[KoJ] Interlude X: Ants and a Child

Ceph strapped the last of the glowing binds around the albanic’s body. An arc of electricity sparked out from the cables, striking at the tip of her tentacle the moment she let go. She flicked her limb to shake off the sting, but she could handle this much if it kept her prisoner trapped.

Áinfean inscriptions — like the one wrapping the cable — were… crude. She was by no means a mage, but even she knew hyle escaping its inscription was less than ideal. Apparently, in ancient times, the lightning elementals had been the epitome of inscription application. They had branches of the discipline that no other race could use. Now, nothing of that past remained.

Hirsh once described to her what was — in his opinion — a tragedy; either by settling into a single home, or the ease of their lives after the signing of the Pact, áinfean had become complacent and settled for the more convenient designs until all that knowledge was lost.

Their kind didn’t keep physical records, after all.

These days, the quality of the hyle they had instinctual control over remained their only tool against the nations. It was infeasible to generate. At least, not without taking an Inner Circle mage and plugging them into a hyle converter that would waste tremendous amounts of energy in the inefficient transfer.

If not for that power-dense hyle, Ceph would never trust this inscription to hold the Henosis soldier still.

Ceph now stared down at the woman. She’d slumped against the wall, unable to put up even a token effort of resistance with her broken arms and legs. The woman was conscious, Ceph knew, but she refused to raise her eyes.

There was a time not long ago where the dohrni would have felt disgusted with herself for the method of restraint. She would have done it anyway… but not so detached from the act. She felt horrible, but not because of the brutality. Her numbness was a siren that announced how much she’d changed since her team’s death… and the reminder agitated her.

“I will not kill you,” Ceph started. It was a lie. The war was already pulling everyone down to starvation. And now that the military had been sent to force the áinfean and portians into battle, things could only have reached a turning point. They did not have the resources to contain a warrior as strong as the woman before her. “This is how things are going to work: You tell me the locations and identities of saboteurs, and I won’t make your life miserable. Any time you lie to me, or retain your silence, the pain will become worse.”

Ceph adjusted the inscription to arc a constant current through her body. The Henosis clenched involuntarily, shaking under the power that would fry an unenhanced in an instant. After a moment for her to understand what awaited her, Ceph relented. She panted, barely audible to Ceph, but now the prisoner had been taught the stick.

“If I discover an agent you haven’t told us about, or mislead me, then the same will happen.”

Torture alone was pointless. By inflicting pain until they answered your questions, you were only inviting deceit. In distress and agony, the subject would say anything for immediate respite. They would say what their interrogator wanted to hear. They would admit to crimes they hadn’t commit, fantasise strategies and plans they had no means to know, and sacrifice fictional people. Their deceit would eventually be discovered and the pain would return, but in that moment, they wouldn’t care.

She’d only attempted this kind of act twice previously. Both times under the direction of Glaus. He had taught her that you need to give the subject a path out if you wanted the truth. You had to punish for what they’d already done, not to extract what you wanted.

Unfortunately, that method was slow. Ceph didn’t have the time to train her prisoner into giving up trustworthy information. She could only offer the path, and hope the woman took it.

“Relief will come whenever the information you give is proven legitimate. And should you be completely open with me, I can offer healing and protection from Henosis. You will be allowed to defect.” This was, unfortunately, a lie. If they could not afford to keep her prisoner, then they absolutely couldn’t afford to let her move around freely.

And by the glare the Henosis soldier suddenly gave her, she knew it just as well.

Ceph didn’t react. Even if the woman before her knew the only end for her was death, Ceph couldn’t confirm it. The ever so slight chance that it could be true would keep the prisoner double guessing herself.

“So what will it be?” Ceph demanded.

She was patient as the woman beneath her contemplated her words. Ceph had seen it before, the woman wasn’t a fool; she knew Henosis wasn’t about to come and rescue her. Now, it was a toss up between how likely Ceph’s promise seemed, and whether Henosis could end this war before she was nothing but fuel in an inheritance ritual.

If not for Orm’s presence, they both knew what her choice would be.

Before the albanic could speak — or Ceph was forced to… encourage her — a gunshot rang through the small cabin. Silence followed, but not for long. Angry shouts resounded, and the thump of footfalls came from the decking outside.

Ceph growled in frustration and turned to the door. “I won’t be long. Think about what you still have to lose.”

If Ceph wasn’t used to battlefields, she might have been lost in the chaos of moving bodies as she left the wooden cabin. Not that this was a battlefield. Dozens of áinfean scampered across the white rubber coated deck to dive back into the waters in terror, while others rose to the surface to join the crowd. Just as many portians flit between them.

There was no order to their movement. Some had succumbed to fear and shouted as they fled to safety, while others indulged in the angered screams, pushing past each other to reach the soldiers Ceph had arrived with. It was chaos. Only the lack of any follow-up gunfire, and the fact that the portians’ bodies weren’t falling over dead, did Ceph feel any relief.

The commander and his men hadn’t yet opened fire, but with the current state of things, it might well be inevitable.

Ceph hopped onto the roof of the nearest cabin to gain some insight into what had happened in the five minutes since she was gone. The first thing she noted, was the soldiers were surrounded. A hundred portians had approached from their rear, and now had them pinned. The line of portian and the áinfean on the other side were rowdy. They slid along one another, looking all too ready to leap forward and attack. They held back behind an invisible line. The gunfire she’d heard must have been a warning shot.

The soldiers themselves didn’t look any calmer. They clumped together, and held their weapons ready to fire. Regardless of which side attacked first, the results would be disastrous. The high fire-rate of these new age weapons would tear through the portians. Some would survive, initially, but they would have no body to sustain themselves. The áinfean would falter under the lead rain, but upon seeing the fall of their friends, they would leave none of the soldiers alive.

The áinfean had crafted the area for themselves, and so only they would survive. The surface didn’t ground their lightning bodies enough for the bullets to leave lasting damage. But they considered themselves the protectors of the portian; the massacre would forever collapse their already strained relationship with the pact nations.

Ceph leapt forward, quickly taking in every detail she could.

Only the áinfean and portian speaking with Commander Alasoic seemed in control of their anger, yet there was no denying they felt it as much as any other of their kind. The commander himself did not appear willing to back down despite the situation. That sent a spike of alarm through Ceph.

If Alasoic’s superiors considered the war to have reached a point of desperation that they would send a man this inflexible to negotiate, then Ceph didn’t have any more time to waste showing Orm around the continent. If they were willing to throw away an almost ancient treaty of non-aggression — albeit shaky — for only a few hundred somewhat hardy soldiers then the front-line was being held together by threads.

Ceph had to figure out how to get Orm on their side now.

Off to the side, half-way between the sides ready to start tearing into each other, was the serpent in question. Orm coiled there, just watching. It held no love for either side. Instead, it saw them all the same. A curiosity.

She had been hoping it would pick a side. When it did, she would have a better idea of how she was meant to direct it towards her enemies. But if it saw all the races and their battles as… detached from itself, then there was no way to win it over with ideology or sympathy.

With enough time in the serpent’s presence, she’d learnt that the creature wasn’t a monster, as the word was usually defined. Orm held supremacy over everything, and hence nothing was a threat. It created a rift between the winds of Ceph’s world and the serpent who couldn’t feel them. Orm was curious, but in a way that was closer to how a child might watch ants.

The serpent was intelligent, even emotionally so at times, but the sheer lack of social experience stopped it from connecting with them. With her. Orm was considerate of those around it, as it had proven whenever it tried to pay for its meals with those beasts that it pulled from nowhere, but it was difficult to say if it was truly sympathetic.

To Orm, Sruthland and the pact nations were two competing ant nests. The same applied to their war with Henosis. It watched with curiosity because it didn’t know who would win, and interfering itself would only spoil the fun. She could only be thankful Orm wasn’t the type to bring out the magnifying glass.

Ceph landed between Commander Alasoic and the respective leaders of the áinfean and portians. Her appearance quickly put an end to their heating argument. “Alright, I didn’t want to have to intervene, but I guess I don’t have a choice.” Her words directed more at herself than any of the agitated people around her. She needed to stomp out the brewing embers before they couldn’t be put out. Hopefully it wasn’t already too late.

She turned to the large, white-furred beast that towered over her. “Have your kids back off. You are only provoking them.” She gestured towards the portians lingering behind and around the trucks.

“Finally, now-” Alasoic began, but Ceph wasn’t about to let him continue. He’d ruined his chances enough already.

“And you. Have your soldiers drop their weapons, or I’ll do it for you.”

The commander looked like he was about to protest, but he was lucky to silence himself before he could. Ceph might have crushed some antlers. He waved his hand, and barked an order. The soldiers lowered their weapons… but didn’t drop them.

“I said, drop them,” she demanded, filling her voice with presence. Compared to Orm’s it was a pittance, but it was enough that the unenhanced soldiers were quick to let go of their rifles.

She glared at the portians who had still not backed off, and they all scampered off in fright. Half joined those near the docks, while the other half ran back into the trees.

Ceph breathed, and let out an annoyed huff. “Let’s do this again. More civilly this time.” She glared at the commander.

This was not what she wanted to be wasting her time on. She swivelled her eyes back to the observing snake who was her primary focus. Orm watched on with a tilted head. Ceph could only hope it wasn’t angry that she’d interrupted its entertainment.

With the serpent still this detached to their conflicts, then there wasn’t much that would change by taking it to the next half-dozen places she’d been planning. The war was taking a turn for the worse. She needed to do something to accelerate her task and bring Orm into the war.

But how does one make a curious child stomp on the ants it’s so interested in? The answer had been on her mind for a while. A plan that would absolutely backfire on her should the serpent realise her intent. So, how?

You have the ants bite the child.

You have Henosis bomb the sleeping Titan.

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