The Cinders of Dezu

19th: Roots (2)

"It's an old tradition for Tomasi. It's a little bit like a play that  acts out part of the story."

Orion gently nudged her back to keep her moving as he spoke.

"What's the story?" she asked.

"It's kind of a long one. Plus, we're already here," the king said as he gestured to a rather solid looking cabin just ahead of them.

It had gray wood paneling and a black door with a guard posted out front. He was large but looked young with his chest puffed out. Raina thought he looked like he was taking his job very seriously. Orion waved to him as they approached and stroked his goatee.

The guards serious and furrowed brow loosened in surprise as he realized who he was. He stood at attention and smiled as he stepped aside. Orion stood in front of the door a moment. The young man nearly jumped as he started frantically grabbing for his keys. He fumbled trying to unlock the door before opening it quickly with a creak. Orion patted him on the shoulder as he headed in.

Raina followed him into a dimly lit series of rooms. It looked like a really small hotel hallway with creaky wooden floors and only a few rooms. Orion went two doors down to his right and knocked.

"Mallard?" he called, "Mallard, it's me."

Raina could hear rustling behind the door.

"'It's me'?"came the muffled voice from the other side.

The door cracked open.

"'It's me'! It's you!"

It was a middle aged man with turquoise skin and a full head of black hair that sloped to the side.

"It's... yes Mallard, me."

The turquoise man dropped his head as he looked his cloaked figure up and down. He didn't say anything as he stared in his face for second. Orion raised an eyebrow.

"Oh! Right, right!"

He stepped aside to let the king in. Raina looked up at him as she passed and Mallard gave her a puzzled look.

"The girl? Who is-"

"She's an associate Mallard. To business. What happened?" Orion said.

"Yes well, the touches I made to the experiments weren't enough. The thing responded but like you said, I didn't want to damage it irreparably so I leaned on the side of-"

"You're in a safe house, Mallard. Let's address that first," the king said, "What happened?"

Raina sat on a small stool in the corner of the dimly lit room. There wasn't much inside the small quarters. There were several candles sitting on hanging shelves on the walls, the stool with a small table in the corner where Raina sat, and a bed. A few books lined the walls in stacks with some knick-knacks and tools strewn about. There were no windows, which Raina thought was odd.
Orion sat on the bed as Mallard looked away. He then went to the door to make sure it was locked before speaking. He turned around with round eyes to the king.

"It wasn't safe with it. I wasn't... it just wasn't safe."

Orion motioned to him.

"Do you at least have it with you?"

Mallard gave a quick sigh and went to the side of his bed. He pulled up a wide canvas back and reached in with both of his arms. Gently he began wedging his hands back and forth, pulling something out. It took a moment before he produced a large spherical ball. Raina leaned forward and let her eyes adjust to the light a bit more. It was dark brown and looked like a large entangled ball of soot mired roots.

Orion stood and carefully lifted it from Mallards hands. He peered into it like he was looking for something.

"It looks good," he said softly.

"Sure," said Mallard, "I refused to risk any kind of disfigurement at all, like I said. And I was thorough. But this thing, I can't make heads or tails of it. I mean it's a mechanism of some kind. You referred to it as a weapon. And if it is, then all I can deduce is that it's a lever for that weapon. A lever that when pulled makes something somewhere do... something. But I simply don't have enough information. Not enough responses to stimulus to observe before the hunting started."

"Hunting?" the king asked.

Mallard nodded.

"I'm being hunted, your highness."

Orion's countenance fell.

"How do you know?"

Raina's ears and nose caught a sound and a scent   that both distracted and disturbed her. She looked down and around on the floor until she spotted movement in the corner. She got up to get a closer look. Ants. It was a trickling of them coming through a crack in the wall. The trickling became a current as more and more started coming through. She traced the trim around the room and noticed more separate streams coming in through the bottoms of the walls.

She looked to the corners and saw more. Then, along with the ants she noticed more. A worm managed its way out of a floor board next to Orion's foot while the two men were still deep in conversation. A beetle started crawling it's way up the leg of the small table. The creeping things were silent and odorless to most anyone else, but to Raina, she was overwhelmed by the essence of the creatures expressions. It was fear.