Author's Note: This is a revised version of the story, neither version is perfect since some readers complained about the narrative styles, but this one is still my preferred version. I'm only posting the revised version here, but the original is still available on Bigcloset Topshelf. Thanks go out to Beyogi, Maggie Finson, The Rev. Anam Chara, and the late Holly H Hart for all the help editing and beta reading the story.
Before we met, Derek Hines lived a more or less quiet life as a desk jockey in a small office building in his hometown of Epegard. He had no aspirations for power or greed, all he ever wished was to stand on an equal footing with women. He would soon get his wish, but not in the way he had ever intended.
As days went, this one was altogether average for Derek. He had almost finished up his work, when Linnea, his boss, stepped into his small basement office. He had come to loathe the sight of the woman, and from his descriptions of her I don't blame him. Linnea was an extremely attractive woman who greeted Derek with an all too familiar malevolent smile. "Derek," she said with pouting lips and traced a well-manicured finger across Derek's desk.
Linnea seemed to enjoy dumping outrageous piles of work on Derek's desk and he knew with a sinking feeling that she was about to do it again. In spite of his hatred of the woman, he was no less affected by her feminine wiles. Though she was quick to utilize her looks to get her way, she had proven just as formidable wherever her looks were not suited to the task. She had destroyed the careers of countless rivals by backstabbing her way to her current position. "It looks like the Nanette is going to need that analysis report by Manadag. I have far too much work on my plate. Do you think you get that done for me?"
Derek flashed her a nervous smiled, "S-sure thing, Linn. I'll get right on it."
"Thanks, Derek," she said. "You're the best."
"No weekend for you," a voice familiar to Derek said a few moments later.
"Ayele," Derek replied irritably. "I really don't have time right now."
As his attention returned back to his work, a small paper flyer appeared atop the paper he had been working on. "Check this out, man."
Derek briefly glanced at the flyer, tossed it casually aside then turned back to his work. Ayele let out a grunt of protest, "Come on man. You're the one always going on about men's rights. I thought maybe you'd be interested."
Ayele, like Derek, was of African descent and cut an imposing figure, standing nearly six and a half feet tall. Derek asked, "What on Midgard are you talking about?"
Ayele rolled his eyes, "The flyer man, the Sons of Odin are having a rally tonight."
Derek scowled up at Ayele, "Another men's rights group? No thanks. They're all alike. Full of nothing but angry rhetoric and empty promises."
"You're hopeless, man. You say you want equal rights, but you ain't never gonna do anything about it." He shook his head, turned his back and left Derek alone with his thoughts.
Absently, Derek picked up the flyer and read through it. Eventually he went back to work, but as the day wore on he kept hearing Ayele's words echo in his head.
+ + + + +
"Power, it's what it all amounts too," the speaker bellowed. "The Spellbinders have it and we don't. To gain an equal footing we must use any means to accomplish our goals. We must turn the people against the ruling class and ignite the fires of violence against all who would stand in our way."
Naturally, Derek wasn't fooled. Like me, he believed that violence is not the path to equality, but to hatred and, sadly, more violence. He had come to the rally against his better judgment and now found himself wishing he had stayed away. This group seemed more interested in spewing out hate-filled venom than they did in making a difference. There had to be a better way. If men reduced themselves to that level, how were they any better than the Spellbinders believed them to be? How could they gain equality by proving their oppressors right?
Having heard enough, Derek turned his back and started working his way away from the crowd. Just as he had nearly gained the exit to the pavilion, the man on stage called out. "Brother! Why are you leaving? Don't you wish to cast off the shackles of oppression?"
Filled with righteous indignation, Derek swirled around and found the crowd facing him. "Hatred and violence won't solve our problem, brother," he said between clenched teeth, putting particular emphasis on the last word and stepped out of the pavilion and into the night.
Wary after listening to the hate-filled ramblings of the man on stage, Derek was ready to return to his home in Epegard. He made his way through the parking lot, then stopped just a few steamcars short of his battered old NMC Vision. Two men were waiting at the car and they didn't look particularly friendly.
He recognized immediately that they were there for him, and he quickly ducked behind a nearby Ford Pygmy, but his efforts were in vain, as they had spotted him. He soon found himself surrounded on either side. The shorter of the two, a burly man with a goatee, drew close and grabbed the collar of Derek's shirt, "Well, well, look what we have here, Vili." There was a malicious glint in his eyes. "Someone has decided to leave the party early."
The other man, obviously Vili, came up beside Derek and palmed the top of Derek's head with his hand, "You think the boss'll like this one, Jakob?"
Jakob, the shorter man, grinned, "Why yes, Vili. I think he will."
When Jakob's hands loosened from around Derek's collar, he chose then to make a break for it. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and then there was only darkness.
+ + + + +
Death and destruction rained all around him as he watched those under his command die at the hands of the enemy. Firing his assault rifle wildly into the air around him, he hoped that he could at least take another one those bitch fire mages down with him. When a huge fire erupted in front of him, he had just enough time to leap out of the way as it consumed the area he had just vacated.
He fired more rounds and used up the remainder of his ammunition as the fiery onslaught continued. Throwing his rifle to the ground, he drew the combat knife from its sheath at his waist and tossed it deftly at the nearest target. There was a cold sense of satisfaction as the blade struck his target in the throat. She fell to the ground with dull lifeless eyes.
Cold chills ran down his spine as an inhuman howl rang through the clearing. He whirled around just as a huge fireball came careening toward him…
+ + + + +
With a start, Nicholas Flint came awake. Like Derek, his day was getting off to a very average start. You see, Flint had the same dream every night. Each night he relived the battle at Tyr's Dike. The battle was in his past, and he had no desire to relive it. Nevertheless, every night he did just that. The images just as vivid and horrifying as ever.
He alone had survived of his entire platoon. All his men had died at the hands of three fire mages. He once confided in me that a single Spellbinder would have been sufficient to suppress the mages and he had requested the use of one. Command had felt that it was an unnecessary use of resources and had denied his request. The results had been catastrophic for both his men and himself, the only survivor. After the fireball hit him, he was severely wounded and left for dead.
Over a week after the confrontation he woke in an army hospital, nearly healed of all injury. His left knee had been so badly damaged, the army healers had not been able to completely repair the tissue., so he would walk with a severe limp for years to come. Despite the death-toll on his platoon, the mission had proved successful, and the battle had succeeded in taking down the leader of the resistance in their surprise attack.
After Flint was healed he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, a largely honorary rank, and awarded all sorts of medals and paraded around as a hero in front of the entire nation.
Later, he learned from other soldiers of the horrors they had witnessed in battle. The enemy had not been fighting for power or greed. They had been fighting because their people were starving, and the Spellbinders ruling over them had sat idly by and done nothing.
After everything he had done, the Army turned its back on him. Because of the damage to Flint's leg he was no longer able to serve and was discharged from the service. He had given up years of life to his country in a cause that he no longer believe in. Bitter, angry and penniless, he wandered from place to place and from job to job, never staying very long and never making friends.
It wasn't until he met Jonas Talman that he began to believe in something again. In him he had found a new sense of purpose. Talman was a revolutionary who believed that the only way for men to have freedom was to take it by force. After what he had seen, he was quick to agree, and eagerly joined the Sons of Odin.
When he first joined the resistance they had still been a very small group, and Flint quickly became one of Talman's top lieutenants. As the Sons of Odin grew in number, Talman made alliances with powerful figures in the government and even managed to persuade some of them to join the cause.
It wasn't until the De Clissons entered the picture that Flint began to have doubts. Jeanne had seemed receptive to helping them, but she had been in a position of power for centuries and he suspected she had ulterior motives for helping the resistance.
It took years to find any evidence of her duplicity, and it very nearly cost Flint his life. He had been working as a low level manager for a business firm owned by a powerful Spellbinder family as a means to gain information for the resistance when he discovered a discrepancy in the firm's accounting. They had been funneling funds to an offshore bank, to an account that belonged to, you guessed it, Jeanne de Clisson.
When Flint confronted her she would have killed him if it hadn't been for the interference of a security guard. Yes, that was me. I had blundered into the little meeting and it was then that my magic awakened, and by sheer dumb luck I was able to defeat Jeanne de Clisson.
Flint managed to escape police imprisonment and made his way back to Talman. He confronted his him with the information he had found and was shocked when Talman chose to continue the alliance with House de Clisson.
Before her death, Jeanne had concocted a scheme to place assassins within all the major Spellbinder houses in order to cripple the Seidskati. Olivia, obsessed with revenge, kidnapped me in order to enact her mother's plans. Again, against all odds, I managed to overcome Olivia.
Controversy arose, House de Clisson fell out of favor among the Seidskati, and the alliance with the Spellbinder's house fell to pieces.
Sighing warily, and wincing against the pain in his bad knee, Flint walked across the room to his small wardrobe and quickly dressed himself. He threw open the door to his room, pause briefly in the doorway and left in search of Talman with a determined stride in his steps.
