Saints of the Void: Atypical Read online

  Saints of the Void: Atypical, Part 1

  By Michael Valdez

  Copyright 2013 Michael Valdez

  Smashwords Edition

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Afterword

  Dedication

  Dedicated to a great many people, as obviously I wouldn’t be the person I am without all the connections the universe as a whole has granted me. Specifically, there are two people I’d like to show some appreciation for in this, my initial “published” work.

  The first is a young woman of great talent who embarrassed me to the point where I forced myself to get better. Her easy layering of ideas made me feel like a total dupe sometimes, but it was worth it. Without such accidental humiliation I might not have accepted the challenge of finally putting the “Saints of the Void” universe in the form it will be for these stories. Thank you, Talls. I wish you and your family health, safety, comfort, and an abundance of Sabbaths.

  The second is another young woman of great talent. This person’s writing is punchy, clever, personal, and feisty. It, and she, prompted me to get better at doing a lot with fewer words in my work, making everything I do from here on out at least a little bit hers. A lot of side-project experimenting I did that helped me improve was also directly related to her inspiration. Thank you, Little One. Keep yourself well, be smart, be real, be careful, and stay gluten-free.

  (Also, the hacky sack is working wonderfully as a paperweight for my notes)

  Prologue

  “You cannot help everyone. You choose. And even then, that choice may not bear fruit if the ones you choose to help refuse it, or if you make too many mistakes in execution. Loyalty, surprisingly, may be just as treacherous, just as confusing.

  “Would you lie for fear of the reaction to the truth? If you saw a perfidious act in play, would you allow it to hurt yourself or your charge if it meant keeping a high status? Would you make yourself a monster to keep another from appearing worse? That can all be counted as loyalty. I ruined myself to keep faith of those who were not keeping faith in me. I did all of this, and what came of it?

  “Nothing. The system stands as if I did not exist. It has pushed me aside, but only after having ground me to dust. With that said, I propose to finally take this action we have thought of for so long. We will break a system that we agree is broken, allow our patrons to abandon us in order to become, once again, true to our initial morality. There will be fire set to a diseased forest, allowing for new growth.

  “The anomaly we devise will grow to disrupt this great mistake we have made. And from those we save from slavery, I only ask – pray even – to be understood.”

  -Honorary Saint Junal Bin-Haak, circa 185 PCE

  Chapter 1

  Dastou’s back was to the waters. Despite the wonder of the view behind him, the beauty he knew he was missing out on, he only worried about the hundred-meter drop that would kill him if he went straight down. He also wondered when those wolves that chased him here would show up.

  “Where is it,” he muttered to himself. “Where is it?” Having already repeated the three-word question a hundred times, he kept saying it because he didn’t know what else to say.

  This cliff was one of a series of drops, all part of a coastal mountain range. A calamitous seismic event thousands of years ago created these sheer drops, along with a ridiculously dangerous coastline. Commonly referred to as the Silverline Sharp, Dastou had not been to this area in years. The last time he was here it turned from a place of splendor, rest, and pleasant memories into a hellscape that he needed to ignore. He attempted suicide once since then – something he thought of as a victory, mostly because he failed, partially because it was only one attempt.

  After so much time away, he was, to his surprise, able to focus on all the time spent here that made him love this place so much. Picnics, hikes, long talks. Oh, and the sex. The chafing from picnic blankets was worth it every time. The Saint smiled at that last thought, and scratched an imaginary itch at his lower back.

  Returning to darker contemplations, Dastou remembered that, during the nightmare visit to the cliff, he was not the one with his back to the sea. When the wind gusted lightly in the present, it dredged up a memory of hair moving along with it in the past, and that movement scaring him. It wasn’t his hair, of course; he had gotten into the habit of shaving his head years ago. Premature baldness didn’t suit him, and purposed baldness was at least more handsome.

  His train of thought made another turn, and he went back to wondering why he came here. Dastou was sitting in his office two days ago when his administrator relayed a message from Stone-State’s newly minted ruling body. They wanted to meet with “the honored Saint Cosamian Dastou.” That message nearly gave him a fit of seizures, and he was abruptly compelled to come back to this cliff when he stopped shaking and drooling. He packed nothing, told no one - just left. The Academy would have to do without it’s headmaster until this excursion was over.

  Choo-choo! The Saint heard a wolf bay, and that snapped his attention from his unknown purpose here to the forest ahead. This part of the mountain range was equatorial, so it stayed green all year, and he could barely see past the tree line thirty meters in front of him. He scanned to his left slowly, appreciating how thick and lush it all was, and how it curved away from him, creating a semi-circle on which he stood near the midpoint, the bay a dangerous distance below.

  Another howl came from just behind the tree line, probably in answer to the first. Dastou kept looking further left, following the curve of the coast and other, less hospitable, less picnic-friendly cliffs. Then he finally saw what he waited on: the wind rustling trees a few kilometers away, making their crowns sway heavily. Being a Saint, he was able to very quickly calculate distance, speed, and direction, and was happy that it all worked out close to what his initial guesses were. If the wind decided not to act according to plan today, agitating those wild animals on the hike up would have turned out to be a very bad idea. Actually, it was a bad idea no matter what, but he’d live.

  Ah, and here they were, slowly coming out of the forest. One here, one there, skulking out a bit, then stopping to stare at Dastou. The pack came out as if they had rehearsed it for effect, only a second or two separating when any one of them stepped out of the tree line. There were nine in all, an overly large hunting party. Wild animals, even ferocious ones, had a tendency to stay away from Saints in small numbers – something about their scent was frightening and unnatural – so the sum of them was not a surprise.

  These untamed canines did not fully leave the shadows of the trees, not yet. They stood, almost dead still, as if waiting for the Saint to make the first move, and to see if that action was something they needed to run from. Dastou obliged them by smiling wide. When he did so, a handful of them twitched as if they were about to bolt, a nervous reaction, and the Saint chuckled.

  “Really? You could tear me limb from limb with barely any effort, and a bit of white teeth scares the bunch of you. I know my skin is dark, but the contrast can’t be that intense.”

  Dastou made sure the tone of his voice was soft, weak. Something to bait them a little. He had also made sure to be a couple of paces away from the edge of the cliff, and now he could take advantage of that distance. The Saint backed up, slowly, and increased the pace of his breathing in a pretense of fear.

  The wolves finally moved forward, onto the short grass beyond the forest, stalking, one paw moving at a time. None were in a hurry to chase down this particular corner
ed prey. All nine came at the same pace, a wall of claws and teeth closing in, leaving no place to run.

  As they kept coming, Dastou replanted his foot, and then started to move the other in order to reach the extreme edge of the potential fall behind him. He now realized that he wasn’t pretending fright – he was honestly scared. If these nine hunters were men and women, he’d be so relaxed it would be insulting. With people came the opportunity to play on perception, to taunt and cajole, to surprise.

  But wolves? They’d trap him, leave him no path to escape to, and wouldn’t celebrate until they were tearing into him. Dastou was just meat and bones to them, a potential culinary delight.

  The one in the center of the line of nine looked to be the leader, their alpha male. He stopped moving, hunkered down, and stared at Dastou, the others all doing the same a moment later. After a few seconds, the alpha took off at full sprint, his pack-mates almost instantaneously going with him. Holy void, they were fast!

  The wall closed in on the Saint. The nine wolves kicked dust, dirt, and grass into the air with every instinct-forged step, the booming sound of the running almost able to completely drown out their growls and barks. Many of them were salivating, thick goo dripping out the side of their maws as they ran. When they got within a dozen meters, Dastou made his final move, taking one step backward and putting himself half-off the cliff.

  A memory flashed in his mind of a similar step taken by someone else, distracting him just long enough so that one of the younger-looking wolves got fully brave and fully stupid, and jumped for him.

  Dastou pushed off completely, and watched the remaining animals halt their advance in a panic, some rolling on the ground violently after they tried to stop. The foolish one that jumped at him didn’t deserve death, not this way. The Saint jerked his knee up, hitting the wolf in its muzzle and stopping most of its forward momentum in a very painful manner. The reckless wolf twisted in the air and went down, hitting the edge of the cliff with its ribs. The wolf’s front paws were holding on, its hind legs scraping in a panic at the rock wall, and it yelped as it clawed its way back to safety.

  So, just as the first part of his plan was figured, Dastou plummeted. He faced the sky and watched the cliff edge, and scrambling wolf, get further and further away. He didn’t tumble or turn in fear. He simply looked at the mostly blue sky as he fell away from it, his ruffling clothes and the whistling in his ears creating a loud, calming white noise.

  The Saint was only gifted a few seconds of that peace when, halfway down to the sea, the wind he took note of earlier struck him hard from the left side. It changed his trajectory, threw him away from the deadly rocks below, and spun him vertically a few times. When he stopped spinning, Dastou could see water was at the top of his vision, slightly tilted. He was now aimed towards a deeper, safer area of the bay, a spot where he could survive.

  Sadly, Dastou couldn’t exactly flip himself right-side-up so that his feet were pointed downward, so he’d have to go into the water head first… at an angle… in about two seconds. The Saint took as deep a breath as he could, straightened himself into a bullet, and prepared to have the worst headache of his life.

  *****

  With a skeleton crew of only three people, all four of the medical rooms were available. None of those spaces had real doors, instead featuring thick curtains. The curtain here was pulled completely to the side, revealing the hallway. Dastou looked over at it, wanting to be on his way.

  He sat on a paper-covered exam bed pressing an ice pack to his temple while Saan-Hu, his assistant administrator and a trained medical field agent, unclipped his x-rays from the magnetic backlit rack on the far wall. She was already naturally pale, with long light-blonde hair, and the light from the rack made her as white as her lab coat.

  Saan looked at the three x-rays carefully for a moment, and then threw them in the trash with unconcealed annoyance before thumbing off magnetic rack's light, returning herself to a normal skin tone. She grunted as she turned to face her boss and friend, folding her arms across her chest.

  "Yes, I know," said Dastou, honestly remorseful and making sure to keep eye-contact.

  "Do you?” asked Saan, clearly upset. “Because it seems like you nearly killed yourself and won't explain why."

  She had a husky voice and a vowel-chewing southwestern accent, so most of what she said sounded nice whether it was or not.

  "I did explain, as much as I could,” Dastou told her.

  “A story ending in ‘I don’t really know’ does not count as an explanation.”

  “Yet that’s all I have,” Dastou said, accompanying his words with a matching open-palm hand motion. “You know me well enough to be sure I wouldn’t hide things this dangerous or critical. I honestly have no clue why I had to go to Silverline Sharp. By the black, I haven’t been there in years, since before the Academy even opened.”

  “When you and your mentor were the last ones left?”

  “Essentially… yes,” confirmed Dastou. He decided to hide the not quite ‘critical’ information about Silverline Sharp’s importance to him. Saan-Hu didn’t need to be told about his personal life before the Academy. “I'm fine, though. It wasn't as big of a risk as it sounded like."

  "I honestly wish you were not 'fine.' Maybe a broken rib, a concussion, getting blinded in one eye. Something to remind you that you can no longer do this type of thing. Something more than just a headache."

  She was actually turning a little red from anger. Saan was good at keeping her composure, but this time she was having difficulty not laying into Dastou – even if he was her commanding officer and leader. She moved a step forward and grabbed the wheeled instrument table from next to him, moved it to the washing area, and began placing the used tools into their designated cleaning or recycling containers. She spoke without looking back towards her patient.

  "Your people, they did this kind of act often. It was something they were famous for. That occasional daredevil mentality. But, sir... you are the last. And our headmaster."

  Dastou took in and exhaled a deep breath. "I know, I know. I won't do it again if it can be helped. I haven't pulled something like this since my mentor died. But there was something at that location I had to see again.”

  "And you say you have no active knowledge as to what that something is or was?"

  "I think... it was footsteps. There were none there when I arrived, not from people anyway. But I think my search had to do with a person. A man standing very still. A citizen. Watching. Smiling."

  The last word left Dastou's lips with unplanned anger. He now also realized that he was looking down as he tried to remember his vague reason to be at that damn cliff, and when he looked up again Saan-Hu was staring at him. He told only his mentor about the tragedy that happened at that location, and that grey-bearded hard-ass was long dead. His administrator's fear for him was about taking deadly risks when he was the spearhead of something very important, something she cared for deeply since being recruited.

  He stopped pushing the ice pack to his temple and tossed it lightly at Saan. She caught the bag with one hand, barely moving any other part of her body.

  "My headache is pretty much gone. You can recycle that."

  She dropped it into the proper receptacle as Dastou dropped off the exam bed. He stretched his back and neck, and cracked his knuckles.

  “Seeing as how we had to leave as soon as I arrived,” said Dastou, “I never asked what happened while I was gone.”

  “If you mean the scholastically, nothing much, sir,” she responded, much calmer now that she’s on a subject she understands. “The third-years almost all passed their exams. A new record by both percentage and capita. Your decision to do early, pre-test releases for unsatisfactory scores or conduct paid dividends.”

  “Were there any surprises in the ones we figured would fail?”

  “No. The easterners failed the portion on metallurgy since you changed it last month, just as you expected. I scheduled a field test for
next week, which they should for the most part be able to sail through.”

  “Alright, then. I’ll have to take a look at my new test phases and make sure nothing is discriminatory against easterners when we get back. Thank you, Saan.”

  He grabbed his leather jacket from the peg hook next to the doorway just as the remaining member of their skeleton crew came to visit.

  "Is this because of the new nickname?" asked Nes from the doorway, leaning casually against the jamb, hands in pockets.

  The young man wore a freshly pressed, expertly-tailored dress uniform. His lightly tanned skin tone and shoulder length, lightly curled brown hair always made Saan-Hu look like she spent her life in a dungeon. Nes' badge, a slightly larger one than standard fare to go with his fancier-than-normal attire, said " Corporal Nesembraci Jaydef, DSF."

  "What new nickname?" asked Dastou as he put on his jacket.

  "They've been calling you 'The Castor Wolf' for a little while now,” responded Nes. “You didn't know?"

  "I don't exactly track what people call me these days. Being the headmaster of a school isn't exciting enough for me to get interesting pseudonyms anymore.” His jacket was on, and he fiddled with it to make it fit perfectly.

  "Yeah, last year's 'Educator of the Void' was pretty bad,” said Nes. “I did like 'Grey Principal,' though."

  The latter nickname was a reference to the eye color of all Saints and members of their entourages. Dastou's eyes were a pure, bright, and unsullied by tint, while Saan and Nes' were grey-blue and grey-dark green, respectively.

  "I'll admit," said Dastou, "I liked Grey Principal, too. Castor Wolf doesn't make any sense. What, where, or who is Castor and why am I it’s wolf?"

  "Who knows," said Nes, dismissing a topic he had broached to begin with using a wave of his arm, then letting the loose hand rest on his hip. He tended to be physically emotive. "You alright, though?"

  Nes had asked Dastou, sure, but looked at Saan instead, an eyebrow raised. The administrator had been eyeing their exchange, and took the hint to answer the question herself. "He is going to be just fine. Unfortunately. Nothing more than a headache and a pain in my rear end."