Subscription Book #1 (April Weeks 1-2) Chapter 1

Redeemers Lullaby
CHAPTER ONE
WHISKEY LULLABY

It rained that day. It always rained on that day; just as it did two years ago: The day Vash called ‘the Sabre’ by some; was killed that day by the only woman he had ever loved. The Outlaw looked out of the passenger side window of the steam train taking him through the busy streets of the city of Xion. He looked out at the rain: the somber delicate forlorn rain streamed down the rail car and the giant city castle all at once blanketing the metropolitan steam and magic driven city in a drenching downpour of sadness and loss.
It rained this day just like it rained two years ago: the day he died, the day he was shot and forced to be executed by the woman he loved more than life itself against her will. Salina her secret lover the woman he had had an affair with was forced to put in the final incarnum bolt in his forehead by her wicked husband the leader of the Arsenal terrorist syndicate a man only known by the alias ‘Scythe.’ Koron Thanatos his former friend lead a coup on the syndicate two years ago an eliminated his opposition to his dreams of claiming the syndicate’s seat of power, including Vash known as ‘Sabre.’
Vash looked out of his window in the seat of the passenger steam-train that carried him into the gryphon district of Xion the poorest of the poor lived here, and they died there as well. He looked out at the billowing steam and rotating gears of the shanty towns of this forsaken and forgotten ghetto at the end of the long wing of a massive section of the even more massive city castle; this place was a dumping ground for all that the world had doomed to die.
The train chugged along the tracks that were suspended by iron encased bridges that lead throughout the entire city complex. The steam and magic driven city was like few on Phoenix Star, it was totally built by special mages called masons who used their powers to great giant structures rail road’s and skyscrapers out of thin air and interconnected them all through magical incantations and spells that made the city one of the greatest wonders of the world. Nowhere in all of the world was there a city that was this fare advanced over the rest of the world.
The rest of the world was cold and dark and primitive; yet the giant city of Xion was a beacon of golden light in the darkness. It was a home for all who needed help and asylum; it was a safe haven for culture, sophistication, science, art, and freedom. This was the most technologically advanced place to live and the most astounding place for all who longed to be truly free of despots, tyrants, and war. It was the last great free titanscape and slowly, ever so slowly it was crumbling to the ground from within.
Except here: in the gryphon district of Xion where the poorest of the poor scratched to gain just a few cooper pieces a week if they were lucky and all the while being suppressed by the powerful and they hypocritical politicians who promised to help them all the while aiding in their downfall wading in their ever expanding power and ever growing corruption: taxing them and filling their pockets with blood money and a ever growing halls of gold and silver. The politicians pretended to be on the side of the poor when in reality they just wanted every last speck of copper these hardworking men and women saved a lifetime for to fill their own self-gratifying purses.
Vash looked out at the poor forgotten section of the city, he had once tried desperately to help them to stand up for them and overthrow the corruption and greed. But these people were truly lost they were truly forgotten and neglected by all even the guard dared not ventured in this part of the city; breeding crime and evil everywhere in this eternally dark slice of the magnificent golden city of Xion.
The rusted black iron steam train screeched to a halt as they reached their destination, Vash filed out with the over undesirables of this poorest most downturn district of an otherwise glorious city. Vash walked out into the rain clothed in a worn and dirty brown leather jacket black boots and a plain white shirt that showed he was extremely strong and muscled. His hair was dirty brown unkempt and uncared for and on his scared face there were several thin white scars.
Rain drenched the artificial city castle; the rain was also a product of the hands of mortal men. In the steam and magic driven mega-city that was like a nation all its own there was a storm like this one once every few months. This un cheeked downpour that defied the weather control magic of the giant self-contained castle was the product of condensation of the steam and gear works of the city that floated up to its roof and collected pouring down as somber artificial rain that drenched the city in sorrow.
Vash walked with the vagrants and undesirables of the mean streets of the gryphon district of the mega-castle of Xion. Some were beggars dressed in burlap and monk-like rags tattered and frayed after years of begging and wandering from kingdom to kingdom. Many were orphans also clothed in rags and ragged cloaks just warm enough to stave off the chill of the falling rain. Many were mothers who did not have enough milk in their breasts to feed starving and crying children. This was the poor district of the giant monument of a city: this was the real face of the people of Xion.
Vash remembered his past as he walked through the magic driven mega-city hugging his brown leather jacket tight to his body shielding him from the rain and his hand-crafted shotgun-blade hung on his back which was a shotgun forged into a claymore as if it was a prize position just waiting to be stolen. He remembered he had once thought he was trying to save the city from corruption and the greed that snuffed these people and the less fortunate the guards taxed them down to their bare copper piece and then stuffed them in work houses and debtors prisons to be forgotten by society at large.
In the far corner of the refuge, garbage fire and beggar tainted street stood a motley inn and tavern simply called “Home” in that seedy tavern only lowlifes went into and not all of them ever came out. He went inside and waded through the degenerates and laughing poor house workers who spent all of their money on booze instead of feeding their children. They laughed and some even greeted Vash as he entered. He waded through the poor man’s bar across rotting floors covered with fleshly spilled ale and crunched on a glass bottle before he took his seat next to his partner.
“You’re late Sabre…” a tall animal faced Rajja named Rosh Bathar Vash’s partner and leader of his mercenary group scolded him for whatever reason he made Rosh wait this long. The giant of a being with a golden mane and brilliant yellow bristles all over his long snoot played with his drink of ether-water in which swam a live clown fish that was almost drunk of f of the alcoholic liquid. Vash watched the fish in the glass for a moment and only looked at his friend with a sour look on the outlaw’s face not commenting on his nagging.
“Whiskey…” Vash called in his deep voice rubbing the shaggy stubble of his beard, the outlaw made his eyes go blank as if thinking about a distant past and a long suppressed memory. The bartender gave him the glass filled with the syrupy alcohol and he downed it in one giant gulp slamming the glass on the bar table and looking as if he had just empties a water-skin after being a month in the Verdanian desert. He finally looked at his Rajja friend and said just these words softly: “it’s been two years Rosh…”
The anthropomorphic fox-like man stirred his glass in his hand nursing the alchemical liquid and watching the clown fish swim in the alcoholic beverage. He seemed to go distant as well concerned about this long suppressed obsession with a woman he used to love, could one woman change a man so much? Rosh knew that he had been profoundly changed by that woman, and she had brought him out of darkness and into the light in all the stories Vash had ever told the Rajja he knew that just from the way he looked into his whiskey he was already remembering the music box he had given her. He tried to change the subject, “Has it been two years since we started this little mercenary business? Yes it has been.”
“No Rosh, it’s been two years since I saw…Salina…’ just as Vash said that name that fragile echo of a forgotten past, the ice cubes in his whiskey fell from their disturbed place and fell into a new position. Rosh looked at the timing of the whiskey and Salina like it was some kind of omen, as if the booze and the woman were in some kind of cosmic link to each other; and that was not all fairy tales.
Roth saw that he had not forgotten the woman of his past; he still loved her even she betrayed him and killed him. Roth remembered that night when he was resurrected wandering in the streets like a zombie wounded and bleeding and badly injured. He came to Roth’s front door babbling nonsense and calling out her name, Roth’s wife took care of him and mended his wounds as he slowly gained back his sanity and realized what had really happened to him. Just around the same Rosh’s Daughter was stolen from him by a skavin crime lord; Vash had helped him get her back and they became partners forming a mercenary group and working for the highest bidder.
“In all my life I had never meet a woman like her, she was so beautiful and kind, yet there was something else about her. It was like a beauty you could not measure with your eyes or eve your heart. She loved me when I was a killer, when I lived for revenge and the death of my enemies. She tried to help me tried to make me see the goodness inside of me that was buried deep down; and in the end she succeeded. She was the only woman I had ever truly loved; I miss her so much.”
“You know Vash,” he almost laughed, “In the two years I’ve known your sorry ass that was the first shred of real human emotion, and real human feelings you’ve ever let out of that stone cold barrier of your heart.” He laughed in a hardy throaty chuckle and said, “I was beginning to believe you really didn’t have a soft romantic side to you I was beginning to believe you were actually as bad-ass as you say you are. After all this time I was starting to believe your own bullshit!”
Vash laughed with his old friend remembering the times they had had and the times before with the terrorist cell; staring down into his drink which was like an eternal prison of whiskey and pain, “That’s humans for you, they hide all of their emotions for years and then one day it just all comes out in the open. But since we’re being so honest I’ll just say; that I would give anything, anything to just see that woman again. Salina’s shadow still haunts me, and I can never get the memory of the lullaby of her music box out of my mind no matter how much I drink. I guess that is the prince of being resurrected to life; to be a redeemer means the past will always haunt me no matter what.”
“I suppose until you complete whatever task the crazy servitor shaman who resurrected you wanted to fulfill, you’ll be consumed with the past like a ghost is consumed with shadows and fragments of a task they left undone. You are man half-dead and half-alive Vash I’ll tell you that. You’ve been reborn into this world and that always has consequences on the mind of the resurrected; you’re a redeemer now you might be signing that redeemer’s lullaby for the rest of your life.”
Vash changed the subject sensing the uncomfortable nature of the topic and went to the real reason they were here, “So what is this illustrious job you’ve been talking so much about?”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Rosh said in his deep voice shuffling with paw-like fingers to find a hologram disk, he set the disk and put it on the table a hologram ignited with spectacular blue light from the copper and brass housing and took the shape of a hooded woman holding some thing that looked like a piece of shattered metal. “This is the Ryn goddess of the moon, or a stature of her anyway. The statue itself is priceless said to be a relic of the first age and it is kept in the high security level of the Sovereign Royal Museum. But what really makes it valuable is that it’s made up of illuminate stone which is a rare magical ingredient our client needs for a ritual; and we’ve been paid in advance to steal it. Our employer wishes to remain anonymous and Aves did all of the background and job details a relayed them to me. He paid fifty thousand gold Sovereigns and that is enough motivation for me.”
“oaky old dog,” Vash said with a impish smile, “Lets be easy on those tired rusty joints of yours and take things slow this time, this is our last job by the way and the money will be enough to retire on right? What are you going to do with it spend it on Tear and the kids? I know what I’m going to do: fly first class by slip travel to wherever country if farthest from this hell hole.What did you have in mind blow it all on something for yourself I hope?”
Rosh laughed again in fond remembrance, “You know Vash a man has to admit when he has met his match; an my match wasn’t a crime lord or a necromancer, it was my own wife. You know Tear is good to me and she loves me and I love her. I was going to take her to the most expensive resort on the beach of the sea of stars buy a little house and finally retire from this business in style. After tonight my friend if everything goes well I’ll be on vacation for the rest of my life.” And they both laughed at that and the laughed as joker, partners, friends; one last time…