Today's Art-ifact (Patreon)

Finished!  You know, most people would have put a photo of fireworks in the background and called this good.  But you know what?  That's not Dave.  Apparently he is a part time pyrotechnic.  I never knew.

Chapter 9- Showdown

Glimmering fireballs boomed around the summit of the Tenshu, fizzing flowers of ruby, sapphire, and emerald, casting the tower as a celestial island in the night sea.  Rockets shrieked up from the courtyard; Junior's birthday fireworks extravaganza had begun.

In the garish flashes Xyk caught glimpses Shaniko Valley, spread below them like a map under the blackened sky.  Wind grabbed fitfully from that star-speckled void, pushing and pulling capriciously.

Ahead, Junior clambered over curving ceramic tiles, arms sticking out for balance like some tightrope-walker parody.

The tiles sloped down to decorative gilding, silver dragons and mystical foxes prowling the rim.  Beyond them, there was nothing.

Xyk put his weight on the rooftop gingerly, uncertain if his treads would grip at that angle.  He almost wished he were barefoot, like Rosa.  She seemed unruffled by the vertiginous heights, stepping lightly after Junior amidst the flashes of color.

The fox suddenly crouched and turned, leveling his derringer.

Xyk's heart skipped.  He hadn't realized Junior was carrying a gun, but Rosa kept her stride as though it was of no consequence.

Aiming carefully at her head, Junior squeezed the trigger.  Rosa casually flung her katana at him.

Junior flinched back from the whistling arc of steel, derringer firing with a pop into the great wide yonder.  He lost his footing and slid towards the edge with horrific speed, as though yanked by an invisible claw.

He flailed, catching himself on the decorative statues.  Their eyes seemed to leer wildly in the kaleidoscopic light.  Rosa skimmed in wordless pursuit, fan angling to refine her trajectory, and barreled into Greenwell.

He caromed into the open air with a squawk.  Rosa lashed out, her fan snapping around Junior's right hand in a vice-like hold.   Her right hand darted to yank at the pendant, its chain going taught.

Dangling in space, suspended by his trapped hand and the necklace, Junior kicked and scrabbled for purchase.  Syncopated screams sobbed out with each breath.

Rosa's stance was well-anchored, braced against the curving silver statue.  Face to face with Greenwell, her gaze drifted down to the gold clenched in her fist.

She hooked her left arm firmly around the bronze edgework, shifting Junior's full weight to it to retrieve the pendant.

Finally possessing it, and her father’s ring within, she went still.  The last time she'd seen it on him was when they had strolled hand in hand in after lunch, the day she'd come to visit him at the mine.  He had been brimming with optimism, excited for their future. Possessing this lost link, the irrefutable shard of proof she had sought for so long, seemed to put something deep within Rosa to rest.

Fireworks subsided and the wind ebbed, as though even the gods were showing respect for the sanctity of the moment.

It was then that Junior struck.

Reaching into his robe, he grabbed the dagger and sank it deep into Rosa’s neck.  The fireworks erupted around them, roaring into a blazing, bombastic finale.  And above it all, Junior’s triumphant cry soared, punctuated by...

…The snapping of brittle wood?

Rosa flinched at the impact, but there was no blood, no scream.

Junior looked at the dagger in his hand, incredulous.  Was it a trick of the light?  It-

It wasn't his dagger.

Chopsticks.

A pair of lousy chopsticks.

Perched higher on the rooftop, Xyk shot Junior a wink and returned to admiring his newly acquired and generously bejeweled dagger.

Rosa snapped the pendant free of its chain with a neat tug, slipping it into her robes, then grasped Junior's assaulting hand and wrenched the thumb back with a wet snap.

"Aaauugh!" screamed Greenwell, tears streaming down his cheeks.  "Mercy- show me mercy!"

The broken chopsticks fell, drifting down, down to the courtyard.

Rosa fixed him with a look of seething neutrality.

"You murdered my father."

"Ah- I'm- I'm uh, sorry!  I was young, and made a mistake, but-"

"And stole the rights.  The mining rights to Shaniko Valley."

"Well," Junior said, "We can discuss that if you-"

"We're not discussing the future if we can't even confess to the past."  She gave her fan a squeeze, the metal biting into Junior's wrist.

"ALRIGHT!  Alright, I killed him, I stole the rights, but don't let me fall! Pull me up! Please!"

Rosa was still.

The last firework burst into a glittering blue mosaic, fragments like stars meandering down from their place in the sky.

After the last spark fizzled, quiet descended.

Junior stopped begging.  Rosa was statuesque.  The only sound was the wind, the passing of the night sky through distant canyons.

"Because you confessed," Rosa whispered, "I will give you the honor of a quick end."

Junior's lips pulled back in a rictus of contempt and he thrashed, trying to pull Rosa over the edge with him.

"You rotten traitor!" he screamed, "Whore!  I-"

Rosa let go.

And so Lord “Junior” Greenwell passed into Shaniko’s memory, heralded only by a shriek of blackest hate, which abruptly terminated at the foot of his own tower.