a mark, they didn't even question his looks. And that lady Trunnel, a quick slice through the neck when she wasn't looking got the job done-they probably still haven't found her body yet.
Darren walked across the narrow hallway, built on yellow glass, when two more guards came marching down. Darren signed, it just won't end, if they find out, a quick slash should do it.
"Hey, you there, where do you think you are off to, visitors are not allowed down here!" Screamed the guards, as they ran towards him.
Darren's mark started to twitch, he stabilised his body, dropped his shoulders.
"Take that hood off, who are you?"
He planted his feet, and relaxed his wrists. He focused on the fractal on his neck, a thin jagged black line running across his skin like serrated teeth,with countless tiny inlets branching off from it like shorelines on a map. He concentrated on each edge, going deeper, feeling its sharpness. His body felt like a blade held perfectly still. His heartbeat calm and loud.
He dropped his hood, making the coastline mark embedded on his neck visible. The guards grunted and stood still, pointing their spears at him.
"A coastline? Here? How?" They said,
He breathed deeply, the world becoming quieter, more narrow, his mind now imaging a straight line, slowly turning jagged, becoming more sharp. His mark twitched rapidly, it felt like blades were cutting his neck, a familiar feeling.
"Well lads, It's been nice meeting ya"?
He pointed his finger towards them, his finger appeared to become distorted, curving inwards-forming a human blade.
In the first heartbeat, he leapt towards them-too fast for them to perceive.
In the second heartbeat, he sliced one of the guard's bodies vertically down to the floor, the guard's body getting spitting into two ends, both crumbing towards the ground.
In the third heartbeat, he sliced the second guard's head off, like a knife through warm butter.
In a matter of seconds, the guards plummeted towards the floor, making one soft, clean noise as they hit the ground. Darren moved forward, tossing the head in his hands like a ball, to him- this was no different to killing a goat on a farm. He lost all human connections a long time ago, when he took his first victim. He remembered the oozing blood vomiting out of the victim's mouth, the skin going pale and the life leaving their eyes, as they tried to muster as much courage to even speak. Every night, he saw the victim's pale lifeless face, staring back at him. To them, this was a rite of passage, to kill was to go into adulthood, to fail was to be ridiculed by society. He got used to it eventually, to the point where it became as usual as eating dinner.
The sound was loud, a silent thud when the bodies fell, it was enough to alert the entire system. Suddenly, Darren found himself in front of an army of guards, looking at him with fear, their spears pointed towards him. This wasn't good, he couldn't waste anymore time, he had to get to the king. Fighting wasn't optimal, it would waste too much precious time, allowing the king to escape. He could not let that happen, failing a mission means getting hanged in front of the whole empire by your lungs-the blood eagle,even if it's an impossible mission like this.
The guards surrounded him in a circle formation,cutting off all escapes. Darren remained calm, his breathing deep, with consistent inhales and exhales. He examined his situation, there may perhaps be no way forward for the ordinary person, but he wasn't ordinary. What he had, what his mark gave him that others lacked was speed, and an extraordinary eye to detail. He once again lost his body, looking directly at the man in front of him. The man gulped, sweat raining down his face as his legs shaking like reeds in the wind.
Darren stabilized his heartbeat, and focused on the man's joints, the ones in between his limbs. He imagined himself as a sharp knife cutting through, his mark vibrated with intent. At an instance, he dashed towards the man, head first, his head seemed to become deformed, giving rise to disturbing sharp blades made of human flesh. The man's right arm fell to the ground, spewing blood to the ground as he screamed in agony. Darren sprinted forward into the corridor past the circle, the rest of the guards following him.
It was strange, for a kingdom that has a pattern well, they were relatively weak, as if they have never encountered war in their lifetime. It seemed as if they lacked the basic intelligence to even comprehend fractals, their purpose-let alone why the world is descending into chaos. The whole purpose of this mission was to kill, undermine the kingdom, till eventually we wage war and seize the pattern well-but something was missing, was their pattern well even functional?
He ran through the corridor, his boots striking the yellow glass in sharp, ringing pins. Behind him, the guards thundered after him, their shouts multiplying in the narrow passage.
He didn't need to outrun them, he only needed to break the distance.
His eyes locked onto the next archway ahead, A straight line formed in his mind-clean, undeniable. A seam stretched through the air from his chest to the stone.
He cut it.
The world stuttered
One moment, he was mid-stride -then he was meters ahead, the corridor shortened like someone had folded it. Pain flared along the coastline mark on his neck, thin and sharp, but he didn't slow, he drew another line, another seam-
And skipped ahead.
"He -he's jumping forward!"
"No….he's cutting the distance."
He didn' t hesitate, the place had a spine, and he was already on it.
The corridor straightened into a yellow glass spine, and Darren followed it. Every palace had an inner ring, every inner ring had a still point, and the king slept closest to it. His boots rang once, twice-then the world stuttered as he cut the distance in front of him, the shouts of the guards now echoing behind him.The air grew colder, the light dimmed. And then, as if the palace itself had been holding its breath, he found himself standing before a tall door carved with a silent, repeating pattern -king Ryuhen's chamber.
The door was carved with branching grooves, like a river delta frozen into wood. Darren reached for the handle-
and the surface slid away from him.
Not physically. Not visibly.
His fingers just refused to land where he wanted them to, as if the door was coated in an invisible current. Damp air pressed against his skin, the grooves shimmered faintly, alive.
A River Seal.
Daren exhaled slowly, he lowered his hands, his eyes narrowing.
He didn't need to fight the flow, he only needed to find it when it repeated.
The coastline mark on his neck twitched.
In his mind, the current became a line, then a seam, then something meant to be cut.
Darren breathed slowly, his whole body was now shaking with exhaustion.
'Already? Did I already overdo it?" He thought, trying to get in control of his hands, as they moved without his will. No, this wasn't the time for hesitance, he came here to accomplish a mission and that's his main priority.
In his mind, he leaped forward, the seam a sharp line running through the door, he cut it and the door creaked open.
Inside was not an army waiting, instead what he found standing in front of him was a man, heavily coated in thick metal armor from head to toe, the light glimmering of its sheets. It was the king itself, he stood towering over Darren, looking at him sharply in the eye. Darren gasped silently, breath caught in this throat. Was this expected? They knew he was coming after them? How?
"You think we didn't know, you think we weren't prepared!" Screamed the king, his voice muffled by this helmet.
"What are you fighting for? What you seek isn't here."
Isn't here? They didn't possess the pattern well? They tricked us? Then what was the point of this war?
The king reached towards his shadow on the ground, his arm vanishing into a wavering curtain on the ground, as the shadow moved like water. A second later, steel emerged, dripping with cold mist.
Darren's eyes widened, his face becoming strikingly pale. He saw something that didn't cohere to the laws of reality, like something that shouldn't exist, a mistake.
Ryuhen's river mark shimmered across his arm like pale currents beneath the skin, and the air around him thick and damp.
Then the hammer emerged.
It wasn't steel.
The head was carved from Eternium- a deep polish black like obsidian that swallowed the torchlight instead of reflecting it, as if night itself had been forged into metal. Thin silver veins ran through it, branching and splitting into smaller patterns the closer Darren looked, The light on its surface didn't slide, it stuttered, jumping in tiny steps, and the moment the hammer cleared the air, the room answered with a second sound.
Clang…clang.
One strike of metal against nothing, and yet reality echoed twice.
Darren felt it in his teeth, in his bones.
A weapon made to punish marks, made to drag infinity back into its cage. It was strikingly beautiful.
For the first time that night, his breathing shifted.
He had to act quick, he didn't know the properties of Eternium, this was the first he saw in his 30 years. He had to finish the job before Ryuhen had time to react. He instantly focused deeply on his coastline mark, in his mind he zoomed into the edges, giving rise to more edges, each sharper than the next. His whole body began to tighten, like a living blade meant to cut, every strand of skin sharper than steel.
This was it, he gritted his teeth, and with one deep breath-he propelled himself forward, swiftly moving his hand in horizontal body towards Ryuhen's torso. And Ryuhen's body slipped away–
As if disfigured to avoid his movements, Darren's hand refused to hit, slicing through thin air as he landed behind the king. Was this the doing of his mark, he was that advanced?
"Don't underestimate me, I am not like the ones you fought before." Declared Ryuhen.
Darren flinched, but this wasn't the time for questioning, he had to kill the king and fast. He propelled himself again, striking his hands towards Ryuhen like a swift spear trying to penetrate skin. None hit-
His body didn't obey him, his attacks hitting thin air.
Ryuhen gripped his hammer tightly, lifted it off the ground and slammed it towards Darren. Darren dodged, with the ends of the hammer piercing his skin, giving him a scar. A narrow escape. One hit from the hammer would mean death, he had to be careful.
Ryuhen stopped at his tracks, grinning at Darren, his feet planted firmly on the ground.
"Well that does it." Said the king.
What did he mean? Darren didn't understand the magic of Eternium, did he do something? However, his body felt fine, still light, loose and mobile.
His earlier strategy clearly wasn't working, he had to go deeper, focus more firmly on the pattern of his fractal. He had to explore the deepest parts of the mark, he had only focused to this extent one other time, when he was on the brink of death.
The coastline mark not only had the ability to turn its user's body into a sharp object, but so to the environment. However, going that far could lead him to madness, a fate worse than death. He would be left repeating patterns till the day he died. But it was his only shot, if he died now-someone will replace him anyways.
Darren thought quickly, his mind racing, his heartbeat fast. As sweat trickled down his face- he closed his eyes and briefly imagined the room warping- the glass turning into a sharp blades. His mark was now throbbing on his skin, stabbing his neck.
"Aak!"
He ground in agony, he snapped out-his eyes red, his body pulsating as he struggled to walk. What happened? It's as if he had been shut out of his mark?
"Now that's what happens when this metal touches you-it prompts you out of your mark." Grinned the king, as he walked closer to Darren.
"It's a sort of repressor see, and instrument that defies the laws of existence"
An instrument that defies the laws of existence? Such a thing existed. Was this it? The end of his life?
He heard the Ryuhen's footsteps draw closer, as he kneeled down on the floor spitting up blood, the king's laughter blaring through his ears.
"The pattern well, it was destroyed long ago, you came here to die."
No, he couldn't stop, he must keep going, even if he were to die, the least he could do is take someone with him.
Ryuhen reached Darren, looked at him with pity and raised his hammer.
Just a bit more…