“Centuries of darkness is finally over, My Lord. Awaken and liberate this world of light and false prophets.”

  Xala Svoboda opened his eyes to an orange, pink, red, and yellow sky complimented by the fledgling twinkles of twilight stars. His lips parted as he sucked air into his long-since used lungs. His nostrils flared and inhaled brine. Sensation came to the rest of his body and he felt the water around him. He floated on the surface, waves bobbing him up and down, and waded his hands through the frigid indifference of the endless blue.

  Xala looked to the right and saw only water, for as far as the dual-moon night beyond went. To the left, where the sun fell, a city made of lights ripped free from Merces and threatened to skewer the skies, as the buildings there already had the clouds. Their spires rose into the sky as if in contempt or reverence for the cosmos, each one a differently shaped column that pretended to support the remnant blues being lost to darkness. Between those spires were smaller buildings, tightly packed and neatly fitted together. The coastline stretched in both directions until his point of view was lost, and the megacity before him thrummed with heartbeat bustle and white noise.

  He turned himself toward it, awe etched into every fiber of his body, and switched his perception to an arcane sight. Around his serpentine pupils, his golden irises were invaded by a blue, sizzling pentacle that gave him insight into another layer of reality. The entire city, lit up in the material realm, was brimming with raw magic in the immaterial. Xala, used to cities of stone and wood, could hardly fathom the sight of it all. Ships came and went from the coastal ports of the city, each one powered by complex spellwork and some sort of solar energy.

  Xala dismissed the pentacles within his irises, swallowed hard, and felt the trace saliva go down a chute of chafed, papery, arid flesh. Dryness gained a new meaning to him as he choked and grunted away his discomfort. His limbs moved with a mind of their own as he paddled toward the city. However, he was far too weak to swim on his own. Bit by bit, his muscles lost their stamina and became limp. His mind hardly noticed as he focused on the city and wondered if it would be his last sight. Had he gained entry into the afterlives promised to the mortals of Merces?

  What had he done to deserve a glimpse at paradise?

  His head dipped beneath the water, his black and silver hair flowed into his vision, and he watched the surface rise further away from him. Of course this was his fate. For what he had done, the gods thought it right and just to show him paradise before the abyss. His life was a cruel mockery, and when he fought back, the mockery became tenfold.

  Then, a fish swam past. A small, fleeting, lonesome creature. It swam this way and that, above him, before him. The fish swam closer from another direction, slowed in front of his face, and revealed its exposed, eaten, fleshy side. Bones jutted out from the gnashes in its scales. Whatever predator got at it could not finish its meal. And yet, here it swam.

  The undead fish swam around Xala, got behind him, and started to push right against his neck. It pressed its head against him and furiously wiggled its tiny body to very little effect.

  More fish came. Some had exposed skulls, others had missing fins, and some were crudely reattached bones to remnant ligaments. Most of them were small, but as Xala’s vision started to darken, a great and powerful beast swam up out of the darkness and roamed above him, circled him, and turned to point its beady eyes into his. The shark had two sets of fangs, one that hooked outward and another that hooked inward. Its nose and upper mouth was completely gone, leaving a crater where its face was. Only its jaw and eyes remained.

  The shark swam around, pressed what remained of its forehead against Xala’s back, and helped the small army of undead aquatic life.

  Xala felt the water flow around him, felt the sunset light on his face, and finally breathed air again when he broke free from the ocean’s grip. He sucked in air and opened his eyes wide. He gulped down air, saw the ships ahead that were rapidly coming into view, and knew he needed to act quickly. He looked back at all the marine life that were behind him and around him and ushered a silent command.

  He dove back into the water, a renewed focus in his soul as he looked up toward the lights of paradise and sought to invade it. Xala raised two fingers to his lips, his black talons millimeters from cutting his face, and cast a spell. The tattoos, Inscription, on his forearm bloomed to life with white energy. The energy lifted off his flesh, reconfigured themselves into runes and sigils that orbited his arm, and finally reconvened into a ribbon of energy that flowed from his fingertips into his lips.

  Xala opened his mouth, let the water in, and felt the newly formed gills on his neck filter the water from oxygen. He breathed, commanded his fish to descend, and went deeper into the dark shadows beneath the hulls of the grand ships he passed. The vessels were titanic in size, able to house entire towns within them! He swam past them, under their complex mechanisms that propelled them across the water, and closer to paradise.

  Xala shifted focus, toward the smaller fish that propelled him, and sent them ahead as scouts. The fish pierced through the water at supernatural speed, flung themselves toward the shallow shores, and turned over their vision to their new master. Xala’s pupils drained from his irises into his scleras and blotched them black as he assumed their perspectives.

  It was a new sensation, having eyes on either side of his head, but he did not mind so long as they worked. He watched the docks, passed by countless vessels and ports and docks, each one made of metal and stone and concrete. He went far and wide in both directions, swapped between sights frequently, until he stopped the Southward fish at a storm drain entrance. Finding land to settle on was hopeless, unless he wanted to climb up a long ladder and expose himself to a foreign world and foreign dockworkers.

  Xala guided his envoy to the drain entrance, had them slow down beneath it, and scrambled up the side of the vertical bank and into the large pipe. Once inside, he hunched over and groaned painfully, hands on his knees, as he focused on his body and contorted energy through it to alleviate his senses and aches.

  He looked toward the fish beneath his filthy balcony, watched their expectant eyes, and held out his fist. Xala splayed out his fingers over them. At the ends of his black claws, green-blue tethers of energy revealed their connections to him and the bodies of each undead. He rounded up the tethers, balled his fist, and snapped his fingers. A ring of blacklight runes bloomed to life around his wrist, rose up to his fingers in a quick motion, and all those tethers were snipped as the ring constricted around them all.

  All of those expectant eyes went dead once more and floated to the surface. Their purpose was completed.

  Xala sighed as he straightened his back, grunted at the dryness of his throat, and shuffled away from the entrance to the pipe. He looked down at his hands. From his fingertips to the middle of his forearm, a corruption of black ink covered his flesh like necrotized tissue. It was pitch black. Beyond the tendrils of ink at his forearm, more Inscriptions covered his arms, spread further up his sleeves toward his shoulders and the rest of his body. He frowned at the long, black, pointed nails at the end of each finger, each one sharp enough to cut bone with a swipe.

  He needed a disguise. If he was in paradise then he in his current form would not be given a lease on life. Xala closed his eyes, stood up straight, placed his hands together, and took a deep breath. He reached into his consciousness, into his spirit, into the dark, writhing mass it was, and perused a selection of candidates to transform into. The souls of those he fed upon became clear to him as his mind walked among them and eventually found the right face to wear.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  His racial ability to transform requried no spellwork. His grey flesh changed coloration, his bones shifted, his talons shrunk, his hair gained color, and his pupils morphed shape. Ivory, creamy skin covered in a sprinkling of lavender cursive inscription took over his body. Auburn hair fell into his face and he flicked the pointed ears of his Dawn-Kin elven form. He was a smidge shorter than usual, a difference in perception he was long since used to.

  This face was among his first victims. A fresh-faced soldier in the Master’s forces. One of the first to find Xala in the woodlands. The first to land a cut on him. Xala killed this elf, gained his flesh-memories, and consumed his soul. This was his primary face in the world of mortals. His name was Vivie Eljinim, long since buried and dismembered from the analogues of history. Any who might have seen Vivie’s face would only know him as Xala. His family and previous relations were dealt with by the Master as a courtesy.

  Unlike the storm drains of Crimsire, paradise’s were smooth and elegant. He dragged his fingers along the coarse, mixed, dried concrete. In Crimsire, the substance had just recently been introduced as a new method of building. How did this place have so much?

  Xala walked for a few minutes before he found a large chamber that served as a nexus point for multiple drains and had a stairwell up to the maintenance area. He shuffled his way up, below the buzzing wisp-lights, and wandered across the stone floor.

  “Man, I’m fuckin’ sick of runnin’ people outa’ here.”

  “It’s probably just those teenagers again, lookin’ for a place to smoke.”

  Xala’s spell was cast in an instant. The inscriptions on his neck flared to life, bore a lavender ring of cursive script, and collapsed back around his neck. From that point in all directions, he gained a seamless camouflage. Light rippled and bent around him, his movements caused a warping along his camouflage, the only indicator he existed, as he scurried off to the side, against a wall, and became deathly still.

  Two men walked out of a tunnel entrance. They wore blue, standardized uniforms and carried lanterns with wisp-lights inside. One was a large, robust Hokuhou human. The other was a thin, frail Alouee orc. Xala focused on them, watched from his shadowy corner, and tried to understand their foreign tongue. He had seen Hokuhou humans before. Their gills and webbed fingers gave them away instantly compared to their cousin-races. As for the Alouee, he had never been graced with the presence of one. His eyes widened at the sight of the tusked behemoth who, even with a thin frame, dwarfed the human.

  “Huh, them sensors say they’re in ‘ere,” the human said as he looked at the flat glass tablet in his hand. It had all sorts of lights and words on it, layered over a map of the tunnels. His eyes scanned the chamber, an open space with few hiding spots, and muttered a few confused curses to himself.

  “Damn, can’t they make those things more,” the orc waved his hand around, “Uh, pinpointy?”

  “Precise?”

  “Oh, so you’re correctin’ my grammar? Fuc’ff,” he rolled his eyes and called out, “Hey! We know you’re in here! Come out!” He walked toward the balcony that overlooked the storm drain’s pathway below, frowned at the dry canal, and sighed. “Is that thing broken?”

  “Nah, I don’ think so.” He flipped the tablet around twice, punched a few of the buttons on it, and shrugged. “Oh, wait, looks like,” he brought the tablet closer to his face, “Like whatever’s in here is,” he spun around toward the way they came, peered into the shadowy passage that led to the upper levels, and said, “They’re movin’...”

  “What? How’d they get past you?”

  “Man, don’t blame me! Ugh, well, better make sure they make it out of ‘ere safely.” He and the orc started back the way they came, followed the tablet’s tracker, and remained a good distance behind Xala.

  He rushed through the shadows, aimed to get those two off his trail, and slithered through the rooms he passed. Xala passed more workers, each one a different species than the last, with an obvious majority of Hokuhou humans, and heard their strange tongues. As easy as it would be to snatch one up and feast on it to gain their linguistics, he refused himself that meal. These people were innocent, and killing innocents in paradise did not seem like a good idea.

  And if someone as guilty as Xala could get into paradise, then there were probably plenty of souls to feed on.

  Finally, after a slew of tunnels, rooms, and stairs, he found the exit. He rushed toward the darkened sunset outside, crashed through the metal gate door, and tumbled out onto the docks. The entrance was tucked in an alleyway between a street and the ports. Xala scurried away, sure he threw off their trail, and stepped onto the walkway along the street.

  A cobbled road littered with bustling pedestrians stretched out before him, winded its way through buildings, and had a sort of track along its middle. Xala dismissed his camouflage right as the track emitted a noise and a red light. Further up the street, he saw a sleek, grey container full of passengers levitate above the tracks as it made its way past him. Foottraffic shuffled and scampered out of the way as the transport did not slow or stall for anything or anyone. He watched it go by, no conductor or ferryman onboard, with bored and disinterested pedestrians slumped in its seats.

  Shops and signs covered the street, with vibrant glowing lights in an odd alphabet beckoning people inside. Xala began to walk, suddenly conscious of his ragged, dripping, baggy black clothes. Compared to the people around him, he was worse dressed than the beggar he walked by. Flashy colors and fancy shoes covered these people head to toe. He stared in awe of them, while he received a few sideways glances and rude glares. Xala walked up to one woman and leaned forward to inspect her dress. It was made of fine silk, with fabric that must have taken the designer ages to make.

  The Dawn-Kin elven woman jumped away from Xala, berated him in her foreign tongue, and turned to walk away from her kinsman.

  “Yiarasiini felasira,” Xala called after her, praying she understood him.

  The tan, blonde, green-eyed woman turned around. Her wide eyes stared at Xala in disbelief. She tilted her head and said, “What did you say?”

  “Yiarasiini felasira. Uji kafalam?”

  “I…” She was stunned, her perfectly groomed eyebrows pushed together and yet not a wrinkle between them. “Is that Okran?”

  “Okra,” he smiled and nodded.

  “Uhm, well,” words failed her, tied and twisted in her throat, before she cleared it and said, “Ok, I can’t speak it, but,” she reached into her bag and pulled out a sleek, small, glass tablet. It was smaller than the one those maintenance workers had, and instead of a metal rim she had a crystal one. She punched her fingers into it, held it up to him, and he watched in real-time as the strange alphabet converted into Okran Elvish.

  Name Farah, what you?

  “I don’t think it translates one to one, but,” she smiled apologetically. She then held down a button that looked like a pair of lips and spoke into it, “Speak into this,” her words were recorded and translated.

  Xala stared at the strange contraption, the horrible grammar, and shrugged, “Xala Svoboda. Yiala jukinaf esalnif?”

  Zala Soda boba. Where peasants?

  “Huh,” she looked at the mistranslated name with a slight grin, but said, “Huh?” to the next part. “What do you mean?”

  Xala frowned and clarified.

  Peasant area. Camp. Dwellings.

  “Oh, uhm, well, sir…” Her confusion was palpable. “It looks like you need help. If you want some, come with me. We can go down to the agency and get you registered and fed.”

  Xala scowled at the translation. She wanted to get him arrested and fed to something? What kind of sick creature had he stumbled upon? His eyes darted between her and the congested streets, a flicker of pause between his next move, and rushed into them.

  “Hey, wait!” She held out her hand to try and stop him, but he slipped past and vanished into the crowd. Farah blinked, looked down at her phone, and sighed in disbelief. “How can he, why…what was that?”