Doom of Omen: A Tale of Edges

[Marginal]

The pert dawn greeted Kilik with a gentle kiss as the sun limned the cusp of the mountains. He stretched in vigour. (He visited Europe, so... Yeah.) Kilik had a dangerous burden that he needed to dispose of for safekeeping and he had already traveled many miles from sunup to sundown before he reached the jungle of forgetfulness.

"Whew. I never thought I'd be rid of this terrible curse." Kilik said.

With that, he unshouldered the bag he'd been carrying, spun around to build suitable momentum and heaved the bag into the forest. It landed just past the first line of trees with a satisfying thud.

A curious monkey probed the bag, and discovered a mewling child....

 

[Marginal]

Xianghua examined the tapistry hanging across the hall. It had been a gift during her European travels. It depicted the downfall of Nightmare, a historic event that seemed to have increasingly less meaning as the years advanced and the demonic sword kept tainting the pattern.

"Light burn me!" Xianghua exclaimed which drew a surprised look from her general. Xianghua had learned that particular curse from a princess she met once.

"I do hope that wool head has taken my problem somewhere safe to be cared for properly." She said quietly. Her husband didn't know of her tryst with the man with the big polearm, but she feared for her future and her daughter's safety if the bastard ever came calling. Kilik had taken him away years back, but she always wondered what happened as Kilik never seemed to be all that interested in anything save meditation.

Her daughter presented other problems of course. She insisted on meeting "interesting people". Her definition of interesting involved brutally slaughtering them then striking a cutsety pose while claiming how happy she was to have met an interesting person. Her husband disapproved. Losing peasants was bad enough, but the turmoil over that traveling merchant was still being settled.

Her husband's solution, an arranged marriage was risky should the suitor prove "interesting". Anyone looking to become attached to a general's house would have to be of rank and such an incident would prove most dire...

 

[Marginal]

"Master, you must do something about our... Guest." The gaoler said while dry washing his hands.
"What would you have me do? I dare not release him. Besides, he does little but collect dust."
"Kill him! It's unnatural. He doesn't eat or drink. Yet he lives!"
"How do you suggest we kill someone who appears to be immortal?"
"I can't bear his red eyes always staring straight at me from the dark!"
"Very well. You are relieved of your duties. The maid will show you out."
The gaoler was lead away sputtering halfheartedly.

The magistrate shook his head. He had enough troubles without keeping quiet that he had captured and confined one of the worst villains since the azure knight. The man was nearly catatonic now aside from shrieking "Amy!" periodically. Perhaps...

A bell ringing shook him from his fugue. That was only to be sounded for one reason. The prisoner had escaped. He found the gaoler dead in the cell shortly afterwards. Strange a picture of a child would've set the creature into motion so. Was this... Amy?

"Burn the contents of this cell. Him too." The magistrate ordered before he left. This Raphael had strange tastes. The gaoler had died somehow apparently by being grabbed by the crotch. Now this obsession with a child. There had been rumors, but confirmation still made his stomach churn.

 

[Marginal]

Cassandra shook violently. Sophitia's blood still covered her hands.

Gone. All she'd been through, all her sister had suffered for nothing?

Cassandra punched a wall. It gave way, and she fell through into another room.

"What now?" She muttered. As best she could tell from her exploration, the castle was empty. At least it seemed to be empty. Something wasn't right. No matter what route she took, she always ended up staring at her sister's stone cold corpse.

"Hephaestus! I don't know what hell I've stumbled into, but if I ever get out, I will kill you."

"Now lass. Calm yourself."

Cassandra jumped. "Who's there?"

"Tis I. Edgemaster. This is my domain."

"You seek foul surroundings" Cassandra said looking at Sophitia's corpse.

"This isn't the real world. This is a reflection of the reality from where you entered."

"Mmmmm. What you say is confusing."

"Come away from this place. There's no returning to reality until your mind's straight. This is all for the best."

 

[Marginal]

Wilson Blade was his name. A low life drifter who earned what passed for a living with his sword. It was said he only seemed to be happy when he was killing. Otherwise, he was a morose looking man on the brink of scrawniness.

"This will be a good test for mother's style." Patroklos shouted boldly as he leapt off the roof he had been scouting the malfested vermin from.

Wilson Blade's face grew tight in a rictus as Patroklos landed lightly already in a fighting stance. "Oh ho! A sweetmeat!" He purred. His blade as out in a flash the rapid snick of the weapon drawing a cascade of sparks along its trail as it leveled at Patroklos' heart.

"No surrender knave?"

"From a dandelion like you?" Wilson spat. "I'd sooner bugger your mother."

Patroklos' face grew stern. "Malfested disease like yourself should never speak of my mother ill or not." With that, Patroklos charged in hard ramming his shield into Wilson's chest.

Wilson grunted, but he'd managed to angle off and deflect the brunt of the attack leaving Patroklos off balance for a fifteenth of a second. All the time Wilson Blade needed. He thrust home through Patroklos' cloak. The blade was turned by Patroklos' heretofore hidden breastplate and Patroklos returned the blow cuffing Blade in the face with the back of his shield.

Blade staggered back. "Sloppy brat. You should've finished me while I was staggered." He rushed in readying a killing blow.

Then he stopped, and his sword dropped from a nerveless hand.

Patroklos wrenched his sword from the dead man's chest. It was a win, but it still felt awkward. He has to reinvent the divinely inspired style of his mother and aunt, and whatever drove them was uninterested in him.

He had asked his father about it in the past, but Rothion was routinely drunk after Sophitia's passing and usually kept to describing his dead wife to his son in such bawdy detail that Patroklos sometimes feared he'd been mentally scarred for life.

No matter. Patroklos didn't really want divine aid anyway. His aunt and mother had vanished at the whim of the fates. He would not let his sister suffer at their hands.

"Fare well Wilson Blade" Pratoklos said to the cooling corpse. It was already being swarmed by the city rats. Fitting for a malfested who lived is life on the edge of a sword.

 

[Alex.J]

Marginal, the master of his craft.