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Sam took in a deep breath, ignoring the warm blood flowing from his head. By the time the blood flowed down his neck and pooled around his collarbone region, it left him with a cold, sticky sensation, causing him to shiver; maybe, it was a result of losing too much blood, but Sam didn’t have time to worry about his eagle-inflicted injuries. The reptilians were taking their sweet time, but they were definitely preparing for a slaughter, and if he didn’t do anything, he’d lose his biggest bargaining chip: the army of currently helpless graylings.
“Anyone have a brilliant plan they’d like to share?” Sam asked, looking at Wendy, Ellie, and Ellie’s mom.
“I have one,” Ellie’s mother said from the levistone and used one arm to grab Ellie’s waist. Ellie’s eyes widened as she was lifted up like a sack of potatoes. She flailed her limbs, but it was futile; after years of practice, her mother was an expert at carrying protesting children. Ellie’s mother nodded at Sam and Wendy. “Ellie’s just a child, so she won’t be of much help with your situation. I’ll keep her safe and out of your way, so you don’t have to worry about her as you fight.”
“I can fight!” Ellie said as the levistone hummed. It zoomed off into the distance, causing Ellie’s next words to fade away before Sam could hear them all. “Let me….”
Sam blinked and turned to look at Wendy. Although Ellie’s mother had framed her purpose with a noble cause, in the end, didn’t she just take her daughter and ditch them?
“Yes, I do believe you’ve been abandoned by your representative,” Wendy said, nodding her head.
Sam exhaled. He couldn’t really blame them for leaving. Ellie’s mother obviously had to look out for her child, and she wasn’t going to let Ellie throw away her life for a pet. “You’re not abandoning me too?” Sam asked Wendy, raising an eyebrow.
“If I wanted to, I could walk away right now,” Wendy said, “and they’d let me go because of my parentage, but I did say our faction of reptilians would protect you, and I don’t feel like being a liar just yet.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. It wouldn’t be the first time Wendy had lied to him, telling him he’d be sold to Tamara and selling him off to the second reptilian who asked to buy him instead. To prevent himself from being burned once more, he’d simply pretend like Wendy had abandoned him this time too. Now, he had to figure out a way to protect his defenseless graylings. Birdbrained, who was tucked underneath Sam’s armpit, craned its neck and looked up at Sam before squawking.
“I’ll try my best,” Sam said, his expression darkening. The eagle wanted him to protect every grayling because they were the eagle’s faithful believers. If they got even a single scratch on their bodies, Birdbrained would be greatly displeased, and perhaps, it would have to take matters into its own talons. “Why don’t you take matters into your own talons right now before a grayling gets hurt?”
Birdbrained squawked at Sam.
“Really?” Sam asked, his voice monotonous. “I wouldn’t like the way you do things? Well, I don’t have any other ideas, so even if I don’t like it, the safety of your believers is up to you.”
Birdbrained wiggled, struggling to get free. Sam opened up his arm, allowing the bird to fly…, fall straight onto the ground with a plopping sound. The eagle squawked at Sam and pecked his foot, the eagle’s beak piercing through his shoes more easily than Sam would’ve liked. Then, after it was done venting its frustration, it stood up straight and spread its wings. The column of white light flickered as lines and distorted images, which reminded Sam of feathers, spread outwards from the eagle.
“It’s ripping apart stabilized space,” Wendy said, looking down at Birdbrained. The bird was shorter than even the graylings, its head barely taller than Sam’s knees. “Only a higher-dimensional creature can do that.”
Raindu snorted and waved its paw. The column of light shattered like a broken mirror, and Sam swore he saw his arm fall off just now thanks to one of the cracks in space. However, after the light disappeared, he found his body whole.
“Birdbrained is more impressive than its name suggests,” Wendy said, not noticing the ferret’s contribution because her attention was placed on the eagle the whole time. She looked up at Sam, missing Raindu’s expectant gaze. “Not that it wasn’t already impressive for controlling the graylings.”
Sam nodded and looked down at the still-posturing eagle. He didn’t see why he wouldn’t like the way Birdbrained was dealing with the approaching reptilians. It shattered the column of light, allowing the graylings to use their abilities once more. Then, Birdbrained let out a god-awful warbling noise, and Sam’s mind changed. The noise was grating and made his head feel as if someone were hammering nails into his skull. His vision blurred from the pain, but he could still see Wendy making an agonized expression, one he imagined was very similar to the facial expression he was making right now.
Wendy covered her ears and shouted something at Sam, but he couldn’t hear her over Birdbrained’s warbling. It wasn’t very loud, not hurting his eardrums, but the eagle’s cries seemed to be the only sound in existence, drowning out all other noise. Sam covered his ears, but the warbling continued to resound in his head. He clutched his hair, but he couldn’t even feel his fingers over the aching headache the noise was producing. Sam’s sense of balance vanished, and he fell over, but he didn’t feel pain upon hitting the ground as if the eagle’s cry had robbed him of his senses. The only thing that seemed to exist was the ungodly song.
Sam didn’t know how long the sound lasted, but when he came back to his senses, his clothes were damp with sweat, and his left cheek was wet, coated in a layer of slimy drool. He sat up and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, looking around as he did so. He made eye contact with Wendy, who was pressing a handkerchief against her face. She glared at him before scanning the barren streets. “What happened?” she asked. “Where did the graylings go?”
Sam wished he knew the answer to that himself. Raindu and Birdbrained were nowhere to be seen, the army of graylings were gone, and the reptilians who were planning on murdering them were also missing. “Maybe we were sent forwards or backwards in time?” Sam asked. It would make sense for Birdbrained to have an ability to manipulate time seeing as graylings were its underlings.
“No,” Wendy said. “I think we fainted.”
“Really?” Sam asked.
Wendy nodded. “That building over there has the time and date on it,” she said. “We’ve been unconscious for two hours.”
Sam scratched his head. A lot could happen in two hours. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the space between his eyebrows, visualizing a field of candy. After a few seconds, the field of candy appeared, and a scruffy eagle with a green hue appeared. Birdbrained squawked at Sam, the sound oscillating into buzzing words. “Sam, hi.”
“Hello, Birdbrained,” Sam said. “So, what happened?”
“We captured all the hostile reptilians,” the eagle said through its harsh cries. “Now, we’re torturing them.”
“Torturing?” Sam asked. “Why are you doing that? If you need information from them, Wendy can read their minds.”
“So?” Birdbrained asked. “Torture is fun when you’re the one doing the torturing. Do you want to try?”
“No,” Sam said, his expression darkening. Raindu was a ferret with sticky paws, and Birdbrained was an eagle with a sadistic streak; why couldn’t his talent create animals with more normal personalities? “Also, don’t torture them. We don’t want reptilians to have an even worse impression of us than they already do.”
“Why?” Birdbrained asked and tilted its head.
“If they have bad impressions of us, they’ll be less likely to negotiate with us, and if they do negotiate, the terms won’t be favorable,” Sam said.
“Why can’t we torture them until the terms are favorable?” Birdbrained asked.
“Because I don’t like torture,” Sam said. “If we torture them, they’ll torture us in return if they ever capture us.”
“So, you’re afraid,” Birdbrained said. “They tried to capture us, but we caught them instead. If they can’t catch us now, how will they catch us in the future?”
“They’ll catch us when we’re off guard,” Sam said. “We can’t always be ready for combat. We need to sleep, eat, and relax.”
Birdbrained squawked. “Sleep and relax?” it asked. “We don’t need to do those, and we can eat while on guard.”
Sam sighed. “Are you really willing to go through all that hassle just because you want to torture someone?”
“Yes,” Birdbrained said and flapped its wings, letting them resettle against its sides. “The things worth doing usually require moderate amounts of effort.”
Was torture something worth doing? Sam didn’t think so, but the bird obviously disagreed. Was he going to let a bird decide whether or not reptilians were being tortured? Well, technically, Birdbrained was the leader of the graylings, and Sam was pretty sure the eagle’s orders overruled his, so … even if he wanted to, he couldn’t save the reptilians from pain—unless he asked Raindu, the ferret seemed to intimidate Birdbrained.
“I don’t like the way you’re looking at me,” Birdbrained said, the words garbled and difficult to discern. When it came to communicating with words, Raindu was much better at it than the eagle. “Do you disagree with what I’ve said?”
“Of course, Sam disagrees,” Raindu’s voice said. Sam and Birdbrained turned their heads to the side to look at the ferret. Raindu plucked a nearby flower and munched on it. “Sam’s heart is moved by money. The things worth doing for him have to have an equal amount of reward for effort.”
Sam frowned. Was that true? He was in Et Serpentium because Wendy had basically seduced him with money. “Didn’t you steal the GMC because you wanted money?” Sam asked the ferret.
“No,” Raindu said. “I took the GMC because I like having shiny things; the money is a bonus.”
Birdbrained squawked. “I understand now,” the eagle said. “Our owner is a human ruled by greed.” The eagle turned to look at Raindu. “As his advisors, it is our duty to fix him.”
Sam’s expression darkened. Since when were Raindu and Birdbrained his advisors? They might not have thought of themselves as his pets because that’d place them under him, but did the eagle really think it was above Sam in status? The two animals stared at Sam with blank expressions, and Sam’s eye twitched as the animal’s empty stares made him feel a bit silly. Raindu could kill whatever it wanted with one touch, and Birdbrained could manipulate time and space—
“And saved you from being violated by dozens of reptilians,” Birdbrained said. “I still haven’t heard you say thank you. All you did was bring me in here and interrogate me for doing what you wanted me to do.”
“I didn’t want you to torture the reptilians,” Sam said. He closed his eyes and exhaled, gathering his thoughts. He opened his eyes again and nodded at the eagle. “Thank you for getting us out of that situation. Now that the danger has passed, do you mind letting me deal with the reptilians now?”
Birdbrained squawked, the harsh vibrations gathering into one very clear word. “No.”
Sam furrowed his brow. “You don’t want me to deal with the reptilians because…?”
“Then I can’t torture them,” Birdbrained said.
Sam turned towards Raindu. “Can you talk some sense into your friend?” Sam asked the ferret. “If talking doesn’t work, you can use your paws too.”
“Don’t!” Birdbrained squawked and leapt away, creating space between itself and Raindu as the ferret approached. “I’ll let you torture the reptilians too. You can interrogate them for the locations of their shiny stuff!”
The ferret paused midstride and turned to look at Sam. It didn’t speak, but Sam knew exactly what it wanted. If he could offer something better than what Birdbrained was offering, the ferret would listen to Sam’s words. If he couldn’t, well, the reptilians were going to receive an extra helping of pain. A bitter expression appeared on Sam’s face. Now that there were two animals and one human, they’d obviously work together to exploit him. “I can’t offer you anything I haven’t already,” Sam said to the ferret.
“What about your half of the reward?” Raindu asked.
“I’m not sure if I’m even going to be getting it,” Sam said and sighed.
“Isn’t Wendy with you? Ask her,” Raindu said.
Sam exhaled and closed his eyes while taking in a deep breath. When he opened his eyes once more, he was greeted by Wendy’s gaze. He checked the green sphere on the ground with his psychic vision, making sure there weren’t any eavesdroppers, before clearing his throat. “So, we finished the mission,” he said, practically whispering while avoiding eye contact with Wendy. “When do we get paid?”
Wendy scanned her surroundings before exhaling. “You stole the GMC, but you also destroyed it,” she said. “Monarch wanted to take it to study to develop its own army of graylings.”
“You said you were paying me to steal it,” Sam said. “No one said I couldn’t destroy it afterwards.”
“How do you know what we were paying you to do when you don’t read contracts?” Wendy asked.
Sam cleared his throat. “Are we getting paid or not?” he asked. “The livelihood of the reptilians who wanted to attack us depends on your answer.”
Wendy frowned as she narrowed her eyes at Sam. “Although it won’t be the same, can you spare some graylings to act as servants for Monarch?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“The reptilians use graylings as obedient slaves,” Wendy said. “Monarch would like their own loyal grayling slaves as well.”
Sam scratched his head. He didn’t even know where the graylings were right now, so how could he guarantee they’d obediently listen to the people at Monarch? Before he could respond, Wendy raised a finger to her lips. “Someone’s coming,” she said.
A grayling jogged down the street, its footsteps sounding like slabs of meat slapping against a kitchen counter. The grayling stopped in front of Wendy and Sam, staring at them with its unblinking eyes. “Greetings, sundak,” the grayling said to Sam. “Our leader wishes for me to bring you to them.”
“Did you just call me sundak?” Sam asked the grayling before turning to look at Wendy.
“Of course,” the grayling said before Wendy could respond. “Anyone who has achieved mastery of their Sahasrara shall be addressed as sundak.”
“Is that how it works?” Sam asked Wendy.
“It is,” Wendy said.
“Huh,” Sam said and blinked. “So, you have to address me as sundak?”
“No,” Wendy said. “As fellow sundaks, we’re equal, so we don’t need to address each other using titles.”
“Does that mean all reptilians have unlocked their crown chakras?” Sam asked, afraid of saying the word Sahasraras lest he mispronounce it in front of Wendy, who had acknowledged him as an equal.
“Adult reptilians, yes,” Wendy said. “Some reptilians unlock their Sahasraras earlier than others, but it’s generally something that happens later on in life.”
The grayling walked closer to Sam and waved its hand in front of his face. It might’ve been polite enough to call him sundak, but it was definitely ruder than a grayling should’ve been. “Sundak,” the grayling said. “Are you ready? I’ll take you to the leader now.”
For a creature that could manipulate time, the grayling sure was impatient. Sam nodded at the grayling, and the creature held out one of its fingers towards Sam. Sam hesitated for a moment before grabbing the grayling’s finger under the grayling’s gestures of encouragement. Icy cold fingers grabbed Sam’s free hand, and he turned to look at Wendy. “I’m coming with you,” she said. A second later, Sam’s vision distorted, and he found himself in the middle of a crowd of graylings.
Pained hisses echoed through the air, and Sam turned his head towards the sound. A reptilian was suspended upside down by chains attached to the ceiling. A group of graylings were standing around in a circle. One grayling pushed the reptilian’s head, and the scaled creature swung like a pendulum towards another grayling. That grayling pushed the reptilian’s head as well, sending it towards another waiting grayling. Chains bound the reptilian’s arms to its sides, but its mouth remained ungagged. Whenever grayling fingers came close to its head, it tried to bite the digits off, but it was always too slow—the graylings may have cheated by slowing down time to avoid its teeth.
Wendy stared at the swinging reptilian for a bit before turning to look at Sam. “This is what Birdbrained thinks is torture?”
“I guess so,” Sam said with a blank expression. A stone struck the swinging reptilian’s body, causing it to let out a hiss. Sam turned towards the direction the stone had come from, and he saw Birdbrained digging through a container filled with large rocks. The eagle picked up a stone with its talons, and with a kick, it threw the rock at the swinging reptilian, landing a direct hit on its chest. Sam stared at the eagle, unsure of what exactly to say to the creature as it squawked repeatedly, mimicking human laughter.
“You could tell it to stop,” Wendy said.
“Yeah, but it won’t listen to me,” Sam said and shook his head. “You’ll have to bribe Raindu to take action, which is why I was asking earlier about payment.”
“I see,” Wendy said. She gazed at Sam with an accusing expression. “I wonder where your pets got their … odd … personalities from.”
Sam’s expression darkened. It wasn’t his fault his talent created twisted animals, alright? It was Monarch’s fault for giving him the talent in the first place.