CAZine

by: Umo

Umo looked around the room. He saw the disaster of the attack. The Master’s family all lay dead on the floor, beginning to turn blue. He looked at them in horror. First, he was their butler, and then, he was the target of a large fleet of monsters who had looked for him because he was the carrier of The Holy Scalpel.

A noise ripped him out of his thoughts. Footsteps. The Lord Rianendur had come to visit for the day. Umo wheeled around and ran towards the servant’s quarters. His footsteps thumped like his heart, fast, and desperate. Rianendur would certainly frame him. It is my fault, Umo reminded himself. I could be blamed for it. A hand on his shoulder made him stop. The knife in his vest glowed blue. Blue meant no danger was nearby.

“Now, now, Umo. We’ll not run from a few bodies,” Rianendur said. “You’re a butler. You have to oversee the burials.”

“Will you get away from me, Rian?” Umo asked irritably. His brother always boasted over the fact that it was HIM, not Umo, who got their father’s place, even though Umo was the eldest of the two.

“How are Siana and Inbekah?” Umo asked his brother.

“Inbekah is very happy with her new husband. She has born him a son named Ganidur. Siana is still not married, and frets about it every day. We’re all reassuring her, but she won’t listen,” Rianendur said.

After a long conversation about old times, the two decided to go back to the land which Rianendur reigned over. They set out, Umo armed with the scalpel, and Rianendur with his variously armed guards.

They set up camp near the border. Umo settled into the tent his brother had provided, thinking of how he had been sold to his master. He was happy he was free.

His thoughts were disrupted when he heard footsteps near the entrance to the tent. It’s just Rianendur, Umo said. But a red light glowed from beside his head. The scalpel. Red meant high danger. He sat straight up and grabbed the knife. He slowly parted the flaps of fabric that created the entrance. He saw a small cat. It was fuzzy and white, and shrunk back in fear. He sighed. Great, my weapon is defective, he thought.

Suddenly, the cat turned into a girl. He recognized her long dark curls, her blood-red lips, and her laughing gray eyes.

“Inbekah!” he breathed. She smiled and knelt down.

“Hello, brother,” she said in her normally low, husky voice.

“What are you doing here? What about Magpie?” he asked.

“He’s dead,” Inbekah said.

“Eremi?”

“Dead.”

“Dad?”

“Dead.”

“Rian?”

“Just died.”

“What? How? He’s with me!”

“He went hunting, and got killed by a deer.”

“How is that possible?”

“Extremely hard hoof to the head.”

“Ouch.”

“You’re going to die soon, too.”

“How? Why?”

“That thing,” Inbekah said and pointed at the scalpel.

In the morning, they went up, to a high bridge. Umo held the scalpel up high. It glowed white, like a star. He dropped it, let go of the star, and watched it drop, a shooting star. He had dropped his fate and left it for another.