Sitting in his Nowhere Land…

The sultan Nadji had killed his daughter. That much was true. That is what the royal Prosecutor Calim had proven, and what the witnesses had testified to seeing in broad daylight. Jumeira had entered the town square with 4 of her classmates. They were to witness the selling of foreign slaves, and report back to their history class about the differences between the Free Peoples, and the barbarians running wild outside the city of Udad.

Jumeira had eyed the newest Stranger, the one with the golden hair and eyes like polished sapphires. Gagged and bound by the flesh peddler Kumah, the Stranger was chained to an stone post inlaid with iron runes. Below the copper grating at his feet was a swirling bath of vinegar and spoiled wine, and above the pillar was a sign calling it, “ the Light of God “. It had but one purpose, to garner the truth from this particular occupant, a truth which every citizen of Udad already knew, but were terrified to speak aloud.

The Hordes had been camping for weeks, there were rumours that a garrison of the royal Calvary had been slaughtered, their horses eaten over great fiery pits, turning like pigs slowly before the meal tents of the foreign army. Udad had sheltered itself from within ever since the new moon had cast the shadow of the city over the western cliffs, where the Crashing Sea awaited it’s dead.

Kumah however had struck gold, his personal guards had spotted the Stranger climbing the western walls, and like a sandstorm, he was swept up before any other merchant could discover him. But then Jumeira had stopped the bidding, she insisted on hearing the foreigner speak. She ordered Kumah, who was greatly below her station, and he complied while cursing under his lips. The Stranger spoke these words, which is as best as those in the marketplace could remember, all agree it is utter nonsense:

I am come through Time to rescue you
Within my Host, I will bring the true meaning
We cannot be separated, She who owns me
Is my mated soul and your Flame.

And while it was not questioned that the barbarian spoke the holy tongue, or how he could know he would be “bought”, one thing was true. Jumeira had been placed under his spell. She ordered the guards to release him to her under pain of death, in a panic Kumah stopped them and tried to persuade her to reason.

“Enlightened One, please I cannot allow this, you must not allow this, no foreigner is permitted to address the house of your father. For that alone his tongue should be cut out.”
“That is for me to decide, I will have this one for my personal entertainment.”
“Please I beg you, allow me to test him first, they are liars, all of them…”
“Test him? With the Light of God? You will singe off all the hair on his body and he will be useless to me…”

(sorry out of time, started late)

On the abandoned tenement roof top, Mikey set his watch to noon and began his daily work out. He was safe up here; the six or so surrounding buildings enclosing him in had been too ruined to enter. In fact the whole block had been condemned by the city. This was perfect, a fortress of solitude hiding him in a maze of broken landings, holes in walls too small for an adult to follow, and windows on the ground floor boarded up four stories high.

To him it was one giant cement tree house, and he’d borrowed enough rope from his day job at the family hardware store to fashion a perfect web of ups and downs. The rats left him alone, the junkies knew the area wasn’t safe and no one in there right mind was going to follow him inside, even if they knew how he did it.

Pumping the eight tied bricks, Mikey concentrated and began his sets. On exhaling he would listen to the police band radio he’d hotwired to the city’s power line and make notes in his binder. He’d been at it for a little more than a year now, and he knew which areas had the most murders, stolen cars, and by reading the obits he could narrow down, which neighborhood needed him most.

The time had come; he’d been fastening in his mind what kind of disguise to wear. And it was clear that the most important thing was that his face could not be seen. The jet black diving suit he had mail ordered helped with that. As did the matching gloves, the military boots he’d stolen from his father’s trunk, and the gas mask he had altered for more visibility and just the right amount of shock value. He had spray painted the mask to match his suit, and in the shadowy corner of an alley he was nigh invisible.

At five feet three, Mikey was a deceptively dense but wiry freshman. He hunched wile he walked through school, he always slicked his hair in a ridiculous middle half part, and with pants tucked up high, he anybody’s nerd. Mikey figured if Clark Kent could hide in plain sight, there had to be something to it. At close range he was often browbeaten by his peers for his cockeyed appearance.

He did just the right amount of school work to stay under the radar, made sure to make his rounds through the clicks. A trick he’d used to garner information on their habits, what they wore, who they spoke to, and who they didn’t like. He was an unassigned, unofficial Narc for all intensive purposes, and the dealers in his school had no idea that he watched them. He had stayed after school and bugged their hangouts, searched their lockers without their knowing, and taken an inventory of anything and everything illegal.

But this wasn’t enough to stop them, for that he needed to instill fear; he needed to make an example of the largest and most dangerous fish. Even though it wouldn’t bring back his father, a gang war would half his work for him, it would cleanse the school, the neighborhood and accomplish his mission.