Duality by Rowan Erlking (classic books for 13 year olds txt) 📕

Aldovio stared at the Blue Lord for a full two minutes, though already the others swarmed around the wizard to help him select the best outfit for the job.

While they were doing that, the red warriess sauntered over to Bernum, keeping her distance from Jonis still. She said, “When you go to the merchant’s home, we’ll be out taking care of other business. We have friends that are in prison. And—”

“I know,” Bernum replied, not looking at her but at the wizard who was still putting up a fuss, though he allowed the other performers extract a long gray suit coat with rainbow trim, tails, a violet waistcoat and a matching pair of long trousers with rainbow striped ribbon from his suitcase. “You won’t leave them behind. I understand. You have to break them out.”

She nodded, her mouth relaxing into a kinder smile. She then lifted her eyes to the winged man with black-and-white hair. “It will cause a lot of trouble, so you had better be prepared to flee the city.”

“I’m running away with Malkia anyway,” Bernum said. “So you don’t have to worry about me.”

The performers tossed the clothes at Jonis, keeping well out of reach, though the Blue Lord helped the Cordril pick them up. Already Jonis was watching how Aldolvio stood, posturing at the far end of the room. And though Bernum didn’t want to be too close to that demon either, he gathered in a breath before sitting in the chair next to him while Jonis packed the suit into his travel sack.

Jonis lifted his eyes to Bernum and smiled. It was only a small grin, but as small as it was, it was sincere. Bernum unconsciously relaxed.

“So,” Jonis said, taking a breath as if breaking the ice for a new conversation. “Tomorrow we ought to meet at the wall. Same place. Don’t you think?”

Bernum just nodded. His thoughts had gone muggy. His head felt heavy.

“Hey.” Jonis ducked his head lower towards Bernum’s face. Bernum automatically jerked up, leaning back. Though that got a frown from Jonis, the demon merely said, “You’re not really into late hours, are you?”

Rubbing his eyes, Bernum shook his head. “No. Not that. I’m just worn out from this whole merchant thing. He’s messed with my family. He nearly killed my father. I have to be prepared for retribution when he figures out I’m her brother.”

Nodding, Jonis lowered his eyes.

The Blue Lord crouched down next to Bernum just as he started to nod off again. Bernum jerked up at the sight of blue gazing at him. He got up with a nervous hop.

“I should go,” Bernum said. He glanced to the stairwell. “I’m sure Omoni’s men might be watching my apartment and—”

“You can’t be seen with us,” the KiTai woman said.

Flushing as he turned his eyes to her, Bernum then ducked a little. “Yes.”

She and the Blue Lord nodded, less stiffly, their expressions more relaxed.

“I can take it from here,” Jonis said, waving to Bernum. He then pointed at him. “Tomorrow. At the wall. Just after sunset.”

Bernum nodded again. He turned to go, parting the curtains and beads. Those behind him murmured, but it was in a language he did not recognize…and Jonis was speaking it to the performers. They seemed to chorus in agreement. A shiver of worry ran up Bernum’s back. But with a step down the stairs, he shook it off. He had to trust them. He had no one else.

Bernum trudged home.

It took longer to get there. But as his feet, his head and his entire body were already so worn out, Bernum could not make himself go faster no matter how much that bed with sheets and blankets called to him. He found himself standing blearily at the base of the stairs to his apartment, almost unable to heave his feet up them. But he did, one by one. Then he swayed at his door.

It took effort to stick the key into the hole and more effort to turn it. Pulling on the handle was almost too much, but Bernum did it and staggered in.

But he stopped, staring at what had to be a hallucination. Five men were inside the room tearing it up among fluff and feathers. One in particular stabbed his wooden travel chest with a knife. Already one hinge had been pried off.

“What are you doing?” Bernum wobbled forward, blinking hard to get the delirium out of his eyes. It didn’t work.

The five men stopped what they were doing. The one with the knife lifted it as if to open Bernum’s fleshy chest next. “Magician.”

Bernum staggered backward, sleep fleeing his eyes the moment they focused on the knife. “You can’t be in h—”

“We know you are up to some treachery, Magician.” One of the feather-covered men marched forward, dropping the pillow he had shredded. He started to wrap a leather strap around his knuckles, clenching it tight in his fist. He rounded on Bernum. “Merchant Omoni will have your head if you betray him in any way.”

“I…I…” Tripping backward over the threshold, Bernum dropped against the outside wall opposite his front door. “You can’t be serious!”

The man swung a punch into Bernum’s gut.

As the momentum threw Bernum smack against the wall, the rebound from the hate ward in Bernum’s belt jolted the thug’s arm like a shot, roughly cracking down it with electric splinters. Yowling, the man dropped back, clenching his wrist. Grabbing the wall, as well as the back of his scalp, Bernum stumbled down the stairs to the street. His eyes remained on the others in the room that charged forward to either help their comrade or to kill the magician. They followed after him.

Bernum bumped into the noses of the horses hitched along the curb. The one snorted, and he sprang away from it, retreating even further from his home with a whimper. With his brain so fuzzy, Bernum didn’t even think of a method of retaliation until one of the thugs shouted, “I’ll break your scrawny chicken neck!”

“I don’t have a chicken neck,” Bernum retorted. He felt around himself for something to draw up a spell for a hate ward. So far nothing came up. His eyes flickered back to the men coming from his apartment, then he blinked on their frozen horror-stricken expressions. They looked way beyond where Bernum was standing to the high wall across the road. Bernum looked back also.

Jonis stood on the street like a nightmare. His glowing blue eyes were prominent in the shadow that disguised the rest of his face, though his straw colored hair was haloed by the street lamps. The demon lifted out his crossbow.

“Kill it!” The one with the knife still in his hand shouted to the others.

All five drew out pistols and started to fire.

Bernum ducked, scrambling to the stucco building face.

Crack! Crack! Crack! So loud Bernum could hardly hear the shouts afterward; the cries of the thugs sent by Omoni were faint as another gun echoed in response to theirs. Bernum turned his eyes about, blinking at Jonis who had switched to his pistol. Jonis jumped off the wall and charged at them—picking them off one by one with frightening precision. Then—muted—thump, thump, shudder, thump, thump and another moaning thump—the five thugs dropped dead to the ground. Blinking at the carnage, a bullet to each head, Bernum drew in a breath and shuddered again.

He looked up.

The white demon approached with an inspecting stroll at his handiwork.

“Why?” Bernum could not muster anything else even as the demon’s blue eyes peered down on the dead.

Jonis lifted his eyes to him, exhaling with regret as he said, “They were going to kill you.”

Bernum shook his head. “No. They were just threatening me. If they killed me, they would be the ones in trouble. To them, I’m precious Omoni property.”

Cringing even more apologetically, Jonis backed off, listening most especially to the cries of the police that had started up since the gunfire. “Sorry. Instinct then. They looked like they were going to kill you.”

Then Jonis leapt to one of the horses, grabbing the reins with a slight stroke of its head. The animal flinched first then relaxed—though it looked weaker. Jonis mounted. Bernum watched the demon as he urged the horse on with his heels, calling out in perfect horseman manner that it made Bernum wonder if Jonis knew just about every skill that existed. The horse charged away.

The police stampeded past—or most did as three saw the carnage the demon had left in his wake. The lead constable called for the others to continue on, as he walked up to Bernum who, in all sense, was the only survivor of the encounter. He peered into Bernum’s face.

“Are you all right, son?”

Bernum nodded slowly, still dazed. “Yes. I…I’m worn out, though.”

Nodding, the policeman said, “Did you run out when you heard the gunfire?”

Bernum set a hand to his head, deciding it unwise to inform the policeman he had just been robbed by the dead men and the demon had been the one who saved him.

“The gunfire was really loud. I have a headache. Can I go back inside?”

Giving another nod, the policeman gestured that Bernum was free. Bernum trudged back up to his room. Shutting the door behind him, he leaned on it, exhaling with a groan. Then he stumbled over to his tossed sheets and shredded feather pillow, flopping down. The fluff puffed up then floated like snow around him.

He sneezed.

Anxious the entire morning, waiting for Omoni to send more thugs to fetch him, Bernum trudged to the amphitheater with aching legs and tightness in his stomach. There was little he could do about the ache in his legs, but he sipped peppermint tea when he sat on his performing trunk inside the tent that afternoon, waiting for his turn in the ring. That night he had prepared a modified show full of summoned birds, fake flowers ‘turned’ real, and a trick involving a stuffed rabbit and some ‘mindreading’.  Mostly, he hoped that Jonis was prepared to meet him as planned and that the other performers were all ready to flee the city—as that night had to be their last performance. So far, they continued to treat him with contempt, giving no indication that they had been plotting something together the night before.

Bernum bowed to audience with flair after his show, only barely sooty as he ducked back inside the curtain during the applause, not singed at all. His clothes still smelled of sulfur though. With a turn, he dusted himself off then hopped back over the hay strewn floor to his chest that remained untouched in the hate ward. Bernum slightly wondered if it was left there as a courtesy or if the performers still loathed the very sight of him. Then again, he chuckled to himself, if they didn’t think so ill of him, there was no reason for them to meddle anyway.

Merchant Omoni had not been at the show. Rumor around the amphitheater was that he had spent the entire day at the police station. He had been