Deadline XIV: Redemption

Lieutenant Marks could not believe what he was seeing.

He sat in the rolling chair, scanning the report that CSI had brought up at his request ten minutes before and trying to will the number at the top of the page to shrink, to be a typo, to be anything besides what it irrefutably was.

“Twenty-nine.” No, saying it aloud didn’t help. He whispered it: “Twenty-nine.” It still didn’t seem real. He flung the paper into the air, kicked a chunk of plaster across the room, pounded his fist on the computer desk, and screamed it – “Twenty-nine!”

Yes; as much as he hated it, now it was real. Marks put his head on the desk and swore, long and loud.



English scooped blood and ink from the floor of the mansion and sipped it delicately from Sarah’s hand, then licked it from its spattered katana. With a satisfied smile it stood and crossed the room to where the author lay, red hair splayed out, her blank eyes still wide in terror. Kneeling, it wiped the blade on her nightgown, adding to the spreading stain growing from her chest.

It laughed softly. “Thirty.”

Sarah clenched her fists and forced her eyes not to open.



They slept on the borders of the Realm, where none would look for them. When the morning shadows lengthened, English would drop whatever corpse it had drained that night and step into the boundaries of the dimensions, settling itself in the space between the Entryway and the world to rest until it could make its way by starlight again. It no longer moved in Sarah’s body, but held her inside itself and showed its true, red-eyed face to its victims. As far as the world was concerned, the girl was gone.

When two weeks had passed, Sarah felt English begin to tire. The words pouring endlessly around her in her cage dripped sluggishly past sometimes, though other times they rushed around her like flooded rivers. When they were swift, blood spattered wallpaper and ink sizzled; when they were slow, it was all English could do to haul itself to the Entryway to collapse on banks of thought and sleep for twelve hours at a time. Gradually, the times of slowness became more frequent than the times of swiftness, and days would pass with no new deaths.

One evening, English found that it could not summon forth its katana. It stood between the dimensions, words flickering around its outstretched hand, but they took no physical form. After five minutes of straining, it grunted angrily and dropped its hand.

“To the Realm, then,” it said, turned, and stepped into the Entryway.

The world within English lurched and Sarah was flung against Arial walls as reality shifted, twisted, and coughed them up before the Court of the Spoken Word.

The first thing Sarah noticed was that she could see. The sun assaulted her eyes, used to the darkness of her prison, but their movement still belonged to English and she could not shut them. Slowly, as the pain subsided, the hills in the distance took shape, topped with castles and with stone manors clinging to their sides.

English turned and the hills were replaced by the Court of the Spoken Word, and in her peripheral vision, the Entryway. The great stone doors in the buildings to either side of the portal through which they had come were closed, but a ringing voice came faintly from the one on the right. “These are not the hours that the Court of the Spoken Word convenes,” English muttered. “What is this?”

It stepped closer and put its ear to the crack between the vast double doors. They heard a murmur of voices, obviously a great crowd; and then a familiar voice that made English inhale with a soft hiss rose above the others. Sarah could not make out what it said over the whispers of those closer to the door, but English seemed to be listening intently.

After a long moment, it stepped back from the door and gave a throaty chuckle. “I had thought to replenish myself quickly at the Indo-European castle and return to the world within the hour… but I did not foresee that Arabic would issue a Call to my own family,” it said. “We shall have to attend to the matter when my power is restored.” It turned and started up the road to the hills, aiming for the largest of the castles nestled among the hills. The road was empty; Sarah guessed that the crowd in the hall accounted for the absence of Tongues in the streets.

English’s pace was quicker than she would have believed possible, and within half an hour – if time had any meaning here – the stone turrets were rising over their heads. English approached the front door, unblocked by moat or drawbridge, grasped at the last fragments of its wasted power, and produced a small key from the end of its hand. With a deep click the lock turned and the door swung silently open.



Esperanto had its own small chamber in the far back corner of the Indo-European castle, in a corridor it shared with Gaelic and Welsh. The halls were deserted now. It had not answered the Call, as Arabic’s command to remain where it was took precedence. It could not see that it would be any use there, anyway; as Arabic had said, it wanted powerful Tongues to aid it, not cowardly dialects unable to lift a hand against the enemy and unable to explain why they could not….

It stood by the single window and raised its hand to the constant light, which illuminated the inside the same as outside. It put its fingers delicately to its nose and inhaled softly, smelling the Latin so thoroughly a part of its essence. The scent always seemed slightly foreign to it, as though it did not fully belong to it. Esperanto supposed that that was true; when English had sketched its bones in the air and filled them out with the blood of Latin’s final screams, there had been no choice in its allegiances. Now that so much of itself belonged to Arabic, Esperanto reflected, shifting its gaze to the unmoving text of its stomach, it really could do nothing but obey one way or another. It wondered idly which of its masters’ commands it would have to obey if they both commanded it at the same time.

In the distance, the castle doors slammed shut.

Esperanto’s blood froze. Every word on its skin suddenly sped up, rushing as though to hide from the presence that suddenly flooded every particle of its being with its terrifying immediacy.

How had it gotten into the Realm?

The Entryway… the Call. It would be unguarded. And the castle was empty but for Esperanto, the one Tongue who could do nothing.

No. It was sick of doing nothing. If it was here, then it had brought the girl. The girl Esperanto had failed so miserably in the world.

It summoned its knife from the air. Here was as good a place as any to make a last stand.



English stood in the great hall before eight great raised thrones. “Look, my host,” it said. “These are the seats of Indo-European power. You are the first mortal ever to see them.” It moved along the row and pointed at each in turn. “Here is French’s. Here is German’s. Here are Russian’s, Bengali’s, Hindi’s, Portuguese’s. Here is Spanish’s. And here is mine.” It indicated the throne third from the right, standing slightly taller than those around it. “Here is where I will replenish the power I lost in the world.”

Sarah tried to stop it as it ascended the three stairs to the throne, worked muscles that did not respond, bombarded it with all the will as she could muster, but it seemed not even to feel her efforts. It stepped up and sat, nestling into the stone with long familiarity. For a moment, nothing happened.

Suddenly, raw power slammed through its body and Sarah felt, for a brief instant, exultation so intense she cried out. Over the roaring of the force in her ears she heard English laugh, “Is it not beautiful, my host? It makes me wonder how you can stand to be mortal!” It closed its eyes and breathed deeply of the air, saturated with power, almost giddy with joy. She did not know how long the rush lasted, but it felt interminable.

Sarah heard the footsteps before English did, as the heavy sound was finally fading from the air. There was a soft fwick, and English opened its eyes to the sight of a Courier knife buried up to the hilt in its chest.

It smiled, pulled it out, and crushed it with one hand. “Esperanto,” it said, smiling. “Did you not heed the Call?”

Esperanto stood at the center of the hall, silent, whether from fear or nerve it was impossible to tell from its hollow black eyes. Its knife reappeared in its hand, but it did not throw it again.

English raised itself lazily from the throne and drew its katana from the air, slinging it over one shoulder. “You were punished quite harshly, I see.” It descended the steps, moving ever closer to Esperanto, which did not move except to follow the blade with its eyes. “You did all that Arabic asked you to, did you not?”

Esperanto struggled to remain silent, but its sentence would not permit it. “No,” it said.

“Of course. I remember. You were unconscious when the time came to do your duty.” English smirked. It stepped behind Esperanto, close enough to brush its cheek with the tip of the katana blade. Esperanto flinched and English’s smirk widened. “Tell me, Esperanto, to whom do you owe your allegiance?”

“To the Indo-European language family,” it said. English waited. Esperanto’s head dropped. “To you,” it said quietly.

“Good,” English said, laying the blade gently across Esperanto’s throat. It was taller than Esperanto, and had to bend its head to whisper in its ear: “You defied your creator. And even the Court of the Spoken Word does not have a sentence that would punish you as you deserve.”

Esperanto trembled. English was mad. It was drunk with power and its killer intent whispered from every inch of its skin. The katana reeked of old blood. Quite suddenly, Esperanto knew that it would not survive this encounter.

“Sarah,” it said. The katana twitched, but it babbled out as quickly as it could, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Sarah, Speakers’ power grows in proximity to the Realm, that’s the—“

English hissed and slit its throat. It gasped softly, and then the ink began to flow, dripping from its fingertips, pooling on the stone floor, sinking between the cracks in delicate, branching patterns. A flurry of collapsing whispers bubbled up from the flood and died.

Sarah’s heart had somehow forgotten how to beat. She wanted her knees to buckle, but they belonged to English and it held her up; she longed to turn from the final remnants of Esperanto’s dissolving body, but English would not look away. Horror welled up in her as it bent, brushed a hand through the ink, and delicately licked its fingers.

“Such a pitiful death,” it said softly, almost sadly. It scooped up a handful of ink and let it run over its hands, then took another and drank it down. “A testament to a pitiful life. I taste myself in it, you know. I created it. I created it to be the most powerful Tongue in the Realm, totally loyal to me, bonded to me blood and bone and ink… but it truly was a pathetic thing.”

Sarah did not know how the force of her fury and loathing did not sear English to the core.

English raised a final, double handful of Esperanto’s essence to the vaulted ceiling and laughed. “A toast to failure!” it cried. “To cowardice! To dependency and subservience!”

To redemption, Sarah added in her heart. To compassion. To sacrifice and surrender.

Still laughing, English stood, shaking drops of ink from its hands. “A fitting funeral feast. Now – to the Court of the Spoken Word. My business there is more pressing… and I can only assume that Arabic tastes better than Esperanto did.”

It left the castle doors open and Esperanto still seeping into the stones. Sarah forced herself not to think about Esperanto’s final words to her. She would not give herself away before the moment was right. There was too much at stake to let English know her plan now.

She made her mind blank and banished her fear. There was no time for fear now; not when she had finally decided to enter the battle.