"The whole world will be mine!"

I'm sorry, but---

Well, no. I'm not sorry. I refuse to apologize for thinking critically about the books I read and the games I play. So no apologies here.

You lose my good will and generosity when you show a cutaway of the villain thinking to himself, "The empire---no, the whole world will be mine!" and then laughing evilly, especially when the cutaway is entirely unnecessary other than to show us his villainous ambitions. Mr. Sakaguchi, that character was much more intriguing when we weren't quite sure of his intentions, when we were slightly suspicious of the too-good an offer he made to our main character but didn't know enough to peg him fully as a villain. Now we know he's just another cackling, power-mad little tyrant with---like our main character, Zael---not a shred of complexity, subtlety, or secrets.

When groaning out loud and pointing out this scene to my wife, I openly pined for Final Fantasy X, and she reminded me of a line that marks the clearest distinction between the writing of FFX and The Last Story:

"Then pretend I didn't say it."

OH MY GOSH. Seymour! Please come back! Please teach your fellow villains how to be a real character, motivated and grounded in reality! Please teach the villains how to villain!

The literary magic of Harry Potter

There's a reason the Harry Potter books are so universally read and loved. That these books and Jo Rowling specifically turned out to be so successful is not chance or coincidence.

It is because the books work on almost every level of literary entertainment.

Each book expands the magical universe the story is set in. The characters learn new spells, come across new aspects of the world like creatures or magic, and discover more of the lore of the world. The whimsy of the world is one of the initial books' main attractions. It was the magical society, with as much detail as Rowling put into every page and scene, that we read for at first. It was happy, whirling, whimsical. Simply put, just a fun world to be in. Not a lot of depth---there are about a million criticisms we can level at this world---but a lot of breadth, and for children or the mass market, that is more important. And each book successfully makes the world bigger, more real, more enchanting. And as time and the books went on, the childish aspects of it fell away, and we began to find the world to be much darker and serious than Sorcerer's Stone let on---horcruxes, unforgivable curses, etc.

Each book expanded the cast of characters, and gave the ones we already knew further depth as we learned more about them. The characters, at first portrayed with much the same whimsy as the world, were the reason we loved the book. Everyone Harry met had their own unique personality, and nearly all were sympathetic, understandable, and even mysterious. As the books went on, our appreciation for them deepened, and they began to matter much, much more than the world. Forget about Every-Flavor Beans; the characters turned into the real story. They became the reason we loved to be in that world as the whimsy faded into the background.

Each book contained at least one significant mystery, and it's mystery that draws most readers on. There are questions that need answering, and Rowling always followed through (except maybe in Order of the Phoenix) with a fantastic twist or two that made us want to reread the book and spot all the clues she left for us. Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of the mysteries because of how much that big revelation means in the end, but every twist or revelation was at least satisfying, and often mind-blowing, and the secrets of what turn out to be the most significant characters kept us guessing until the final few chapters of the whole saga (I'm looking at you, Snape). Though every book answered the questions that it posed in its beginning, there were always those larger questions that loomed over the whole saga, whose answers came at perfectly parsed out moments. We never knew too little, nor too much at any given time.

Each book advanced the overarching story in significant and meaningful ways. Looking back, the first three books, which seem like just ordinary sequels in a series, were there entirely to set up the real story that emerged at the end of Goblet of Fire. The story at the heart of the Harry Potter saga is, frankly, Harry Potter himself, and he grows in each book, learns more about himself, his role, his abilities, his legacy, his family, his purpose. It is the story of how he becomes a man, and overcomes the evil and pain that persistently tries to destroy him and every other good thing in his world. It is a classic tale of good versus evil, and every successive book builds on what came before to present that age-old battle in fuller and more comprehensive terms.

The brilliance of all this is how all of these layers are wrapped up into the same story, the same remarkably character-driven story that takes place almost entirely in one setting (until Deathly Hallows, of course, but most of the answers in that book weren't given until Harry was back at Hogwarts). That is a remarkable achievement, and I think readers take it for granted. Each book succeeds in delivering characters, world, plot, and story in rich ways, fulfilling the needs and desires of a wide variety of readers who are attracted to different types of stories. It is a universally loved saga because it appeals to multiple audiences and satisfies multiple tastes.

Characterization in The Last Story

There are moments in the dialogue of The Last Story that frustrate the heck out of me. Yurick telling someone explicitly that his past is "not something [he] talk[s] about much." Then the formal, fangless reply of how the person is very sorry for intruding. And then that person, for almost no reason this far away from the sun, tells him, "You are a fine young man, Master Yurick." That's clumsy characterization of Yurick, an otherwise blank slate of a character. That's far too much self-awareness, and it's not how real people talk. We don't, in the first few minutes of meeting a new person, tell them something about ourselves that generally would require a psychiatrist to inform us of in the first place. This game so far is filled with all sorts of polite, optimistic, and overly self-aware dialogue and I'm just BEGGING to find some edge, some spark of chemistry between the characters, either showing the characters' familiarity with each other or even their interpersonal enmity. As a result of their nothing but civil discourse, these characters are hard to distinguish one from another (and I haven't even brought up their generally similar clothing and hairstyles), and thus hard to care about. You do get some flashes of spontaneity in the midst of battle, but that's not really story, is it?

I think part of the problem is that almost all of your party members are introduced all at once, and in medias res at that. This is not the ideal way to show us who these characters are, 1) because we're in the middle of a battle and we're trying to figure out how the system works and so can't pay much attention to who's saying what, etc., but even more significantly, 2) it is always ALWAYS better to introduce us to the main cast one person at a time. Look at, for instance, Final Fantasy X, whose characterization is so good we don't even think to appreciate it. First we have Tidus as the athlete, and who he is in the world of blitzball. Then shortly after that, we meet Auron, and learn how bad-A he is just from the five minutes we see of him. After Tidus is sucked into Spira, we kind of meet Riku (but that's more of a Chekhov's Fanservice than characterization at that point). And then Tidus is swept away again, this time coming upon Wakka, alone. Finally we meet the remaining three characters, Kimahri, Lulu, and of course Yuna, all at once, but they're such different people with such different clothes and such different roles that by that time it is easy to distinguish between the three. That moment where Kimahri catches the fainting Yuna as she comes down the stairs tells us all we need to know about him, who he is and what motivates him. Lulu is probably the least essential character to the story, and fittingly she doesn't get her very own character intro the way everyone else does. But she's not entirely useless, either, and she does have her place in the story and of course in the battle system.

In The Last Story we're greeted with everyone at once, and in a battle system where you only control one character, it's really hard to get to know how the rest of your party works, who is in what role, etc. I'm seven or so hours in, and frankly you could get rid of half the cast and it would probably not only not harm the story or game at all, it would probably improve it, because we'd know what this story was about and we wouldn't have to always be trying to keep track of everybody. In Final Fantasy X, this is never a problem.

I bring up Final Fantasy X somewhat purposefully, because, apart from being a stellar example of characterization (which it is regardless of whether or not you like the characters or not), both were produced by Hironubo Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy and thus the JRPG. So he should really know better.

Future posts about The Last Story to come: the role of narration in a story, backstory as characterization, and the importance of greater character distinction than simple degrees of personality.

Sea of Chaos - Part One - Chapters 4 and 5

Chapter 4, “The Angel”

Roc returned immediately to the Sparrows’ Nest, climbing up stairs and passing through tattered curtains. He needed some time to figure out how to load the gun, something he hadn’t been able to ask about while in the shop. When he finally squeezed through the space between the two walls that served as the hidden entrance, he found four boys there instead of three. None of them looked up at his arrival; instead all four lay on their bellies staring down at the same comic book together, gradually flipping its pages. They couldn’t read, but that didn’t deter them from admiring the pictures.

Just as he had that first day to Roya, Roc barked at them. “Hey! HEY!”

Three of them snapped up. Nat, Rence, and Dane.

“Tir, what the hell?” Roc swore as he marched up to the boys, ignoring the three who had guilty looks and going after the one who kept reading, the one who shouldn’t be there.

Tir just rolled over onto his back, continuing to peruse the comic book he held above him.

“Boys, get back to your lookouts. You all have a job to do if you want to be in this family. We’ve all been eating every day for two weeks, haven’t we?”
“Yes sir,” said Nat.

“But that doesn’t mean we’re safe forever! If somebody finds us here, we’re in trouble. That’s why we need you guys to do your jobs and watch for Tyrants and Monsters!”

“Yes sir,” said Rence and Dane, copying Nat.

“Good. Now Tir, what the hell?”

“You already said that,” Tir said in a bored voice.

“And you haven’t answered either time,” said Roc.

“Well it’s not a very clear question, mate!” said Tir.

“Fine,” fumed Roc. “What are you doing here when you’re supposed to be out working a job?”

“Didn’t want to.”

“Then you didn’t want to be in the gang!” said Roc, his fists clenched.

Tir got angry. “Maybe I didn’t!” he shouted as he finally rolled back onto his belly to look directly into Roc’s tiny eyes. “Maybe I just want to go tell the Hawks where this place is right now!”

Roc cocked his head and narrowed his gaze. “The Hawks?”

Tir stood up. “The all-bads are grouping up like we did. A big gang of Tyrants. They’re looking for us. They want to kill us. And you can’t protect us from them. But they won’t want to kill me if I tell them where you are.”

Roc staggered. “Why...why didn’t you tell anybody?”

Just then Roya and Christopher showed up in the Nest. They had been on circling duty.

“What’s going on?” Roya said with an interested smile on his lips. “We heard shouting.”

“Tir wants to go tell on us to the Tyrants,” Roc said, a little shaky, both with shock and anger. “He just said he doesn’t want to work and so he’s going to help them get rid of us.”

Tir was frightened now that Roc seemed to be telling on him to Roya. He looked from Roc to Roya wide eyes.

“All right then, Roc friend,” said Roya, that smile becoming more and more fascinated. He turned it onto Tir. “I’ll take care of him for you.”

That was when Tir bolted. He took the back way out, down some stairs to the lower chamber and out through some more curtains.

“I’ll be back,” Roya said calmly, and turned to go when Roc stopped him.

“Roya, wait!”

Or rather, when Roc tried to stop him. Roya was gone before anything more could be said, leaving Roc in slight despair, both over his situation and in whom he had trusted to set it right.

He decided to put all three remaining boys on circling duty with Christopher, to patrol two by two around the perimeter of their base. He would stay inside, alone.

Once they were gone, he brought out the gun and the box of bullets he had been squeezing in his fist. His attempts to figure out how to load the gun were laden with anxiety. His little hands shook as they turned over the gun, examining it more carefully than he ever had. When at last he found the button to eject the magazine, he took a bullet from the box and tried to insert it. But the bullet slipped out of his trembling fingers, and it was quite a long time before he succeeded in filling the magazine. By utter chance he discerned that he would need to flip the safety off, and did so. He then recalled what he had seen others do when firing a gun like this: sliding the top of the barrel back before shooting. But he wouldn’t do that just yet. That was his limit, his barrier, his wall; for he realized the lethality of the instrument he held in his boyish hands, and realized he was actually preparing to kill someone. He could not take that last step. He hoped he could do it when the time came.

---

Roc slept with gun in hand that night, when he could sleep at all. He was prepared to do what he needed to do to protect himself and his family, or at the very least, he was prepared to react in some way. Fear had driven his life, but not fear like this. This was more like dread than fear. Something out there was searching for him specifically with the express desire to kill. That was different from being unsure when the next random act of violence or stomach pang might strike him. This was the dread of the walls closing in on him. Him and his little band.

The Hawks must have taken his cue, and, perhaps tired of their group defense against their individual roguishness, formed their own gang, their own organization. Were they a family? Roc didn’t know.

To add to this existential uncertainty, neither Roya nor Tir showed up the rest of the day. Roc wasn’t sure what to make of this. The mystery made him squirm all the more.

Whatever had turned out with Roya and Tir, whether Tir had gotten away, or Roya killed him, or Roya joined him, he needed his band to stick together. They would have to go take down the Hawks on their own terms, their own turf. Tomorrow they would troop together, like a pack, the eight of them. And he would lead them to battle with his black, shiny, steel courage in hand.

---

The Hawks were waiting for Roc and his sparrows---down at the old city plaza, the long-dry fountain in its center. Once that fountain had flowed with blood. A warning in the midst of some gang warfare. The rain had washed it all away years ago, but no one walked the place since. No one but the most desperate of folk. The plaza had a stigma, a ghostly haunting that most of Oshana recognized, and dared not touch. Children, however, didn’t always know. Not every urchin inherited the memories of the previous generation. But some did, and they reveled in it---the older ones, the ones who lived in less fear. Roc knew this would be the place for his first fight. The Roc’s first war. And possibly the scene of their demise.

But he had a gun, and he supposed the Hawks did not. Fire could frighten a tiger; a gun could do the same to an unarmed bully. No Tyrant would be willing to take a bullet for the rest of his crew. A lethal weapon would scare them away, scatter them. That was the plan.

Roc’s scout, Bell, had come running back to where the entire Roc had planted themselves, confirming his suspicion that they’d be waiting in the plaza. Roc and Bell led the gang to the meeting place, and Roc instructed each of them to find some kind of weapon along the way. A brick or stone, wooden club or glass bottle. Whatever might be lying around.

They turned a corner into the plaza and saw the Hawks on the other side of the fountain. They, too, carried weapons. A gang of barely pubescent bullies, of the age the urchins called Tyrants. No one knew exact ages in Oshana because no one kept track of the passage of time. Ages did not matter, only stages of life. The Hawks, taking on the early characteristics and strength of men, were Tyrants. Any older teen who willingly remained amidst the world of children was called a Monster. Roc did not see one among them, but he didn’t quite have the capability to be grateful in that moment. And though the Tyrants all carried weapons, not a one was armed with a gun. Roc still had the tactical edge, if not the brute force.

Both gangs were silent as they formed lines across from each other, the dry fountain still between them. Roc stepped forward. Just as when he first germinated his little gang, Roc had to be the brazen one, the bold one. It did not come entirely natural to him; he knew the part he had to play and he delved into it out of necessity, not identity.

“What the hell do you want from us?” Roc shouted boisterously across the plaza.

One Tyrant stepped forward.

“What the hell do you think?” the leader shouted back sarcastically. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, and they blazed. “You’ve been turfing our territory, taking our food, drying up all the good resources around here. You’ve changed the rules, all in just a couple short weeks. And we don’t like that.”

Roc narrowed his eyes and leaped forward onto the fountain. As he landed he struck a pose and pulled out the gun he carried in his waistband. He swept it sidearm across the line of Tyrants, finally resting it on their leader. All of them stepped backwards, almost in unison and including their leader. Roc kept himself from smirking at his accomplishment but was immensely relieved. It had worked!

But then, in the windswept silence that followed, their leader’s blue eyes turned to face someone strolling out of a side street and into the scene. It was Roya. Though a little younger than the Tyrants, he was just as tall. Roc couldn’t guess what Roya’s intentions were, but knew they were nothing good. Roya smiled and started clapping slowly.

“Very good, Roc,” he said with total confidence. “Very good. You’ve managed to scare a gang of fellow children with an empty gun. A fine play to make. Very fine.”

Roc froze in his perch on the fountain rim. The scenery around him seemed to have fled as his heartbeat soared. Roya continued his stroll over to the fountain.

Roc swallowed. “Weren’t you supposed to take care of Tir? Keep him from spilling it?”

“I did,” Roya said, still meandering over to Roc. “I did take care of him. But I didn’t keep him from spilling it.”

In an instant something small and shiny sprang from Roya’s hand: a knife. He brandished it casually as he talked and walked.

“And then I went ahead and told these kids where you were, and what you’d do. You wouldn’t stay hiding in the Nest. You’d come looking for them. Right here.”

Roc couldn’t think of words strong and foul enough to spew at Roya. The same for himself, for trusting him. So no words fell out of his trembling lip.

“You didn’t tell us about the gun, Roya,” the leader of the Hawks said sternly as he approached Roya at the other side of the fountain. “That it was empty.”

Roc psychologically seized on that misperception. They didn’t know he had a loaded gun. He could still get out of this yet.

“So I didn’t,” Roya said, annoyed.

“What do you want?” Roc shouted.

“I want something like what you want. I’ve been surviving for a long time, but I want to do a little more than survive. I want to thrive. To live forever and do whatever occurs to me. And I don’t quite need a children’s gang to do that. I don’t need much food, and that’s all you can offer me. I’ve lived a long time without much food at all. I have higher ambitions. But first...I’d like that gun.”

Roya flashed his golden eyes and grinned at Roc as he started his way around the circular fountain over to him. The Hawk leader reached for his shoulder.

“Wait, Roya, you with us? We got a place for you if you---”

“Hell no,” Roya said, and with a grunt, stuck his knife into the leader’s gut. “I don’t need you or want you.” He tugged it out and stabbed the boy in the heart, too. Then he shoved the leader’s body to the ground. And for a moment, no one in that whole plaza moved or even breathed but Roc and Roya.

Roc brought up his weapon with a burst of adrenaline and placed it squarely on Roc’s face.

“Oh, please,” said Roya. “I saw you run away from that crazy protecting his sacred little trash can. That gun isn’t loaded, and even if it was, you don’t have the stones to pull the trigger. I’ve been watching you. I know you. If you give me the gun, I won’t kill you painfully like that Aryan kid on the ground there. One nice clean shot to the head. No bleeding out.”

Roc inched backwards, still holding the gun as steady as he could. “Why’d you join my organization, then, Roya? Why do you even care about all of us?”

Roya’s face brightened and he stopped. “I guess I just wanted to see if I wanted friends,” he said thoughtfully. “It’d been so long without them. And funnily enough, I do. But not you. And not them.” He jammed his thumb towards the Hawks. “I can’t respect children. Can’t see them on the same plane. It will be nice to rule over them, though. Your gun might help with that.”

He was closer now. Blood-covered knife held tight in his right hand.

“But...why set this whole thing up? Why have us square off if you’re going to just interrupt?”

“One purpose was to practice my manipulation skills. Not to develop them but to see if I had them. That, and after taking your gun, I’d like to see both of you tear each other apart.”

His golden-eyed grin was bearing down on Roc, reaching for him, grasping at him---

Roc pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

Roya’s face lit up with glee. His theory had been proven. He rushed at Roc without fear. Roc, in a panic, pulled back the top of the barrel with all of his minuscule but adrenaline-fueled strength and pulled the trigger again---

A boom like thunder. Roc stumbled backwards. The shot missed Roya’s face...and hit his left ear. The lower half of his ear was blown straight off, and blood burst out in a spray. Roya looked more astonished than pained. The knife dropped from his hand as he felt frantically where his ear had been. He stumbled backwards against the fountain, falling over the rim and into the dry concrete pool. Blood flowed in the fountain again.

Roc didn’t have the presence of mind to fire again, so rattling and resounding the first shot had been. But it set Roya running from the scene, swearing nonstop under his breath. He disappeared down the same side street he had emerged from.

Roc, regaining his bearings, turned to the rest of the Hawks. He could think of nothing to say, so he only waved the gun around, just as he had done when it was empty and he was confronting some of these very bullies, now with members of his own crew backing him up. It seemed to be the same situation now.

Only some of the Tyrants on the other side still looked angry---angrier than they had before. They seemed ready to fight for their fallen leader, to stand up for themselves. They wanted to kill.

And Roc didn’t know what to do.

But just at that moment, a roar sounded, reverberated around the plaza, filling the empty space with a near spiritual, perhaps monstrous presence. It was the roar of a powerful, surging motorcycle, charging in through the side street opposite from where Roya had left.

The man riding the motorcycle had black hair and a scarred, unshaven face; he wore a black leather jacket that rippled in the wind like a cape. An eyepatch covered the empty cavity where his right eye should have been. A gold chain lay hidden under his white shirt, a shirt stained in places with dried brown blood. On seeing the two gangs facing off, he slowed his motorcycle to a stop and got off. As he stood upright Roc could see the two gun-filled holsters that were draped around his waist. This was a man who clearly knew how to use a weapon.

The action had stopped. All eyes were on him. All waited with bated breath. None knew what to feel. None knew how to react.

After a silent moment of observation between the two child gangs, he approached the Tyrants and took out his thick and weighty wallet.

“If you want money in your hand you’re going to have to drop the weapon that hand holds,” he said, in what to Roc was an uncharacteristically mild voice, like a butterfly in a swirling storm.

At first outraged that the aggressors were being given money, Roc opened his mouth to protest until he realized what, exactly, this enigmatic man was doing. He closed his mouth and let it happen.

When each and every one of the Tyrants had disarmed themselves and were subsequently paid, the man told them to go home, to feed themselves and those they cared for, and if they didn’t have anyone to care for, they should go find someone.

“Leave these kids alone,” he said to them in a forceful yet still mild voice. “They’re fighting just as hard a battle as you are.”

One by one the Hawks dispersed and went their separate ways. Then the dark man shifted his gaze.

When he looked at Roc it was like a lighthouse turning its beam of illumination on him. Roc noticed for the first, and certainly not the last time, this dark man’s remaining left eye. It was blue, far bluer than the eyes of the Hawks’ leader---a sky blue through which one could divine the totality and sentiment of that man’s soul, and by that very same metaphysical portal, see into one’s own.

He looked from Roc to the fallen Hawk leader, slumped against the fountain wall in a pool of blood. He knelt down at the body, turned it over, and perceived the fatal condition. His sky blue gaze turned angrily up at Roc, who was closest, and still holding the gun.

“Did you do this?” the man said in still-surprising but perfect mildness.

“No...no,” Roc said hurriedly, aghast. “It was...it was someone else. A boy we all knew. Roya. It was Roya, sir. He had a knife. He did it. I scared him away.”

The dark man looked into Roc’s small, birdlike eyes and nodded in belief. He stood.

“I can help you. I can help your family. You and they don’t have to be afraid anymore, or live in this world.” He said this last bit as he motioned to the plaza, to the dead boy lying in his own blood right next to them. “But you’re going to have to give me that gun for now. The life I can help you live won’t require it.”

Roc nodded, gulped, and easily handed him the gun.

“Thank you,” Roc said without thinking. Afterward, he couldn’t believe that’s what he said to this imposing figure, this dark enigma, for taking away his one instrument of self-defense. But it seemed right. And Roc the child, not Roc the gang leader or Roc the warrior, not even Roc the comics hero, had finally felt something touch his soul: the love of a tender parent. From this man of all people!

He didn’t cry, but he wanted to. Wanted to be hugged and taken care of like the child he truly was, the child he never had the chance to be. But he swallowed it back down. He had to be tough for his crew. They had to know he was still the same.

“My name is Roc,” he said, his unsteady breathing threatening to give rise to tears. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Salvane,” he said, his blue eye shining like a jewel. “But you can call me Salvare.”

Chapter 5, “The Other Angel”

Yes, Peter Smith sold and built guns. A business, a skill, an art he inherited from his father. As a child being taught the craft of gunsmithing, he had loved it. Working side by side with his father, piecing together parts metal and steel with his father’s hands guiding his own, watching his father sketch out plans for customized firearms and trying his own hand at designing something new, something never before seen. Most of the time his father had to inform him that what he was envisioning had already been done before. In later years, Peter realized that he had thought he was producing a fresh design when really it had no doubt originated from something he had seen somewhere and consciously forgotten about, but his father made him feel like he was discovering things the great ones had, working parallel to their achievements. Even as a child, Peter admired the ingenuity of man in creating such a beautiful instrument, complex but simple at the same time. He savored the sense of accomplishment at every successful test-fire in their basement shooting range.

He had once loved it. That was before he really knew it.

He had once let it bloom within him. That was before his father had been shot, and his mother taken away.

Peter rarely saw the business side of things. He was too young and enthusiastic to notice the worry lines slowly being carved into his father’s face. The tense meals, the anxious looks out the window, the excuses to leave, the many men coming to their door in suits and speaking in low, sinister tones.

Peter never thought to question who they sold their guns to, the reasons people purchased the products of his labor. He never thought to question the fine home they lived in, the elevation of their lives above the slums of the city.

He never did understand the intricacy of his father’s business deals, or why his father was killed and his mother taken. Only that it had to do with an organization he had thought since sheltered childhood was called ‘the C.’ It was a while before he came to know what the Sea really was, and why his father needed their business, and why firearms and ammunition were such necessary commodities in Oshana.

By the time this happened, however, gunsmithing was already a part of his soul. It couldn’t be excised, surgically extracted, carved out with a scalpel; it was him, and it was the only thing he knew how to do. He had even been told to do it. They had left him a handwritten note on the table:

We have no need of your end. Go out there and live your life. Be a good citizen and continue in your father’s trade. We will keep in touch. And remember, we’re watching you.   

-Stephen

Peter didn’t know who Stephen was. He didn’t even know what the note meant. It wasn’t until he walked into the other room that he saw his father’s body. Lying there, on the recliner, bullet hole in his forehead. His mother was nowhere to be found.

Looking on his father’s corpse, the only thing his mind could do was calculate the exact kind of gun that had killed him, a Titan25. It was a rare weapon, directly exported from the outside world. Somewhere called Greece. For some reason those exact words were being said in his brain.

Then, as if in a dream, he found himself back in the dining room, staring down at a small leather briefcase. He opened it up and found it full of cash. He closed it again, and saw the words scrawled in black marker on the case: the remains of your father’s fortune.

He never cried about it. He just stared catatonically at the corner of the kitchen for four hours, not moving, not thinking any conscious thoughts after “Greece.” His mind had broken, and could not face reality, so it was performing a complicated maneuver of folding in on itself, an attempt to make sense of horrible, nonsensical things.

In the end it produced a new, clear canvas of a mind and moved him to action. When at last he moved, he took the cash-filled briefcase, found his father’s notebook full of contacts, collected all the tools and instruments from the shop, and went about looking for somewhere new to live, somewhere new to do his work.

As said before, Peter never knew why they killed his father, or took away his mother. The trauma of that ignorance produced an effect like denial in his brain. It became something of a subconscious obsession to him, his life forever blackened, his potential tears suppressed, but purpose surfacing out of his life’s ashes like a phoenix. He would do as he was told in the note. He would do what his father had done. He would continue that work, and create a family of his own. A family just like the one that had just been destroyed. The path was clear in his simple, damaged, but good, kind mind.

He was seventeen then, and wore nice, clean clothes.

Now he was twenty-nine, and wore nice, clean clothes.

---

Knock knock, knock knock.

It was past midnight. Peter went to the door. He opened it a crack, as far as the chain-lock allowed him. Outside was a short man in a cap and a brown leather jacket, a cigarette in his mouth. His jacket matched the color of his sparse, curly beard.

“You got it?” said the man.

“I do,” said Peter. “The money unlocks this door.”

“I’ll give you the money when you get me the gun.”

“Pass me through half of it right now and the door opens all the way.”

The man in brown did so after making very visible the gun in his other hand. Peter took it.

“Good,” said Peter, and he closed the door, undid the chain-lock, and opened the door a few inches. “I’ll bring it outside.”

The man on the other side waited. Peter retrieved a gun case from the highest shelf in his makeshift office. He joined the other man outside his apartment door, crouching down in the dimly lit hallway.

“I suppose it’s useless to ask you your name?” Peter said as he opened the case on the ground.

“Guy van Guarde,” said the man with a smile that revealed a set of brilliantly white, near shining teeth. “What’s yours?”

“I’m the Smith,” said Peter. “That’s enough for you to know.”

Peter wondered what ethnic heritage Guy van Guarde descended from. The accent gave nothing away. At first Peter had though Russian, then after hearing the name, some combination of French or Dutch. Then again, the man could have made it up himself. That was the most prevalent naming system in the city.

Peter shook his head. He was about to make more money than he’d seen in months, and he was worried about that?

Inside the case, lying in gray foam, was a very powerful weapon, fashioned after the archaic revolvers of the Old West, six-bullet chamber and all. It lay amidst ammunition samples and a state of the art silencer.

Guy van Guarde crouched as well, and reached forward to handle the gun, but Peter drew it away.

“It’s yours,” he said, “once you give me the money.”

Guy van Guarde once again flashed that brilliant smile, and said, “Right.” He produced another handful of bills. Peter followed them from Guy van Guarde’s hand to his own. That was quite a bit of money...enough to pay for everything for the new baby, for Spinosa...

He handed over the case and the two men shook hands. Guy van Guarde made his way down the hall, presumably toward the stairs, and Peter turned back into his apartment. He re-hooked the chain-lock, sat down on the couch, and counted out the cash. After sifting through the bundle several times, he hid it in a thick fake book. Normally this trick would have been obvious; not only were there very few actual books in Oshana, but as a strategy it was from another age. But Peter actually had a collection of books. Poetry, mostly, but some of ancient history, history of the mythical world outside Oshana. Books that his father had once owned. The fake one hid among the real ones quite well.

Peter then walked slowly, quietly to his own room. He stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame, to watch his angelic wife and infant child sleeping together in the small bed, illuminated in part by the light of the moon through the window. Moments like these were the only time Peter would, or could, smile, his family the only realm where he could find peace. He treasured these intimate, moonlit moments, and hid them in his heart.

But then two successive shots rang out. Peter was jarred from the doorway, his wife from sleep with screams. Little Spinosa began to cry loudly and Peter quickly descended on his little family, wrapping his arms around them. He called out, “Rene! Toulouse! Are you okay?”

“Yes, Papa!” cried Toulouse, the oldest, from the other bedroom. “What happened, Papa, what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Peter said, first loudly to his two other children, then again more softly for the presence of Selula and Spinosa. “I’m not sure...”

After quickly ensuring the safety of his family, he ran to the front door, undid the chain-lock, and leaned outside to see what had happened.

Coming out of the door of the apartment to the right was the Russian, the Dutchman, the Frenchman, whoever he was. Guy van Guarde was just closing the door with his left, gloved hand. His other hand, also gloved, held the revolver Peter had just sold him. He smiled at Peter, his white teeth just as brilliant as before, and waved hauntingly.

---

Three days later, another knock sounded at the door. This time, Peter wasn’t expecting anyone.

Once again he went to answer it. He hesitated, his hand on the knob, until the knocker knocked again. He asked who it was through the door. They just knocked again. His heart racing, he turned the knob and pulled it open till the chain caught it. He peered out and saw two men dressed in dark suits and hats. Their faces were almost identical. Perhaps they were twins. They were smiling pleasantly, the corners of their mouths at precisely the same angle.

“May we come in?” said the one on the right.

“We have only peaceful intentions,” said the left.

Their smiles still registered as sincere. So it seemed to Peter. Regardless of his fears, he decided to let them in. If he refused, he knew they could easily force their way in, and they could very well pose a danger to himself or his family. Better to appease them and reciprocate their good natures.

He undid the chain and opened the door all the way without a word. They held out their hands for him to shake. Like when he shook Terry’s Rose-adorned hand, their fingers touched in different places.

“Hello” said one.

“We’re from the Sea,” said the other.

Sea of Chaos - Part One - Chapters 1, 2, and 3

"The product of an angel mating with a demon."

That's how I choose to answer the question of who, or what, is the main character of this story.

And that's all I'll give you as introduction. I'm including here the first three chapters of Part One. The last two will be posted as I edit them lightly throughout tonight and tomorrow.

As always, please offer feedback. I don't need you to look for what's wrong and tell me where I've failed as a writer; it's not at that stage yet. Just general thoughts and feelings.

Thanks.

-Neal

Sea of Chaos

Part I. Prelude

Chapter 1, “Heaven and Hell”

Roc wandered in the morning mist, through the city drenched in fog. The city was beginning to awaken. Minutes ago he had emerged from his little nest of newspaper and rags, a niche known only to him, where he lay protected from the fierce winds that swept through the city every night. One by one the other urchins roused from their sleep, crawling out from their cocoons of trash and starting anew their constant search for that day’s food, that day’s riches.

Roc lived near the Bridge. He liked to start his daily quest by passing that daunting structure of cement and steel. Daunting for its size, and daunting for the legion of mercenary soldiers that stood guarding it, cutting off the only possible exit from the artificial island city that did not involve willful death. Day after day the men stood there, entrenched in their positions as naturally as moss on stone, a permanent fixture of Oshana that no one ever thought to challenge.

Always would Roc let his imagination run free when his gaze met the rows of men and massive artillery atop the gates and towers. The Bridge itself stretched beyond the city, over the sea, and seemingly into the clouds. Roc would wonder what could possibly lay on the other side that could require such a heavy defense.

A land of treasure?

Of milk and honey?

Of immortality, and life eternal?

Heaven, most said. Those that had been born into the confines of the city, those who knew only conjectures of the outside world, those were the ones who called it heaven. But what was heaven? some argued. The smaller ones were content with the thought of milk and honey. The bigger ones wanted power, prestige, vengeance against those who had given them this life. But eventually all settled on the true answer: heaven was anywhere that wasn’t here. Anywhere that wasn’t hell.
Roc knew personally the fruits of the city, of Oshana. The bodies he came across, of men, women, and children---the bodies of all who failed in their quests---were routine finds. The ones with the protruding ribs and swollen bellies were the failures. The ones with bullets in their heads and blood pooled all around them were mostly just unlucky. Roc had survived for eight years because he was fittest---”and the wittiest,” he liked to say.

No one lived forever, and certainly not here, but that didn’t keep many from trying. It didn’t keep some of the inhabitants from trying to leave or sneak out undetected, either. Being caught was more than a certainty; those souls always ended up drowned or hung from the Bridge by cables, swaying in the wind as an example to the rest. If the legion of guards didn’t catch them in their makeshift rowboats, the great towering searchlight---once a lighthouse---always did.

The urchins, those byproducts of despair, of passion, or of unbridled brutality, knew better. They knew to stay in the world they had been born into, the world that perpetuated their state of being as all self-contained worlds and ecosystems do. Desperation ultimately led to death, and death to desperation across many generations. They were mere links in a chain; they understood their place, implicitly if not overtly. The inescapable darkness that hung over the city like a funeral shroud was just the way of things.

Watching the Bridge, Roc stood in the shadowy mouth of an alleyway on the Boulevard, the road that circled the city where mercenary foot soldiers patrolled regularly. Standing there, Roc didn’t see the mercenary guards anymore, like one sees a forest but not the trees; his small but perceptive eyes saw past those chess pieces and out into the clouds the Bridge stretched into, like a lateral tower to the gods.

With the attitude of waking from a dream, he turned his back on that sight and delved into the city, into his inheritance. He had heard about a cheese shop that was opening up near the docks and wanted to get there early, perhaps before...well, before others got to it first, whether it was his fellow urchins or the armed gunmen paid by the shop-owners to keep the urchins out. Roc gamboled through the backstreets and alleys, keeping out of sight of potential predators and protected from the frost-like winds that would easily bite through his rags. He poked his head out onto one particular street and immediately felt a cold draft blast through his uncut greasy dark hair.

“This wind is bound to get to me before the cheese does,” he mumbled as he rubbed his arms in the alley. He gave the winds a glare of annoyance.

But as he made a more careful glance at his surroundings, he noticed a perfectly good cloth cap on the ground, lying there, in his mind, in utter lack of utility. He frowned at the wasted article and promptly picked it up, and placed it upon his head, putting it to use.

“Huh!” he said with an approving nod. The only blemish was a small dark stain on one side. Also it was a bit large as caps go, but all the better, as it fit around the tops of his ears. “Golly. What a find.”

The clouds started dropping their burdens, suddenly and hard. To his peers the rain would mean shivering and wallowing, but Roc dismissed it and rejoiced in his fortunate, fortuitous find. A cap just before it started raining! The timing couldn’t have been better. To his colleagues on the streets, it might have meant a lot of shaking, of huddling under the nearest roof and being quite miserable; it might have meant illness or even death, but to Roc it was an opportunity. He would be willing to travel through the cold and rain to get to that cheese shop first. The cap would make him invincible, impervious to the elements.

He just started out into the street when he heard a sound behind him. Something had banged into a metal trash can, sending it flying. Roc spun around to see the garbage and waste pouring out of it as the sound of the metal reverberated between the buildings. An older boy, a youth no older than sixteen, had ducked into the alley and knocked over the can.

The youth’s appearance spiked Roc’s senses, for Roc didn’t see him as the young man he was. He saw him, and all older kids, as tyrants to cower before, as monsters to run from.

Roc turned to do just that, run away like a hare from a fox, when he heard another sound past the ringing of the trash can. Whimpering. Crying. Heaving sobs and shortness of breath.

The monster was afraid. The realization rooted Roc in place.

The crying youth got himself back on his feet, but stumbled over some of the rain-soaked garbage. He might have made it to the exit where Roc stood frozen like an unwilling sentinel, but with a short scream of pain the youth once more fell to the ground. His feet had landed on shattered pieces of green glass that had emptied out of the trash. His feet had been impaled, sliced up.

Again he tried to get up, but his hands, in pushing off the ground, were pressing on the glass, and he collapsed for the last time, trembling and quietly sobbing. To add to the injuries of the glass, Roc could see blood on his temples and left thigh. Whatever his quest was, it was going to end here, Roc knew. And he couldn’t quite look away.

Because part of him enjoyed it. Roc had never been terrorized by this particular bully, but there was no doubt the Monster, which is what they called the older teens, was not innocent.

But was anybody truly innocent, that lived in hell?

It was then that two new figures stepped into the scene, the dogs on the hunt for the fox. They blocked off the other side of the alley like a solar eclipse. The ominous cut of the men, in their lavish pinstriped suits and matching donned hats, was framed by the brick walls of the alley. Roc’s vision began to spin out of fear, and he saw their silhouettes at a harsh, surreal angle. Neither face could be seen beneath the brim of their hats. Their hands held machine guns near their hips, trained calmly but fiercely on their prey. The youth pleaded incoherently, but over the heavy rain, the gangsters, the pinstriped men, could not, would not hear his voice. They fired simultaneously and without a single word of prelude. The burst of gunfire exploded like thunder in Roc’s ears, and the older youth’s screams were soon silenced. Red was added to the black, white, and gray of the city. The rain could not wash it away.

Roc, chest pounding, swung around out of sight of the gangsters, facing the empty street with his back to the wall. Besides the obvious threat of death, he had noticed tattooed symbols on the hands of the pinstriped men, their left hands. It looked something like an X, or two waves crashing onto each other. The symbol of the Sea.

Unsure if they had seen him or not, Roc bolted across the street, then down it, taking every corner he came across and bounding like the hare he was.

He did not know who the youth was, or why he was killed. It didn’t matter in Oshana. Identity carried no weight here. Anyone could be killed at any time, for any number of reasons. It was inevitable. Only the strong survived, and even then not for very long.

Roc finally found refuge in the rubble of a bombed out building, a mansion destroyed long ago in the mysterious wars fought in, over, and outside Oshana decades previously. No one in today’s world really knew what had happened so very long ago, and like everything else, it didn’t matter. What was there meant everything in the quest for survival; why it was meant nothing.

After catching his breath and ensuring they did not follow him, Roc looked around to  again gauge his surroundings. The ground beneath him was black and ashen, and filled with broken pieces of cement and ancient remnants of crumbling walls. There were a myriad of little hiding holes to take shelter in, some bigger than others. Roc felt most comfortable in the smaller ones, where he wouldn’t have to keep watch on multiple sides to ensure his safety.

As he was about to settle into one to lay low for a few minutes, he heard the faint sound of a crackling fire. His cat-like curiosity was piqued, and he hesitantly ventured out of his nook to investigate. Many of the walls had been graffitied with strange but very definite symbols. Around a few corners he found, in the middle of a circular wall of crumbled stone, a trashcan fire, and around it four people, two men and two women, sleeping, strung out, and skeletal.

And sitting next to them, in plain sight, some food.

Roc’s gaze narrowed in on the hunk of meat they had evidently not finished before passing out. Meat was a far grander treasure than cheese. The sight of beef, though not in prime condition, filled Roc’s mouth with saliva, and made his tiny stomach grumble. As with the hit he had just witnessed, he gave no thought as to how these people got such a valuable commodity, or why they hadn’t finished it off, but now it was his for the taking. It might even be as easy as walking over there and picking it up. And by that right it was his. That was the nature of things in Oshana.

He started toward the druggies, pausing at interim points behind larger pieces of rubble to ensure they were all still out of it. But at the last pausing point, when he was so close he could even smell the scent of the meat, he stopped himself and looked closer.

They were all in various states of undress. Scattered between them on the ground were used needles and little unopened baggies filled with powder and crystals. A gruesome purple and blue spot on the closest man’s left forearm showed where a needle had penetrated many times. On the back of the same man’s right hand was tattooed an image of a rose with the thorny stem wrapped around the wrist. To top it all off, that right hand held a gun.

They were dealers. Irresponsible, idiotic, and addicted dealers, but dealers. They had connections to a gang, shown by the hand tattoo. Roc visualized those connections as strings a puppeteer uses to control the puppet. Then the movements of that puppet controlled another one below. He had watched an old Chinese man do a puppet show one time. The image came to him in a flash, then faded quickly as the scent of the meat once again filled his nostrils.

He would risk it. He had to. That was nothing new. Every choice he had ever made was a risk. It couldn’t be helped. He darted forward with soft steps over the scorched ground. He intended to grab the hunk of meat and run off, but as he took it in hand, he couldn’t help himself and bit into it.

One of the women, covered by a thin blanket, suddenly stirred. Roc didn’t notice at first. Not until she sat straight up, the blanket falling and revealing a bare chest and ghostly thin torso beneath. Roc looked up just as she let out a monstrous, screaming roar, as if in an acid-laced dream. It terrified him, and he dropped the meat onto the ground and started backing away. The woman, whose heartbeat Roc could hear, started shaking the sleeping man next to her.

“Nigel!” she screamed. “It’s a dirty turfing thief! Nigel! NIGEL!”

Nigel, the one with the gun, whose once-handsome face was now gaunt, hollow, and framed by long, black, greasy hair, roused from his sleep but reacted as if drunk, with a slur and a daze.

“What...what the hell?” he said, trying to orient himself as he sat up. He, too, was naked underneath his blanket. The other two sleepers were still totally unconscious beneath thin rags and blankets of their own.

“Go get him, Nigel! Shoot the little bastard!” shrieked the woman.

Roc let adrenaline fuel him as he once more snatched up the meat from the ground and started running. Nigel managed to get to his feet and fired at Roc. The shots weren’t even close to hitting him, but Roc didn’t know that, so he dove behind a mess of concrete and rebar. Nigel, lumbering forward, kept firing in his general direction, pinning him to where he was. Roc was prepared to throw the meat back, but just as he cocked his arm, he heard a click.

Nigel was out of ammunition.

Roc couldn’t believe his luck. After a few more frustrated clicks and curses from Nigel, Roc stood up where he was with something of a smile on his face. Nigel was about thirty feet away, and in no condition to chase down a little turfing thief like Roc. With a roar of rage and irrationality, Nigel threw the empty gun at the obnoxious kid. In that motion he lost his tenuous balance and fell to the ground with a grunt, where he lost most of the consciousness he had gained in the last twenty seconds. His throw turned out to be more accurate than his aim, so Roc simply collected the empty gun from the ground where it had landed just a few feet away. Cheerfully he turned to Nigel and his companion, tipped his cap to both of them.

“That’s a little sparrow for you!” he said, and scurried off.

---

Several blocks and thoughts later, Roc had uncovered a kernel of an idea in his brain. A flame, really, ignited by the two incidents of the morning. He knew that flame needed a bellows to fuel it and fan it higher, so he found a good place to think. Up some stairs, to the roof of an old apartment building. As he climbed through the fog, the sun poked through some clouds. The new light bounced off the surrounding mist and made it tough to look up without squinting.

Roc sat on the edge of the roof, his feet dangling over the side, examining the gun in his hand. He didn’t know anything about guns; had never fired or even held one before. He knew he needed ammunition, but even if he could get it, he wouldn’t know how to load it, and doubted anyone would ever show him how.

But he didn’t think he’d need that. The image of the gun might be enough to ward off a Tyrant, what the kids in his neighborhood called the burgeoning pubescent teens, the stage before becoming a Monster. That Monster back there in the alleyway, the one who had somehow incurred the wrath of the Sea...what was he afraid of? The guns, obviously, but there was something more than that. Some danger higher than just the menace of a gun.

Roc snapped his fingers---it was the Sea itself! The name alone was something to be afraid of. Why? he thought. Because, he answered himself, it represented something bigger. A group, a large group, of very dangerous people. Men with guns and power, who lorded over the city. Men with...connections.

So what if Roc could create his own little Sea? His own gang? Something greater and more threatening than himself alone. No way could a group of kids his age fight in the same arena as the Sea, but that wasn’t the goal. He wanted protection from Tyrants and Monsters. That the Sea gangsters were adults and therefore all the more formidable an enemy shouldn’t cut down the possibility of children banding together to protect themselves from those closer to their own age. Age shouldn’t matter in wanting, and creating...a family.

That’s what he needed. And below him, two floors beneath his dangling feet, he saw the beginning of that family. An incident springing up between two kids on the street below. Today had been blessed by the fickle gods that reigned over Oshana: a cap, a gun, and now this Tyrant laughing as he pushed and shoved another kid a few years younger, one closer to Roc’s age. The bully advanced on the younger boy with startling purpose.

Just as the younger kid fell against the wall and the older cocked his arm back, Roc intervened. “Hey!” he shouted from the rooftop. “HEY!”

He had to be bold. He had to be fierce. He had to be mean. He had to play it totally straight. No fear; total control.

The bully turned and looked up. He squinted into the fog-reflected sunlight to see Roc’s gun pointing directly at him. He drew back, then glanced at the long-necked boy he had been about to pummel.

“What is this?” he said, a slight fearfulness in his voice. But was it fear, or just annoyance at the interruption?

“What’s your name?” Roc said, still holding the gun on him but casually swinging his legs back and forth.

“Roya,” the boy said, playing along.

“How old are you?” Roc said.

“Don’t know, do I, squirt?” he spat.

“Why were you beating him up?”

Roya shrugged. “Wanted to. No reason. What’s it to you?”

Roc eyed Roya. “That kid’s my family,” he said. “I’m looking out for him.” Then Roc made a crucial play. “I can look out for you too, if you want.”

Roya snorted, and flashed his eyebrows in arrogance. “Do you think I really need it?”

“If you think you got kevlar on under that shirt, then sure.”

Roya was silent.

“Let me come down there, and we’ll talk,” Roc said, his gun still pointed casually down at Roya. Though he had never held a gun before, he was still plenty capable of imitating the many gun-flaunting poses he had witnessed in his short life.

Roya remained silent. He seemed to be...calculating.

No one, no thing, not a wind or a speck of rain swept through that street just then.

Then the silence broke, and Roya smiled widely.

“I would love to talk,” he said.

Roc, turning to the stairs, hesitated, and stared briefly into that face. Even from thirty feet up, Roc could make out thick, boomerang-shaped eyebrows that defined the rest of his surprisingly handsome features. After a moment he broke the stare and continued down, and all three talked. Mostly Roc and Roya, though. Roc helped the other boy to his feet and pronounced him Second, inducting him into the family as his number two man without even asking him. Second went along with it quietly, shyly, and never tried to offer his real name or even question Roc and his ways.

Roya was a little different. Contrary to expectations, he didn’t question Roc much either, and this made Roc uneasy. His charisma and gold-colored eyes, framed by those thick, sharp, devious eyebrows, never let Roc feel totally in control, as he had intended to be. Roya agreed to go along with Roc, even outwardly accepting Roc’s role as leader, and Second as number two. But Roc could hear violence in his voice, a musical, attractive violence, and while Roc never addressed them openly, he never forgot Roya’s words of explanation for beating up Second.

He had wanted to. No reason.

Chapter 2, “The Roc”

He called it the Roc. Not for himself, he told the other nine. For the comics hero, who he happened to be named after. The title united the little sparrows and ensured Roc’s place at their head. And under his observant leadership, they actually succeeded in accomplishing Roc’s original goal. They kept safe, and they kept fed.

They did this through shared labor. Roc divided the duties into three, and they each took a turn daily. Three of them were to find work in the markets, doing odd jobs or errands for shop owners or anyone with money, really. Three were set on circling duty, keeping watch on the streets around their turf for defense against Tyrants, Monsters, and Darks. The last three were on the sniff, searching out marks and fair games around town that the Roc could take advantage of---things like rich snobs they could con, soup kitchens they could claim, and, most significantly, older boys---the very ones who had once terrorized them---they could take vengeance on. This last one, this war on the Tyrants and Monsters of the city, proved especially fruitful and satisfying. It was also the one that mattered most in the end.

They established a strip from the Bridge to the Canal as their turf, and even some of the dock markets. They looked out for each other, almost always moving in groups. Roc made this law after he had to run away from a madman in an alley in the process of cutting off his own fingers. The empty gun Roc waved around had not proved a successful deterrent. Roya, an incidental witness to the scene, had laughed at him for that, and Roc consequently made teaming up the way of the family.

Roya was the mystery Roc both needed and did not want to look at.

Roya, easily oldest and a head higher than the tallest, stayed in the background. He watched more than anything. Always, like he was taking notes. None of the other kids questioned it because he acted dutifully, and did whatever Roc asked. But that was part of the game, the tension between the two. Roc guessed that Roya had caught on to the fact that every assignment he gave was a test of trust. Roya passed each one and fulfilled his obligations, but often made well-timed and carefully chosen comments in Roc’s presence that kept Roc on his toes. Every subtle strike was delivered with that same wide smile, those brow-shadowed golden eyes. To Roc it was strange that Roya never used his natural charisma to win over any of the others, which Roc assumed would be his goal. Whatever he was playing, it was deeper than Roc could guess, perhaps deeper than he could understand. But his ability to dance on the surface and block each blow kept him and his little family afloat. Roya wouldn’t be a problem.

The crux of the comments was the same thing that galvanized the gang in the first place.

“I’ve never seen you use that gun,” Roya would sometimes mention, standing there with a grin and his hands casually in his pockets. It was a striking pose and a grin Roc would never forget. One that he tried to ignore.

In truth, no one had seen Roc use his gun. Roc often kept it out and in his hand, even used it to intimidate potential threats, no-goods and all-bads and would-be thieves. But his bluff had never been called; he had never been forced to pull that trigger. And he still hadn’t found bullets or cartridges or magazines, or whatever kind of ammunition was meant to fill it. He knew he’d need to soon.

But even that thought scared him. Despite the death that swirled around the city like a storm, Roc seemed to be its eye---he was terrified of having to actually kill someone. His childish mind did not contemplate using the gun to wound; for him it represented murder only.

So he had to be careful around Roya.

And he had to find some ammo.

Chapter 3, “A Smith in Two Fashions”

Peter Smith, a man of about thirty, tried not to let the grime and chaos of the city mar him, not his shop and not his soul. He wore a dark green apron with tools and instruments filling all but two pockets. He ironed and pressed his shirt, pants, and apron nightly, using a metal pan filled with steaming hot water, and hung them up overnight. In the morning he rose with the sun, even though that celestial body was hardly ever visible, and swept the sidewalk out front with his makeshift straw broom. Afterwards he stood in front of his establishment and waited, hands in empty pockets.

He was never quite sure what he waited for. His line of business did not depend on public advertisements or bell-ringing or wooing customers in to buy one of his products impulsively. He relied on appointments and connections. He had no need to wait. But that was what he had seen his father do when he was a child. Wait outside, professionally, with dignity. The only way to escape the filth was to rise above it, even if his success relied on links to those very people he tried so hard not to be, those who epitomized the filth. Not the children, the starving orphans or the desperate, miserable ones forced to do what was necessary to survive---not these, who Peter acknowledged he might very well be one of---but the gangsters, the powerful ones, the rule-setters and soul-crushers. He could see the big picture, even if no one else could. But he was content to keep his civilized ways to himself and to his family.

After a time standing outside in the crisp, cool air, Peter retreated back into his store. With a sigh he examined the glass cases that displayed his products, noting some smudges on one that he had forgotten to clean yesterday. He took a rag, spat into it, and wiped away the fingerprints, making the glass practically invisible. He checked his watch, saw that he had about ten minutes till his first appointment, and went behind the counter to pick up a book. It was a book of poems, hardly still bound together, but one that his grandfather had passed down to his father, and now it was his. Special care was taken for this book; Peter handled it delicately and respectfully as he turned its pages. He finally landed on the one he wanted to read.

A Prayer

by Edgar A. Guest

God grant me kindly thought

And patience through the day

And in the things I’ve wrought

Let no man living say

That hate’s grim mark has stained

What little joy I’ve gained.

God keep my nature sweet,

Teach me to bear a blow,

Disaster and defeat,

And no resentment show.

If failure must be mine,

Sustain this soul of mine.

God grant me strength to face

Undaunted day or night

To stoop to no disgrace

To win my little fight;

Let me be, when it is o’er,

As manly as before.

He looked at the gold ring on his left hand, and smiled.

Just then the door to his shop opened and he checked his watch. Six minutes early. Unlike them. His customers usually arrived precisely on time. The only ones in Oshana who did mark the passage of time. Then Peter Smith saw just who had entered his shop.

A boy, roughly eight years old wearing a dirty old shirt emblazoned with a blue and red flag and an oversized brown cap to top it all off. He was the same height as many of the displays he was passing, no more than four feet tall. The boy made it to the counter before Peter could respond more actively. Only his nose and eyes were visible between the edge of the counter and the cap.

“Can I help you?” Peter said, somewhat amazed.

“I need bullets,” the boy said. “You sell bullets here, right?”

“I do,” said Peter, trying to analyze the kid. “I do sell them. Do you have money to pay?”

The boy nodded, then reached behind him and brought out something from his waistband. It was a gun. Peter’s eyes widened and he instinctively reached down beneath the counter to grab his shotgun. But he stopped when he realized a second later that the boy wasn’t pointing the gun at him.

“I need bullets for this,” the boy said, and placed it on the counter, seemingly unaware of the threatening gesture he had just made.

“A Mikan, huh?” Peter said, raising an eyebrow as he looked down at the gun and slowly put his hand over it. “Now what the hell are you doing with a semi-switching Mikan T5?”

“I have money,” the boy said, and lifted his over-large t-shirt to withdraw some bills from his trouser pocket. He set them on the counter, right next to the gun.

“Listen, kid,” Peter said with a snort, “I’m not going to give someone as young as you the power to kill. Your soul is still new. You’re fresh. Keep it that way.”

“You don’t want me to be able to defend myself?”

The kid had a point, but Peter wondered how true the sentiment of that statement was, if that’s why the kid actually wanted it. Children had the right to defend themselves, didn’t they? Ideally, they shouldn’t have to. But that wasn’t reality.

He’d never been confronted with such an issue. He didn’t want the kid corrupted. But he didn’t want him preyed upon, either. This conflict, the sad necessity of violence, lay at the heart of Oshana, and this kid was the face of it. It troubled Peter, but he didn’t quite have time to run the full gamut of contemplation. So he would have to ignore it. Put it out of his mind, like all his other demons of conscience.

“No deal, kid,” Peter finally said, his hand still loosely guarding the gun on the counter.

The boy’s scrunched up in anger and he huffed. “Then please give me back my gun,” he said, holding out his open hand.

Peter said nothing, and was still trying to decide whether or not to return the gun when the two people he had been expecting entered the shop.

“Quaint, clean, civilized violence!” said the leader of the two, looking around. “I like it already. Don’t you like it, Det?”

The two men wore rich suits; the leader all in white and the other with pinstripes. Both wore hats on their heads and rose boutonnieres in their lapels.
At their entrance the boy gasped and slyly slunk back into the shadows amidst the displays.

“We’ve got a kid here, too!” said the leader. “That yours, Mr. Smith?”

“No, no, just one from the streets,” Peter said, casually dragging the gun off the counter and placing it next to the shotgun on a shelf beneath. He then went around the counter to approach the two men. “My three sons are at home. We just had our third a few weeks ago. Selula is taking care of them. In any case, it is nice to meet you at last, Mr. Guthrie.”

“Call ‘im Terry,” said Terry Guthrie’s partner, whom he had called Det. Det was smaller, thicker, darker in tone, a bit more stodgy and with a face badly in need of shaving.

“Yeah, genealogically we’re old friends, aren’t we?” Terry said to Peter. He seemed to Peter to be in his thirties. His bright red tie stood out like fresh blood against the rest of his white apparel. Charming brown eyes matched by brown hair under the hat, and energy in his walk and in his talk: the classic look of an alpha male. “My pop knew your pop. That’s what they told me. Trusted him as a fine gunsmith. Ah, I suppose that’s why your name is Smith? Gunsmithing?”

“I don’t know. It could be that, or it could be coincidence,” Peter said meekly.

“You could say that about a lot of things that happen,” Terry said, casting a keen eye on Peter. “Doesn’t mean much. Now how about that gun of mine?”

“Oh, yes. It’s been repaired to perfect condition, and cleaned. But couldn’t I interest you in some of these other firearms while you’re here as well?”

“Listen, Mr. Smith, you’re too young for this formality. If you’re younger than me, you can talk like me. I give you that right. But now, I just want to see my old gun. She’s been with me a long time and I’d like to see her recovered again.”

“Bloody ridiculous, calling a gun a girl,” Det muttered.

“The only girl I’ll ever commit to,” Terry said, eyes sparkling. “And I’d like to see her again.” His sparkling eyes narrowed on Peter. “Now.”

The change in tone sent Peter hustling into the back room, his workshop where he cleaned, repaired, and built customized weaponry. At first he couldn’t find Terry Guthrie’s gun, and he searched every corner and cubby of the room in a bit of a panic. When at his most frantic point, he discovered it sitting on his counter in the most obvious spot possible. He breathed again, took it in hand, placed it in a small foam-padded briefcase, and returned to the counter.

“I have it... I have it here, Mr. Guthrie,” Peter said, setting the case down before Terry, who he was startled to find turning away from the kid. In addition to watching and listening this whole time, the kid had taken this opportunity to talk to this powerful man, unaware of his rank and reach.

And had apparently won him over.

“That’s all well and good, Mr. Smith,” Terry said, cracking open the case and taking only a cursory glance inside before raising his eyes back up to Peter. “And I thank you for that. I really do.” He wore only a mask of a smile on his face now. “But...this kid tells me you won’t sell him what he needs. Kid tells me he had money, and you denied him your services. Even took his gun.”

The boy stood there, innocent and dumb. Peter stuttered, but Terry spoke over it.

“I don’t know if we can pay you for fixing this gun and be fair to you if you aren’t going to be fair in your business,” he said.

“Terry, you damn softie,” Det said. “You’ll listen to every kid but mine.”

“Yours is different,” Terry said, brown eyes still on Peter. “He’s getting what he deserved for how he acts. Survival of the fittest.”

“Damn you to hell,” Det said.

Terry ignored Det. His attention was still fixated on Peter. “So what’s it gonna be, Pete? My custom and that boy’s, or none of it. What do you say?”

Peter sighed, smiled weakly, and called the boy over. With that same feigned cheer he brought out the boy’s empty Mikan and chose a certain small box from the supply cupboard behind him. He put both the gun and the ammunition on the counter and slid it across, into the boy’s waiting hands. Peter turned to Terry, reemphasizing the weak smile, but Terry was shaking his head.

“Ah, ah, ah!” he said. “You’ve forgotten to make a fair exchange. Kid, give him the money you owe him.”

Peter told him the price and the boy produced two bills and placed them on the counter. Peter took them graciously, and once more faced Terry, who was busy withdrawing some bills of his own out of his wallet. These represented more significant money; Terry didn’t even ask the price, just tossed them onto the counter and picked up the case.

“I believe we’re all square now,” Terry said. “Justice is a fine principle.” He nodded to Peter, then to the boy. “Good choice of weaponry,” he added. “The Mikan is standard use in our organization.”

The boy nodded, swallowed, and made to leave. But with the next words spoken, he froze right when he had his hand on the door. Peter noticed this, but not out loud.

“And speaking of standard use,” Det said, bellying his way up to the forefront of the conversation, “Terry didn’t get a chance to see what’s in all these displays between all those words he was talking, but I did, and I have to ask...Mr. Smith, you wouldn’t consider working for us on a regular basis, would you? A contract? I got a good look and I have to say, that’s damn fine workmanship. These are all custom-made, aren’t they?”

“Benedetto, is that really necessary right now?” Terry said with a sigh.

“Terry, you’re not paying attention to the signs!” he said. “We might have a war soon, depending on when my son shows up and in what condition he’s in, and a guy like this could supply us with the good stuff.”

“Gep isn’t the deciding factor,” Terry said, his face like stone, patience straining. “We’re not starting a war over him.” He turned to Peter. “Mr. Smith, we’re done. We appreciate your time and your talent.”

“I’m not done, Terry---”

“Then we’ll take a business card, if you have one,” said Terry tiredly.

“It is all right,” Peter said, looking from Terry to Det and back again. “I cannot commit to a contract with an organization anyway. But do please come back for special purchases, when you need them.”

“Wait...” said Terry, frowning. “You’re not already working for somebody else, are you?”

“No, no!” said Peter, purposefully avoiding addressing Terry by any name in case whichever name he chose to use was the wrong one. “It is just...my wife. She’s asked me not to take sides. I want to honor that and keep my independence.”

“But you’ll still take our money in individual business deals?” Terry said, eyebrow raised.

Peter nodded. “I will.”

“Looks like we’re all mercenary to something,” Terry said with a grin. “You go home tonight and make love to your wife. She deserves it.”

Terry stuck out his hand for Peter to shake. As Peter’s hand took Terry’s, Peter felt something different in the grip, an unusual placement of the fingers. He looked down and saw what decorated the back of Terry Guthrie’s right hand: a rose, its thorny stem wrapping all around the wrist.

“That’s a promise of business,” Terry said, his brown eyes lit with intensity. “The sign of the Rose.”

Peter was shaken loose from his trance with a cell phone ringing. It was Terry’s. He brought it out of his inside jacket pocket and answered.

“Yeah.”

The energy in his visage dissipated as he listened. He blinked twice, staring straight ahead.

“I’m giving you Det,” he said into the phone.

Det craned his neck up at Terry angrily as he took the phone. “What?!”

“They’ve found it,” Terry said simply.

“Found what?” Det said, putting the phone to his ear.

Seconds later, Det’s face drained of color.

“You’ve...you’ve found him?” he said into the phone.

“In an alley,” Terry whispered to no one in particular, barely audible to the room at large.

The boy in the over-large t-shirt finally pushed open the shop door and ran away.