Page 42 of Zel (The GriMM Tales #2)
ZEL
“ Z el!” Ulrich called, while seizing one of the thieves they had been contracted to stop.
Already sensing the third thief’s approach after finishing incapacitating the second, Zel needed no warning. With a quick pivot and lurch of the dagger from the second thief’s shoulder, Zel lashed out toward the third with a graceful spin.
The dagger plunged between the third thief’s ribs.
Not a clean kill, but Zel had been avoiding vital areas on purpose.
These were the worst kind of thieves, for they had been stealing food meant to be rationed and distributed fairly, a necessity as the Great Famine continued to worsen.
They deserved for their final moments to be slow agony.
Zel looked down the alley as Ulrich drank the last few wisps of life force from the first thief. After feeding in such a way, there was always a flush of his old, more powerful aura, added sparkles in his hair and bright glowing galaxies in his violet eyes.
Souls no longer fed his immortality, nor were they required to ease any pain.
Devouring them was simply efficient and a good deterrent by leaving behind husks.
It also kept Ulrich’s magic stores from depleting, and while that might not extend his life indefinitely, it helped ensure a healthier and longer mortal lifespan, and Zel wanted Ulrich around for a good long while.
“That one can live.” Zel nodded at the second thief unconscious against the wall.
The third, still skewered on Zel’s blade, struggled to pull free of it or to at least turn and see what approached him from behind. Too late. Ulrich was already there, and when the thief tilted his head back, Ulrich loomed over him to claim his soul too.
Ulrich looked rather fetching in his own assassin garb to match Zel’s.
Zel had kept the outfit made with the magical loom, complete now with a skirt-like tunic to add a feminine edge to otherwise masculine clothing.
All of Zel’s outfits were thus now. A mix of both.
For everyone finally knew the truth of Zel’s birth.
That they —Zel—was a mix of both too.
As the husk of the third thief dropped, Zel pulled their dagger free from the desiccated ribs. Ulrich bent down to meet Zel’s slighter height and shared the final swallows of the thief’s life force with a kiss.
Zel drank it down as eagerly as they enjoyed Ulrich’s tongue and lips and embrace. Zel’s right hand might still hold a dagger, but the left clutched Ulrich, wrapping around the metal bicep of Ulrich’s false arm.
His right, that had once been cursed, was gone now, replaced with one made from metal, like a steel skeletal arm from just past the curve of his shoulder to equally skeletal fingers, covered in a long sleeve and a glove.
Zel could feel its distinctness beneath their grip.
Ulrich had crafted it using a forge from the treasure room similar to the magical loom.
He had also used the forge to craft the bands he and Zel wore on the fourth fingers of their left hands, twisted gold like the plaiting of Zel’s braids.
Ulrich had begun to use more of his magical items as another way to conserve what power remained in him.
Because of the loss of his immortality, his garden was not as potent as it once was.
If a woman with child ate the rapunzel now, her babe would not be magic born, but the garden still produced the most robust of produce and continued to grow even in the depths of autumn, as if springtime remained forever around the tower.
Zel licked their lips as the kiss ended.
Sharing the stolen life forces did not make them feel as powerful or as untouchable as drinking Ulrich’s magic during the ritual, but like they might live two or three times the length of a mortal, which was fine by Zel so long as that life was lived with Ulrich.
“Are we done here?” Ulrich asked.
The second thief was starting to rouse. Then he was very much awake when he registered the nearby husks of his companions.
“Do not be in too much of a rush to join them,” Ulrich warned the man. “Run along now. So says the Queen.”
The unsanctioned thief skittered away as told.
The thieves and assassins from the Thieves Guild still answered the evil Queen’s summons and carried out missions, but they were much more than her lackeys now.
Zel cleaned their dagger and sheathed it while Ulrich retrieved the sack they had been hauling for their next destination.
“You don’t mind still carrying out the Queen’s dirty work?” Ulrich asked.
“Not if the targets deserve it, and stealing from the hungry counts as deserving in my book.”
“Agreed.”
Occasionally targets who did not deserve death or brutal warnings disappeared in other ways, so the Queen never knew they had not been dispatched.
Also occasionally, assassinations she hadn’t authorized were carried out and blamed on those she did want killed.
It was a gamble, but a life well lived required risks.
The only way to unseat a tyrant wasn’t to wait for them to grow a conscience or grow bored enough to change, but to undermine them with the power of the people little by little with every small act they could.
In the turmoil of a famine, it wasn’t easy, but Zel and Ulrich both knew well how to be patient.
And it was going to take many more than just them to see the end of the evil Queen’s reign.
Noise from the mouth of the alley drew Zel and Ulrich’s attention. A young couple stood stunned, having come upon them clearly by accident. Old Thieves Guild rules said to leave no witnesses, but they didn’t serve the old rules anymore.
Zel grinned and held a finger to their lips.
The couple nodded and hurried away. People in these streets knew the winds of change were upon them.
Zel and their parents would not be like Lothar.
If any friends or family members of those slain ever embarked upon revenge quests against the Pipers, Ulrich, or the guild, they would not win.
Because they had far too much to lose to let anything be taken from them again.
“Shall we?” Zel turned to Ulrich.
“We shall.”
ULRICH
“ M agic Man!” one of the children announced when Ulrich and Zel entered the orphanage. The title was close enough to “sorcerer,” Ulrich supposed, and certainly better than most of his other monikers.
The sack Ulrich carried was filled to the brim with food from his garden.
They brought it weekly as added sustenance for the children, but it wasn’t solely altruistic, since the matron of the orphanage was a Thieves Guild whisperer and gave them information on activity in the city. An adequate step on the road to being…
Good.
“Am I reduced to a charlatan and clown to you?” Ulrich asked grandly, but as he pretended to protest, he summoned the vegetables from the sack to float through the air, sending them toward the kitchen past the amused looking matron, but saving one small tomato to float in front of the child’s face like a large red nose.
The child giggled and pawed at the tomato, which Ulrich released from his enchantment to allow it to be caught.
“You better share that,” Ulrich warned, and the child ran off with a fervent nod.
They did not know most of the children well, but there was one particular girl Zel had an affinity for.
She often pulled Zel aside, chatting excitedly.
Zel explained once that they were responsible for her father’s death, but Zel had spared her, some of which Ulrich had witnessed himself before appearing to Zel that night in the guise of an old woman.
The girl wanted to join the Thieves Guild someday, as a pickpocket if not an assassin. Zel was hesitant to give her any promises, but Ulrich could tell the girl would not be dissuaded. ‘Twas the way with tenacious people once they set their hearts on a certain path.
Ulrich had been such an orphan himself once.
The children had no fear of him. Most would stare in simple awe, even after a filling night such as this one when Ulrich’s power glittered about him similar to the old days.
The matron was another story, but her unease in Ulrich’s presence did not prevent her from passing to him tidbits of interest for the guild, while Zel chatted with the girl.
They could not stay long, but Ulrich enjoyed the unburdened expression he saw on Zel’s face while they were here. When once Zel had been looked on with jealousy by those who saw rapunzel delivered to the Pipers’ doorstep, now Zel and Ulrich provided for those who had little.
“You realize I could simply magic the food here each week,” Ulrich said when Zel joined him again near the front.
“And use up your stores unnecessarily? Nonsense! Besides, I enjoy the visit.”
“As do I.”
“Does it remind you of when you were younger?”
“A little. Hopefully, there are no future budding immortal monarchs in our midst.”
“Don’t tempt fate!” Zel chuckled.
“ You did.” Ulrich looked upon his beloved. “As did your parents. And how grateful I am for all of it.”
Zel flushed, still made bashful at times by Ulrich’s adoration. They might believe they were born with magical luck, but if one were to ask Ulrich, he'd swear the real luck was his.
“I am especially thankful that you had your parents, whereas these children and I did not.”
“You never did tell me what happened to your mother,” Zel noted. In the golden bundle of Zel’s braids, although their hood currently hid it, remained the emerald encrusted hairpin once worn by Ulrich’s mother.
“I never knew who my father was,” Ulrich admitted. “My mother might not have known either, given the many she sold herself to.”
Zel’s eyes widened, as Ulrich had anticipated they might when finally told this tale.
“When I was still very young, one of her customers promised her a better life if she ran away with him, but he had no interest in children. She chose a better life.”
“But… you still kept the hairpin and considered it precious to you.”