Chapter Eight #2
“I would rather his blood be on my hands, not yours.” He spits.
“And if we were anywhere else, I would have you restore him over and over again just so I could kill him myself and make him truly suffer. See, I don’t mind paying the price, but you shouldn’t have to.
I don’t want this place to change you as it did to me; you’re too pure for that.
” His eyes hold a fire, and I know he is angry with himself for leaving me, but I know better than anyone that it is not a good idea for this man to be feeling angry.
I shrug my shoulders and try to play off his last sentence, but it’s true, I do feel different.
“Well, it’s done now. Can we just move on, please?” I sigh, and he gives me a stern nod before exhaling a deep breath.
“This way.” He gestures with his head by nodding in the direction we need to go.
I wade through the crowd and past the fighter’s ring with Ryder at my side. He leads me down a dark alleyway, and we enter another lift-like structure to take us down to the required floor. This lift is metal and lets out a creak whenever we move an inch, making me question its integrity.
The whirring stills and the doors open to a large, muscly man, who is shirtless and covered head to toe in tattoos. He is armed with a cruel-looking machete on his waist and an even crueller expression on his face.
He crosses his arms and grunts at us, blocking our exit from the lift. I gulp and look up at Ryder, who does not seem intimidated at all.
“Here to see Psy.” Ryder makes eye contact with the guard and does not move his eyes from his.
“And you are?” The guard’s voice is deep and vibrates off the elevator walls as he raises a brow at us.
“Tell him Venom is here to see him.” The larger man gives him a nod and calls over another much smaller guard and whispers in his ear. I glance up at Ryder quickly, but he does not meet my gaze.
Venom? This is definitely a part of Ryder I have never seen.
The smaller man disappears into a nearby doorway through a curtain of beads, which rattles as his limbs push through them, and silence eats away at us. The larger man locks eyes with Ryder, and the two have a staring match as I shuffle in my stance uncomfortably.
A minute or two passes, and the beads rattle again, this time with a much older man disturbing them. The large man moves aside.
“When Squid tol’ me that Venom want’d to see me, I just had’t see it for myself.” The man’s long, plaited beard rises as he talks. His dark brown skin, grey and ashy with age. Ryder takes a step forward, and a slow smile spreads across his face.
“It’s me, in the flesh,” Ryder smirks, taking his hood down and holding his arm out as if giving him proof.
The man stumbles in closer, staring at him intensely.
My breath hitches when I notice the sealed skin where his left eye should be.
He examines Ryder with his right eye, a spectacle resting against his lens.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” His accent is northern Palidonian, thick and harsh. I haven’t heard this in a while. “There must be a hell of a somethin’ goin’ on up there for ye to show your face ere, specially wit the Smokies after ya.”
“You could say that.” Ryder exhales, and Psy gives him an understanding look.
“And who have ye brought wit’ ye?” He peers down at me, his brown eye dancing through the thick glass of the spectacle. I go to open my mouth, but Ryder answers for me.
“Just a friend.”
Ouch. That one stings.
I flash the strange man a small smile, and he extends his hand out to me.
That’s when I realise his arm. Something must have happened to it because his left arm is almost completely bionic.
The black metal is a close match to his skin tone; its gold details shimmer under the sparse neon lights pinned up against the stone walls.
I take his hand and shake it gingerly, the mechanics of it whir as he shakes back.
He places his ordinary hand on the back of mine, cupping the handshake.
His lone eye rolls back in his head, and a strange sensation tingles in my palm.
I stumble back, startled, and he drops my hand instantly.
“Interesting.” He tilts his head and analyses me closer, but Ryder steps in between us before he can look too closely.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Psy.” Ryder orders, and the little man backs away from him. “We didn’t come here for your parlour tricks.” I look down at my hand, examining it. What did he just do?
“Then what ye come ere for?” He asks through gappy teeth.
“Not here,” Ryder states, and the man nods to him before ushering us to follow him.
The curtain beads brush past my being and tickle at my eardrums with a light clatter as we enter a dim, smoky room.
Wooden floorboards creak under my feet as I follow the guys in front.
A small circular table, also wood, sits just off centre in this small windowless space, a bare light bulb swinging above it being the only source of light.
Water marks stain the table’s surface in rings of all different sizes, most likely from pints of ale and beers, and a half-empty bottle of something sharp sits shamefully on the wood.
A black tablecloth runs down the centre of the table, and four chairs tuck in around it with a crystal ball resting in the centre, its holder shaped to look like a bare black tree that’s branches twist and turn around the base of the globe.
Now I know what Ryder meant by ‘parlour tricks’ and where Psy most likely got his name from.
He’s Psychic.
The air smells like old whiskey and burnt incense.
I don’t like it. This place. This room.
Every instinct in me is telling me to turn around, but Ryder walks in like he has done this hundreds of times. Not a tremble claims his lips, which slows my heartbeat a tad.
Psy tucks himself in at the furthest end and gestures for us to take a seat. My eyes trail upwards as I examine all sides of the room we are in.
Cardboard boxes stack clumsily around the edge of the room, thick dust muddies their brown tinge and a bookcase lines the back wall, filled with books of all different shapes, sizes, and colours.
Some of the rows meant to contain books store a bunch of oddities and colourful stones.
Ryder walks up to it and stares at the collection intensely.
To the right of us, there is another room, the archway lined with another beaded curtain, so I can’t see in with just a glance.
Finally, an armchair lounges in the corner of the room with a coffee table adjacent to it. A pot of hot liquid is brewed on a silver tray with two mugs placed opposite it. My eyes fall back on Psy, and he points to the chair opposite him, his arm audibly clanking.
“Take a seat.” He offers, and I do as he says, but Ryder doesn’t. He stands with his arms crossed in the corner of the room.
Psy clears his throat. “So what brings ye to the shadow realm?” He questions, holding his spectacle between his thumb and forefinger and glancing at me through it. I shuffle in my seat. How do I know we can trust him?
I look over at Ryder, who nods his head at me as if to say it is safe to talk with him.
“We need to know what this means.” I take a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket, unfold it, then straighten it out with my palm across the wooden surface before sliding it over to him.
I made sure to write the riddle out before we came; there was no way I was going to bring the Soldark to here of all places.
Psy takes the paper and extends his spectacle out over each letter, reading the words aloud.
“Within the dark where silence grows,
A crescent sleeps where no light shows.
To hearts unspoiled, I give the skies,
The strength of Gods behind their eyes.
But grasp me wrong, with soul unclean,
And feel your breath turn still, unseen.
What you seek will heal his pain,
but greater still, it breaks the chain.
For what you search no book contains,
an object waits for you to claim.”
“Very interesting.” He comments and places the paper back down on the table. “You’re lookin’ for somethin’.” He looks directly at me, then Ryder, who nods his head.
“Do you know what it is?” Ryder asks, taking a step closer towards us.
“The writing is unusual. Not somethin I see all too much of round ere. Where ye get it?” Psy’s eye flashes with intrigue, making my throat go dry.
“It doesn’t matter where we got it.” Ryder snatches the riddle off the table. “Can you help us or not?” He leans in next to Psy’s face, making him appear visibly startled.
“Always were quick to lose ye temper.” Psy exhales. “Need I remind ye of the muscle standin just outside that door?” He points to the beaded doorway, and I tug at Ryder’s robe. He backs up and raises his hands in a surrendering motion with a smirk on his face.
“I think what he meant to say was—can you please help us decipher it?” I say, and Psy’s cheekbones rise with a grin.
“I can… for a price.” He leans back in his chair; it creaks with his weight.
Ryder’s eyes narrow in on him. He rifles through his pocket and dumps a handful of silver coins on the table.
The coins clink together as they meet the wooden surface, some spread out and roll along on their sides before eventually toppling over.
Psy inspects them closely, bringing one or two to his eye and reading the symbols carved on their shiny faces. He puts them down.
“And the rest.” He holds out his bionic arm with a small smirk on his face.
“You and I both know that is plenty.” Ryder crosses his arms and stares down at Psy.
“Maybe it would have been back when ye lived ere, but a lot has changed now. Prices have gone up.” He shrugs his shoulders and looks over at Ryder, who is becoming more annoyed by the minute. “And conveniently around the time ye pulled that wee stunt of yours.”
Ryder storms over to him so quickly that I don’t have time to react. “You twisted—