Howdy, y'all. This is the first major edit of "Melbourn's Storm," and as always I am mas grateful to my friends in the North County Writers of Speculative Fiction, who provide needed support and feedback (of all kinds).
Please remember that I originally started posting things here because I was seeking feedback from you readers. Some of you I know, and some of you I have yet to speak with. But if you can, please let me know what you think. Believe me, I'm not seeking applause; I'm looking to better my writing. If you have a comment or a criticism that you think will help, then let me know. If you can think of nothing else to say, just tell me what you thought.
I appreciate all of you who have given me feedback in the past, and I look forward to hearing from more and more of you.
This short story is set in the world of my Heroes... novel, and features one of the main characters. Like the novel, it is dark, violent, and probably a tad more full of spirit than one might assume...
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"Melbourn's Storm"
Nickolas Furr
Dirt crunched underfoot as the mal sidhe reached the end of his pilgrimage, at the sprawling house overlooking the sea. Early spring wind blew off the water; his long bronze-colored hair had blown and snapped in the constant breeze and become snarled. Cold, brittle surf washed on the rocks only a few feet away. Whitecaps dotted the dark gray waters. Overhead, the light gray sky roiled with tumultuous clouds, and seagulls sculled the air from land to sea to land again. The weather came from the west, where the sea was, where the house faced.
He was miles from any settlement, more than a day’s journey from the nearest cattle station, and more than fifty miles north of Harbordown, the city he called home. No road came closer than a dozen miles to it, and the only trail to follow was one he’d blazed himself more than a decade ago, the first time he’d came.
The house sprawled just above a rocky shore on an isolated point. Two stories rose above ground, capped in nine towering gables. Three wings had struck out in their own directions. There was a cellar too, but he’d never seen that. Fewer than half the windows were glassed, a handful was shuttered, and some were simply voids, empty holes. He yearned to touch those voids, as a tongue longed to prod the cavity where a tooth once was. He hadn’t. In all the times he’d come here, the thief had left the house unadulterated, as had anyone else who’d come. Windows that were glassed now had been glassed then, and those shuttered then were still shuttered now. He had little doubt that in years and decades to come, those windows would never change.
As he approached the small garden wall at the front of the house, he slipped his arm out of his cloak and into the chill air, running his hand along the top of the wall. He rubbed the rough stone-dust into his fingers and thumb as he strode to the garden gate. He beat his hand against the cloak, sending dust flying, then shoved open the rotten wooden gate. He walked to the stoop, and turned to look at the sea.
He almost always came in the spring, but he’d felt the urge to travel early this year, traveling while some patches of snow and ice still clung to Nender soil. He’d only missed the spring appointment once, coming his fourth year in late summer. It had proven… difficult. A late-summer cyclone had followed him then, brutally assaulting the shore and the house.
None of the windows remaining had broken.
Sniffing ozone in the air, feeling wind upon pointed ears, he turned and drew a key from his belt pouch and held it up in the faint light. Three separate barrels of three different materials – each ended in a different gem fragment, each studded with complex layers of teeth. Gold, silver, and steel; diamond, ruby, and onyx – they key had cost him nearly a year’s take. And though the fence, Danerel, swore that this was the only one he had recreated, Melbourn knew better than to take the crooked keymaker at his word. Others might have made the pilgrimage to the house overlooking the sea. Danerel himself had come – one time, he said, only the once.
He slid the key into the lock. Three barrels found tumblers and turned on their own, each rotating in different directions. The tumblers clicked and the bolt shot back. Melbourn withdrew the key and pushed open the door. Clouds of dust rose as he stepped into the entrance hall. It always smelled of mildew and rot, but never of animal scat or piss. It was almost the smell of an abandoned building.
He tossed his cloak down into the center of the entry hall and sat cross-legged on it. From a leather bag slung over his shoulder he drew out his metal cup and remnants of food wrapped in paper. He tossed these aside and, with something approaching reverence, removed a small canvas bundle and laid out the instruments inside: a pair of candles, one black and one white; two small bowls, one of gold, one of bone; a flask of wine; a sack of wheat. Learning the ritual involved had cost him nearly as much as the key itself, but acquiring the items themselves had taken less than an hour and only a handful of coins.
As the light began to vanish from the hall, he rolled up his sleeves and unwrapped the wrist sheaths from his arms. Parallel lines of scars ran across both of his tightly-corded forearms. He set the candles beside him, lit them, filled the gold bowl to the rim with wine, and scattered the grain around him. A breeze crept in, blowing the light, dusty grain around the room. The candles flickered; the white one blew and was gone.
Drawing his matched fighting daggers from the sheaths, he made short, precise slashes along his arms. He gritted his teeth, and set down the blades. He pushed his wrists together and let blood flow down from the wound and into the bone bowl. Glancing back, he saw the light from outside had vanished altogether. He pushed the bowl forward and crossed his wrists, putting pressure on the wounds.
“My blood,” he said to the empty, nearly-dark room. “Wine and wheat, light in the colors of Embarrath, Lord of the Dead and God of Shades. In his name I ask: which of you will be my guide tonight?”
The black candle flickered and vanished.
* * *
He sat, unmoving. There was no reason to try to use his nightsight muscles. He’d tried it the first year. Only when his eyes ached from the effort and he was weak and unable to see anything did they appear. He would be the one to bring the offerings, but they determined the pace of the events. There was no sense in rushing; a decade of this had taught him that.
Rain began to spatter against the house. Moisture blew through some of the voided windows, dampening his back and hair. He didn’t move. As things began to shuffle into the room, sweeping up the grain, sipping from the cups, he didn’t move. Eventually he heard them shuffle away, and the room was quiet again. He remained still. He didn’t know how long it was until he felt someone standing behind him, then heard that someone begin to breathe again. He allowed a few breaths before speaking:
“Artur Ravennock, are you to be my guide again?”
“Not I,” came the voice, behind and above him. “I’ve done it once already. Someone else will take the role this year.”
“Why are you here then?”
“To ask you why you return.”
“The same reason I always return,” Melbourn answered.
Artur was quiet a moment. “Then look around.”
Melbourn cast his gaze about the room. Dozens of figures, pale, flickering, and ethereal, stood still and watched him. Some he knew on sight; others weren’t so familiar. None approached.
“Who will be my guide?” he asked.
“I will.” The voice was female, and it was expected. She drifted away from the others and knelt in front of him. Though pale and limned in the tiniest flickers of light, he knew her right away.
“Beverley,” he said.
“You loved me, Melbourn. I know you did,” she leaned forward, gazing into his face.
“Yes, I did love you.”
“I knew so.” She leaned in closer. “Why then did you kill me?”
He’d answered this question every year since he’d first come; it was the first thing they wanted to know. He knew the answer, he could glibly recite it if need be, but he paused to give it some weight.
“I killed you for the same reason that I killed everyone here: because I wanted you to die.”
“But why?”
“You’re my guide this year. Guide me, and I assure you, you’ll find out.”
She started to back away from him.
“No,” Melbourn said. “Take my hand.” He offered blood-covered fingers to her.
She gazed at him a moment before grasping his hand and standing.
A bubble of memories rose to the surface of his mind. Beverley Samavas, known as Beverley the Viper, a thief like he; they’d met the past summer. He tingled as his body remembered the feel of hers under him, the touch of her dark hair between her fingers, the slightly sweet smell of her breath. Her harnessed, slender body in motion, muscles playing under soft skin as she scaled the high walls of House Vannedine. Her voice – slightly raw and smoky, like good whiskey; her laugh – bold and full-bodied, like fine wine; her kiss – sweet and powerful, like aged rum; he felt, tasted, and remembered her in his eyes, mouth, and ears. Six months they’d been together – six months of powerful lovemaking, explosive arguments, legendary dancing… and of two jobs shared between them. Six months when he’d thought she might be…
Then was the look – the look of delight on her face, that twinkle in her eye, that broad smile that opened into an “O” of horror as he grabbed her, not for a kiss, and threw her from the top of House Vannedine and to the street below. The whiskey voice that cracked as she screamed, and broke when she did; that last look at her slim, subtly muscular form lying on the cobblestones – these things he remembered.
She gasped. He looked into her eyes, but found delight, not pain, not anger. Despite the tide of memories, he couldn’t help but smile.
A hint of color had returned to her face. No longer could he see the others through her.
“I can feel you!”
“It’s my blood,” he said.
“I know that… I know that now. I can feel it.” She touched her face. “I can feel me.”
He reached up and brushed his other hand against her cheek. She always had had pale skin; that came from living mostly at nights. With her black hair, light skin, and slender form, he’d always enjoyed how she looked. He smiled again as she rubbed her cheek against his fingers. Her eyes closed for a moment; real lashes closed against each other, and he pulled his hand away.
“Did you do that for me?” she asked.
He was quiet a moment. “No.”
He raised his arms and held out his hands. The shades began to shuffle toward him. This had frightened him the first year, and unsettled him for a few years after that. He now accepted it for what it was: a sacrifice.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get on with it.”
Artur Ravennock was first to grip the bloody hand. Artur was a gambler, possibly a little better than Melbourn himself. He remembered the first shake of Artur’s hand, the slightly sweaty gambler’s grip, the smoky side room of the gambling hall in New Town. The weeks of nightly card-playing, the shared love of fine whiskey and good tobacco, and their mutual affection for a certain zaftig waitress who kept them in both; he smelled the tobacco, tasted the whiskey, felt the exhaustion of fourteen hours’ gameplay, heard Caren’s laugh, and warmed to the thought of making a new friend.
Then there was the night when they both were drinking as much as they could, to get her to come to the table as often as possible – there was little laughter to remember that night. A few gold dragons in stakes were on the table, and they were the only real contenders. He took another shot of whiskey and glanced at Artur just quickly enough to see him palm a card. He smashed the bottle on the table, grabbed his friend’s hand, and outed him as a cheat. As long-drunk as Melbourn was, Artur had leapt at him, razor in hand. He’d defended himself quickly, and hard. He’d left his new friend dead on the floor, Caren screaming. He never returned to that hall in New Town.
Caren’s soft face vanished, but the scream remained, changing in tone. An old hag tied to a stake, burning alive, shrieking as she begged for death. It was the first thing he’d seen as he wandered through a sweaty little shit-hole village on the Wild Coast. The second thing was the eyes of Lord Chongas watching. He wasn’t a real lord, just a jumped-up merchant-turned-tyrant. The smell of burning flesh bubbled back into his mind, as did the look of shock when he’d told Chongas that burning his subjects alive wasn’t usually a good idea. Less than a minute after he’d met the crazed lord, Chongas had tried to have him killed.
He remembered the slow reaction of Chongas’ thugs, the dive and roll that carried him past the fire and men-at-arms, and the pure pleasure of ramming a short blade into Chongas’ eye socket. Warm blood flowed down his hands. Though the lord might despise him, greedy Chongas was still among the first to accept the blood tithe.
He pulled his hands away from Artur and Lord Chongas, letting others take their places. Merchants and mercenaries, sailors and cultists, assassins, thieves, soldiers, and priests all grabbed at him, stealing his blood for this one night, all to become slightly more than just ghosts. He remembered rendezvous at night, battles in winter, assassination attempts under the high sun, and murder at midsummer. Many of them cried, croaked, or said his name as they died; others did not. Some knew him by an alias, some nothing of him at all. Nothing in common they shared, save the fact that all had died at his hand. Blades flashed, bowstrings twanged, women screamed, men shrieked, armor clanged, dogs howled, blood flowed, and he collapsed.
Beverley knelt over him, touching his face with cold, solid hands.
“You’re more pale than I,” she said.
“I’m…not…surprised,” he managed to say. “Have I…been out…long?”
“Half an hour, possibly. You opened your arms three times for them – for us.”
He nodded, still lying on his side. His forearms no longer hurt; he had reached that place beyond pain where dying began.
“Why did you come?”
“Something…I have…to do.”
She leaned in closer, looking into his eyes, close enough to brush their noses together. He didn’t smell her breath.
“I know what you want,” she said, backing away. “But you must say it.”
“Forgiveness.”
She shook her head. “For the love I felt for you, I’ll be kind. As gratitude for letting me feel again…” She brushed her cold lips against his. “I wish you no harm. But you took me in your arms, and threw me to the ground. I won’t forgive you.”
“I didn’t…expect you to.”
He sat up, feeling the floor to find his balance. His eyes were completely adjusted now; what were pockets of darkness earlier revealed themselves to be open doors and hallways leading away. Most of the shades had left the room, but a few remained. All were whole, colored in places, pale in others – touching their own faces, the walls, the floor, or each other. He wondered how long they’d remain this way, but he’d never stayed long enough to find out.
Overhead, a barrel of thunder rolled across the sky. Sine waves of raindrops splashed on the glassed and shuttered windows. Through the voided openings, rain flew, catching the inside breeze, turning to mist and wetting everything inside. He rotated his arms to let the wet drizzle onto his wounds. No blood-tracks remained there; the shades had taken every bit they could. The slashes had reddened and risen, new parallel lines that would soon be new scars, like fortifications on a battlefield.
“I’ll not forgive you, either,” Artur Ravennock said.
“I understand, Artur.” Melbourn climbed to his feet and took a deep breath. “But so you know, I’m sorry.”
Artur simply nodded.
“I’m not forgiving you,” said a woman once paid to kill him. He’d taken her head nearly off her shoulders in the ensuing fight. Thankfully, not she or any of the others appeared the way they had after he had killed them, but before they had died.
“I won’t forgive you,” a soldier from Tassen told him. Melbourn nodded. He didn’t expect any of them to.
“If no one forgives you, what are you going to do?” Beverley asked.
“I will continue,” he said, tucking one of his knives into his belt.
“Follow me.” She led him out of the entryway and into another hall; Melbourn had come to think of it as a trophy hall. Rusted, beaten armor and weapons displayed themselves to each other. Dust rose again as they passed through, but there were no spider webs. There were no spiders. At the end of the trophy hall, she led him up a flight of stairs to the second floor. A priest at the top said he wouldn’t forgive Melbourn for drowning him in his own font.
“To be fair,” Melbourn said, “you were sacrificing an entire family at the time.”
“As my God commanded!”
“Yes, yes. I understand. I was stopping you as my goddess commanded.”
The priest stepped away, grasping the rotted rail, and let them pass. As he left, Melbourn turned. The priest was running his fingers along the moldering wood grain.
They found Jacob in the smallest child’s bedroom, surrounded by dust, mold, mildew, and dozens of wooden toys that had faded and rotted in what little sun that shone though the room’s one glass window. Still intact and closed, the window rattled and shook from the rain washing across it. Unlike the others, this shade remained pale, limned in flickering light.
“Jacob,” Melbourn said.
“I will never forgive you,” the shade responded.
“If there is one of you here that I don’t care ever does forgive me, it is you.”
“The things you said and did to me as you killed me—”
“Were entirely deserved. You’re dead now, and I’m glad that I’m the one who did it.”
The shade seemed to fade away a bit more.
“Do you come back to torment us?” Jacob asked.
“No,” Melbourn answered. He held out his hand. “Take it.” He drew the knife from his belt and slashed his left arm.
“Why do offer me this every time if you hate me so?” Jacob asked, not quite approaching.
“You’re dead. You can’t harm me if I don’t want it. I bear you no ill will anymore.” He continued to hold out the hand. The shade was still a moment then grabbed him.
The smell of Harbordown was the first thing Melbourn remembered, more than twenty years ago, after he first arrived. It was the smell of sweat and salt and city. That autumn it was also the smell of tshiram – a pungent poison that had killed thirty-eight people. One of the last was a sweet-natured trollop of his acquaintance. The anger when he’d found her body, the smell of the tshiram in her room, the snarling satisfaction when he realized he knew who made it – these things he remembered. The shocked look on Jacob the Poisoner’s face as he looked up at him, coming through the ceiling; this was a good memory. The echoes of Jacob’s screams as he killed him, slowly, were not so good. Neither was the fact that he remembered again realizing that the poisoner’s death simply couldn’t balance the scales.
“Thank you,” Jacob said, through solid lips. “But I still don’t forgive you.”
“I understand.”
He turned, staggered once, and grabbed the worm-eaten doorjamb to hold himself up.
“You’re dying,” Beverley said, as he pushed away from the door and back towards the stairs. “You have only so much blood to give.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you stop?”
“Not done.”
“Then stay with me,” she said, as she led him back down to the ground floor. His knees buckled twice, but he held onto the soft, rotted rail and kept his balance each time. They passed through the parlor, the study, and another hall, and into the kitchen. Just inside, Lord Chongas stood before a door.
“Come into the cellar, Melbourn,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“It’s just a short trip downstairs, and it will all be over,” the dead tyrant said. “No more begging for forgiveness, no more draining yourself, no more pain. Come with me.”
“No.”
“I’ll ask again next time.”
“I’ll refuse next time.”
“You might not make it that far, not if you continue on your path of murder.”
“I know, but I won’t go into the cellar.”
“Yet. As you wish.” The lord stepped aside. Melbourn and Beverley went into the kitchen. Several pale, flickering shades awaited him, huddled together near the cold, broken hearth.
“It’s you I’ve come for,” he told them. Cold men stood, in archaic armor and uniforms, watching him. Some carried weapons; some did not. Old men stood next to young men, and all had the look of guards, or soldiers.
“I don’t understand,” Beverley said. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know,” Melbourn answered, seeking the eyes of their self-appointed leader.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “It’s my memory. As a sidhe, we start to lose our memory as we age. I’m over two hundred years old. There are many things I’ve forgotten.” He glanced up at the shades in armor. “That includes those I’ve killed.”
“You’re trying to get forgiveness from victims you don’t remember?”
“Aye,” he said. “They’re the ones that matter. If I remember someone, I can either justify or not justify my actions. If I can’t recall who they are, then I can’t assume anything.” He paused. “I believe that death has a place in the world, and I have chosen to use it. I believe that most of the decisions I have made to kill another has made the world a better place. But I also believe that I once believed in wanton cruelty.” He closed his eyes to think.
“Nestor? Is one of you Nestor?”
“Nextor.” One of the older shades stepped forward.
“I thought you didn’t remember him,” Beverley said.
“I don’t. I learn their names each year, to try to recall them when I come back.”
“Does that work?”
“Not usually, no.”
“What did I do to you, Nextor?”
“I drove a jail cart in Saemos. When you were caught, we failed to find an iron dagger on you. You could have used it to pry the door off and escape. Instead, you plunged it up through the back of the seat and into me. You killed me to create a distraction, so the other driver would have to stop.”
“I’m sorry,” Melbourn said.
“I know.”
“Erin… Erictha… Eri—”
“My name is Erithanus,” a younger one answered. “I was a guard in the employ of Lady Shelessa of Yaer. You came to rob her. When I caught you, you fought and beat me. But instead of just leaving me that way, you cut my throat. I died. I didn’t need to.”
“No, you didn’t,” Melbourn said. “And I’m sorry – I’m so sorry. I know this won’t help you at all, but I am not like that any longer. I won’t wantonly kill a guardsman just doing his job. I can’t anymore. I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“You did it to me, too,” said another. “My name is Loridanus.” He spoke, and Melbourn listened. He listened as all of them gave their stories. When he was finished, he looked at the room full of shades, all pale and flickering. He drew the dagger from his belt and took a deep breath.
“I hope one day you’ll forgive me.” He slashed his right arm to let the blood flow. Dizziness slammed into him and the blade clanged on the dusty stone floor. Reality blurred at the corners and as the shades reached for him, he collapsed again.
* * *
“I have…no memories…”
“What?” Beverley asked him, touching his face again.
“When those…men…touch me…I can’t remember…anything. They’re just…empty spaces.” Lying on his side, he lifted his arm to look at the damage done to it. Some blood remained, dried and sticky. He lowered his arm and twisted himself to look around. Behind him, Nextor stood – still pale, still limned in flickering light.
“Why didn’t you…?”
“Eleven years,” the aged jail-wagon driver said. “Eleven years you’ve come here and found us. Each time you’ve listened, apologized, and you’ve begged forgiveness. I’m ready to give you that.”
Melbourn blinked and tried to sit straight. Beverley helped push him up.
“Yes, you killed me, and wrongly so. But your pain is clear to me, and it’s clear that you resent what you’ve done. You’ve chosen to take on this burden you didn’t have to carry. You seek forgiveness from us, and I forgive you.”
He was silent for a moment. “You’re…the first. You’re the first…ever to say that.”
“Yes,” Nextor said. “Maybe I can make the burden a little lighter.”
Melbourn was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”
“Go now. I won’t see you again next year.”
“I’m afraid…I won’t remember you.”
The old man smiled. “Though you don’t remember our names, it’s clear that you remember us.” He nodded toward Beverley. “Isn’t it?”
Beverley turned to face Melbourn. “This is why you killed me – because of the guard?”
“Because of the guards,” Melbourn answered. He stopped to get his breath. “Besides the one I found you murdering…I found two other bodies that night. There was another dead one…on our first job, but I…had hoped it wasn’t you. Three men dead to steal a set of paintings…and another one for a pair of vases.” He caught his breath again. “I simply couldn’t go on with you…knowing you’d do that again…and again, and again.”
“But I loved you, Melbourn!”
“And I loved you…at least I did until I realized you’d killed all those men…simply to make it easier to get away with an armload of pretties.”
“How many men have you killed? How many women? How many of us are here?”
“I’ve never counted; I don’t want to know. The ones I kill now deserve to die.”
“I didn’t deserve that!”
“I think you did. Would you have come here…year after year, to beg forgiveness?”
“Wh—no.”
“I do.”
“I will never forgive you!”
“I know that,” Melbourn said. He staggered to his feet and left the kitchen. He passed Lord Chongas, a bounty hunter, and a pair of cultists on his way back to the entry hall. He stumbled, nearly falling against a wall, leaving a trail of dried and flaking blood behind. In the entry hall, he nearly collapsed on his cloak. He gathered up his instruments and supplies and put them all back into the bag; nothing was left behind. He looked up. Jacob watched from a corner. Artur stood near the front door. Rain had begun to spatter through him again. Lightning flashed through glassed-in windows; trapezoids of light appeared on the floor. He climbed to his feet and wrestled the cloak over his shoulders.
“Melbourn.”
He turned to face Beverley again.
“I… I…” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m sorry I put you in that position. I’m sorry I killed those guards. I’m sorry we’re not together anymore.”
“I am, too, Beverley.” He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers. As he touched her, she began to fade and her touch fell away.
He turned and walked toward the door.
“Thank you, Nextor,” he said, turning to face them. “I’ll see the rest of you next year.” He pulled open the door and stepped into the lashing rain. As he pulled it closed behind him, they began to fade.
The door slammed and the bolt locked itself. He bundled himself up against the storm and started the long walk back home.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Melbourn's Storm
This is the first short story I've ever written regarding the Heroes. The time setting doesn't matter, except that it is definitely before the work-in-progress novel.
It's about 4,800 words - about 17 pages on Word. As usual, let me know what you think of this. Be kind; it's only a first go-round.
Thanks!
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Melbourn’s Storm
Dirt crunched underfoot as the mal sidhe made his way toward the sprawling house overlooking the sea. Early spring wind blew off the water; his long bronze-colored hair had blown and snapped in the constant breeze and become snarled. Cold, brittle surf washed on the rocks only a few feet away. Whitecaps dotted the dark gray of the water to the horizon. Overhead, the lighter gray of the sky roiled with tumultuous clouds, and seagulls sculled the air from land to sea to land again. The weather came from the west, where the sea was, where the house faced.
The sounds of the dirt and surf, the wind and gulls, and his breathing were the only noises. He was miles from any settlement, more than a day’s journey from the nearest cattle station, and more than fifty miles north of Harbordown, the city he called home. No road came closer than a dozen miles to it, and the only trail to follow was one he’d blazed himself more than a decade ago.
He had walked the entire way; it was a pilgrimage of sorts.
Two stories above ground, who knew how many below; the house sprawled just above a rocky shore on an isolated point. Three wings had struck out in their own directions; nine gables rose god-like above the rest. Fewer than half the windows were glassed, a handful was shuttered, and some were simply voids, empty holes. He yearned to touch those voids, as a tongue longed to prod the cavity where a tooth once was. He didn’t. He’d touched none of the windows, opened no shutters, and broken no glass. In ten years of coming, the thief had left the house unadulterated, as had anyone else who had come. Windows that were glassed now had been glassed then, and those shuttered then were still shuttered now. He had little doubt that years before – and years to come those windows would still be the same.
He approached the small garden wall at the front of the house. Slipping his arm out of his cloak and into the chill air, he ran his hand along the top of the wall, feeling the rough stone-dust, rubbing it into his fingers and thumb. The wall was barely three feet high, ridiculously easy to hop over. He chose not to do so. It might be the tangle of overgrown underbrush in the garden, but he found it more likely to be a cheat, a cutting of a corner in the most literal way. He beat his hand against the cloak, sending stone-dust flying, and shoved open the rotted wooden gate. A few quick steps brought him to the front stoop. He stopped, turning to look at the sea.
Ten years he’d made this trip, almost always in the spring. He’d felt the urge to travel early this year, coming while some patches of snow and ice still clung to Nender soil. He’d only missed the spring appointment once, coming his fourth year in late summer. It had proven… difficult. A late-summer cyclone had followed him that year, brutally assaulting the shore and the house.
None of the windows remaining had broken.
He gazed out at the stormfront on the horizon, sniffing the ozone in the air, feeling the wind upon pointed ears. This one, too, might prove difficult. He drew a key from his belt pouch and held it up in the faint light: three separate barrels of three different materials. Each barrel ended in a different gem fragment, and each was studded with complex layers of teeth. Gold, silver, and steel; diamond, ruby, and onyx – the key had cost him almost a year’s take. And though the fence, Danerel, swore that this was the only one he had recreated, Melbourn knew better than to take the crooked keymaker at his word. Others almost certainly made the pilgrimage out here. Danerel himself had come – one time, he said, only the once.
He slid the key into the lock. Three barrels found tumblers. He turned the key only a fraction of an inch. The barrels turned on their own, each rotating in different directions. The tumblers clicked and the bolt shot back. Melbourn pulled out the key, and pushed open the door. Clouds of dust rose as he stepped into the entrance hall. Mildew and rot: it always smelled of mildew and rot, but never of animal scat or piss. It was almost the smell of an abandoned building, but not quite.
He moved to the center of the entry hall and tossed his cloak to the floor. He sat cross-legged on the cloak and opened his belt pouch again. Under his metal cup and remnants of paper-wrapped food was a small bundle wrapped in canvas. With something approaching reverence, he unrolled the bundle and laid out the instruments inside. Though it had cost nearly as much to learn the ritual involved as it did to acquire the key, buying the items themselves had taken about an hour and only a handful of coins.
He lit a pair of candles, one black and one white, and set them beside him. In front of him he placed two small bowls: one bone, one gold. A small flask of wine lay in front of him next to a fist-sized bag of wheat. As the light began to vanish from the hall, he rolled his sleeves up next, unwrapping the wrist sheaths from his arms. Parallel lines of scars ran across both of his tightly-corded forearms. Drawing his matched fighting daggers from the sheaths, he made short, quick slashes along his arms. He gritted his teeth, and set down the blades. He pushed his wrists together and let blood flow down from the wound and into the bone bowl. Glancing back over his head, he saw that the light from outside had vanished altogether. After a minute, the bowl was nearly full and most of the blood was beginning to darken and thicken on his arms. He lifted a fold of the cloak and pinched it between the wounds, to stop the bleeding. After only a minute more, he released the cloak. He didn’t wipe his hands clean; that was part of the ritual.
The wine was for the golden cup. He filled it to the brim and pushed it away from him. Still seated, he opened the bag of grain and scattered it around him. A breeze crept in, blowing the light dusty grain up and around the room. The candles flickered; the white one blew and was gone.
“My blood,” he said to the empty, nearly-dark room. “Wine and wheat, light in the colors of Embarrath, Lord of the Dead and God of Shades. In his name I ask: which of you will be my guide tonight?”
The black candle flickered and vanished.
* * *
He sat, unmoving. There was no reason to try to use his nightsight muscles. He’d tried it the first year. Only when his eyes ached from the effort and he was weak and unable to see anything did they appear. He would bring the offerings, but they determined the pace of the events. There was no sense in rushing; a decade of this had taught him that.
Rain began to spatter on the house. Moisture blew through some of the voided windows, dampening his back and hair. He didn’t move. As things began to shuffle into the room, sweeping up the grain, sipping from the cups, he didn’t move. Eventually he heard them shuffle away, and the room was quiet again. He remained still. He didn’t know how long it was until he felt someone standing behind him, then heard that someone begin to breathe again. He allowed a few breaths before speaking:
“Artur Ravennock, are you to be my guide again?”
“Not I,” came the voice, behind and above him. “I’ve done it once. Someone else will take the role this year.”
“Why are you here then?”
“To ask why you return.”
“The same reason I always return,” Melbourn answered.
“Then look around.”
Melbourn cast his gaze about the room. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and now he saw dozens of figures, pale, flickering, and ethereal, standing and watching him. Some he knew on sight; others weren’t so familiar. None approached.
“Who will be my guide?”
“I will.” The voice was female, and it was expected. She drifted away from the others and knelt in front of him. Though pale and limned in the tiniest flickers of light, he knew her right away.
“You loved me, Melbourn. Tell me that you did,” she leaned forward, gazing into his face.
“Yes, I did love you, Beverley.”
“I knew so.” She leaned in closer. “Why then did you kill me?”
He’d answered this question every year since he’d first come; it was the first thing they wanted to know. He knew the answer, he could glibly recite it if need be, but he paused to give it some weight.
“I killed you for the same reason that I killed everyone here: because I wanted you to be dead.”
“But why?”
“You’re my guide. Guide me, and I assure you, you’ll find out.”
“Come with me.” She started to back away.
“No,” Melbourn said. “Take my hand.” He offered blood-covered fingers to her.
She gazed at him a moment before grasping his hand and standing. A bubble of memories rose to the surface of his mind. Beverley Samavas, known as Beverley the Viper, a thief like he. They’d met the past summer. He tingled as his body remembered the feel of hers under him, the touch of her dark hair between her fingers, the slightly sweet smell of her breath. Her harnessed, slender body in motion, muscles playing under soft skin as she scaled the high walls of House Vannedine. Her voice – slightly raw and smoky, like good whiskey; her laugh – bold and full-bodied, like fine wine; her kiss – sweet and powerful, like aged rum; he felt, tasted, and remembered her in his eyes, mouth, and ears. Six months they’d been together – six months of powerful lovemaking, explosive arguments, and two jobs shared between them. Six months when he’d thought she might be…
Then was the look – the look of delight on her face, that twinkle in her eye, that broad smile that opened into an “O” of horror as he grabbed her, not for a kiss, and threw her from the top of House Vannedine and to the street below. The whiskey voice that cracked as she screamed, and broke when she did; that last look at her slim, subtly muscular form lying on the cobblestones – these things he remembered.
She gasped. He looked into her eyes, but found delight, not pain, not anger. He couldn’t help but smile.
A hint of color had returned to her face. No longer could he see the others through her.
“I can feel you!”
“It’s my blood,” he said.
“I know that… I know that now. I can feel it.” She touched her face. “I can feel me.”
He reached up and brushed his other hand against her cheek. She always had had pale skin; that came from living mostly at nights. With her black hair, light skin, and slender form, he’d always enjoyed how she looked. He smiled again as she rubbed her cheek against his fingers. Her eyes closed for a moment; real lashes closed against each other, and he pulled his hand away.
“Did you do that for me?” she asked.
He was quiet a moment. “No.”
He raised his arms and held out his hands. The shades began to shuffle toward him. This had frightened him the first year, and unsettled him for a few years after that. He now accepted it for what it was: a sacrifice.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get on with it.”
Artur Ravennock was first to grip the bloody hand. Artur was a gambler, possibly a little better than Melbourn himself. He remembered the first shake of Artur’s hand, the slightly sweaty gambler’s grip, the smoky side room of the gambling hall in New Town. The weeks of nightly card-playing, the shared love of fine whiskey and good tobacco, and their mutual affection for a certain zaftig waitress who kept them in both; he smelled the tobacco, tasted the whiskey, felt the exhaustion of fourteen hours’ gameplay, heard Caren’s laugh, and warmed to the thought of making a new friend.
Then there was the night when they both were drinking as much as they could, to get her to come to the table as often as possible – there was little laughter to remember that night. A few gold dragons in stakes were on the table, and they were the only real contenders. He took another shot of whiskey and glanced at Artur just quickly enough to see him palm a card. He smashed the bottle on the table, grabbed his friend’s hand, and outed him as a cheat. As long-drunk as Melbourn was, Artur had leapt at him, razor in hand. He’d defended himself quickly, and hard. He’d left his new friend dead on the floor, Caren screaming. He never returned to that hall in New Town.
Caren’s soft face vanished, but the scream remained, changing in tone. An old hag tied to a stake, burning alive, shrieking as she begged for death. It was the first thing he’d seen as he wandered through a sweaty little shit-hole village on the Wild Coast. The second thing was the eyes of Lord Chongas watching. He wasn’t a real lord, just a jumped-up merchant-turned-tyrant. The smell of burning flesh bubbled back into his mind, as did the look of shock when he’d told Chongas that burning his subjects alive might not be a good idea. Less than a minute after he’d met the crazed lord, Chongas had tried to have him killed.
He remembered the slow reaction of Chongas’ thugs, the dive and roll that carried him past the fire and men-at-arms, and the pure pleasure of ramming a short blade into Chongas’ eye socket. Warm blood flowed down his hands. Though the lord might despise him, greedy Chongas was still among the first to accept the blood tithe.
He pulled his hands away from Artur and Lord Chongas, letting others take their places. Merchants and mercenaries, sailors and cultists, assassins, thieves, soldiers, and priests all grabbed at him, stealing his blood for this one night, all to become slightly more than just ghosts. He remembered rendezvous at night, battles in winter, assassination attempts under the high sun, and murder at midsummer. Many of them cried, croaked, or said his name as they died; others did not. Some knew him by an alias, some nothing of him at all. Nothing in common they shared, save the fact that all had died at his hand. Blades flashed, bowstrings twanged, women screamed, men shrieked, armor clanged, dogs howled, blood flowed, and he collapsed.
Beverley knelt over him, touching his face with cold, solid hands.
“You’re more pale than I,” she said.
“I’m…not…surprised,” he managed to say. “Have I…been out…long?”
“Half an hour, possibly. You opened your arms three times for them – for us.”
He nodded, still lying on his side. His forearms no longer hurt; he had reached that place beyond pain where dying began.
“Why did you come?”
“Something…I have…to do.”
She leaned in closer, looking into his eyes, close enough to brush their noses together. He didn’t smell her breath.
“I know what you want,” she said, backing away. “But you must say it.”
“Forgiveness.”
She shook her head. “For the love I felt for you, I’ll be kind. As gratitude for letting me feel again…” She brushed her cold lips against his. “I wish you no harm. But you took me in your arms, and threw me to the ground. I won’t forgive you.”
“I didn’t…expect you to.”
He sat up, feeling the floor to find his balance. His eyes were completely adjusted now; what were pockets of darkness earlier revealed themselves to be open doors and hallways leading away. Most of the shades had left the room, but a few remained. All were whole, colored in places, pale in others – touching their own faces, the walls, the floor, or each other. He wondered how long they’d remain this way, but he’d never stayed long enough to find out.
Overhead, a barrel of thunder rolled across the sky. Sine waves of raindrops splashed on the glassed and shuttered windows. Through the voided openings, rain flew, catching the inside breeze, turning to mist and wetting everything inside. He rotated his arms to let the wet drizzle onto his wounds. No blood-tracks remained there; the shades had taken every bit they could. The slashes had reddened and risen, new parallel lines that would soon be new scars, like fortifications on a battlefield.
“I’ll not forgive you, either,” Artur Ravennock said.
“I understand, Artur.” Melbourn climbed to his feet and took a deep breath. “But so you know, I’m sorry.”
Artur simply nodded.
“I’m not forgiving you,” said a woman once paid to kill him. He’d taken her head nearly off her shoulders in the ensuing fight. Thankfully, not she or any of the others appeared the way they had after he had killed them, but before they had died.
“I won’t forgive you,” a soldier from Tassen told him. Melbourn nodded. He didn’t expect any of them to.
“If no one forgives you, what are you going to do?” Beverley asked.
“I will continue,” he said, tucking one of his knives into his belt.
“Follow me.” She led him out of the entryway and into another hall; Melbourn had come to think of it as a trophy hall. Rusted, beaten armor and weapons displayed themselves to each other. Dust rose again as they passed through, but there were no spider webs. There were no spiders. At the end of the trophy hall, she led him up a flight of stairs to the second floor. A priest at the top said he wouldn’t forgive Melbourn for drowning him in his own font.
“To be fair,” Melbourn said, “you were sacrificing an entire family at the time.”
“As my God commanded!”
“Yes, yes. I understand. I was stopping you as my goddess commanded.”
The priest stepped away, grasping the rotted rail, and let them pass. As he left, Melbourn turned. The priest was running his fingers along the moldering wood grain.
They found Jacob in the smallest child’s bedroom, surrounded by dust, mold, mildew, and dozens of wooden toys that had faded and rotted in the sun that came though the room’s one glass window. Still intact and closed, the window rattled and shook from the rain washing across it. Unlike the others, this shade remained pale, limned in flickering light.
“Jacob,” Melbourn said.
“I will never forgive you,” the shade responded.
“If there is one of you here that I don’t care ever does forgive me, it is you.”
“The things you said and did to me as you killed me—”
“Were entirely deserved. You’re dead now, and I’m glad that I’m the one who did it.”
The shade seemed to fade away a bit more.
“Why do you come?” Jacob asked.
“I’m not coming for you,” Melbourn answered.
He faded a bit more.
“Jacob,” Melbourn said, holding out his hand. “Take it.”
“What?”
Melbourn drew the knife from his belt and slashed his left arm.
“Why do this?” Jacob asked, wanting to approach.
“You’re dead. You can’t harm me if I don’t want it. I bear you no ill will anymore.” He continued to hold out the hand. The shade was still a moment then grabbed him.
The smell of Harbordown was the first thing he remembered, more than twenty years ago, after he first arrived. It was the smell of sweat and salt and city. That autumn it was also the smell of tshiram – a pungent poison that had killed thirty-eight people. One of the last was a sweet-natured trollop of his acquaintance. The anger when he’d found her body, the smell of the tshiram in her room, the snarling satisfaction when he realized he knew who made it – these things he remembered. The shocked look on Jacob the Poisoner’s face as he looked up at him, coming through the ceiling; this was a good memory. The echoes of Jacob’s screams as he killed him, slowly, were not so good. Neither was the fact that he remembered again realizing that the poisoner’s death simply couldn’t balance the scales.
“Thank you,” Jacob said, through solid lips. “But I still don’t forgive you.”
“I understand.”
He turned, staggered once, and grabbed the worm-eaten doorjamb to hold himself up.
“You’re dying,” Beverley said, as he pushed away from the door and back towards the stairs. “You have only so much blood to give.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you stop?”
“I’m…not done.”
“Then stay with me,” she said, as she led him back down to the ground floor. His knees buckled twice, but he held onto the soft, rotted rail and kept his balance each time. They passed through the parlor, the study, and another hall, and into the kitchen. Just inside, Lord Chongas stood before a door.
“Come into the cellar, Melbourn,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“It’s just a short trip downstairs, and it will all be over,” the dead tyrant said. “No more begging for forgiveness, no more draining yourself, no more pain. Come with me.”
“No.”
“I’ll ask again next time.”
“I’ll refuse next time.”
“You might not make it that far, not if you continue on your path of murder.”
“I know, but I won’t go into the cellar.”
“Yet. As you wish.” The lord stepped aside. Melbourn and Beverley went into the kitchen. Several pale, flickering shades awaited him, huddled together near the cold, broken hearth.
“It’s you I’ve come for,” he told them. Cold men stood, in archaic armor and uniforms, watching him. Some carried weapons; some did not. Old men stood next to young men, and all had the look of guards, or soldiers.
“I don’t understand,” Beverley said. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know,” Melbourn answered, seeking the eyes of their self-appointed leader.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “It’s my memory. As a sidhe, we start to lose our memory as we age. I’m over two hundred years old. There are many things I’ve forgotten.” He glanced up at the shades in armor. “That includes those I’ve killed.”
“You’re trying to get forgiveness from victims you don’t remember?”
“Aye,” he said. “They are the ones that matter. I can either justify or not justify my actions to myself if I remember them. If I cannot recall what they are, then I can’t assume anything.” He paused, trying to think back to his earliest viable memory. “I believe that death has a place in the world, and I have the right to use it. I believe that most of the decisions I have made to kill another has made the world a better place. I also believe I once believed in wanton cruelty.” He closed his eyes to think.
“Nestor? Is one of you Nestor?”
“Nextor.” One of the older shades stepped forward.
“I thought you didn’t remember him,” Beverley said.
“I don’t. I learn their names each year, to try to recall them when I come back.”
“Does that work?”
“Not usually, no.”
“What did I do to you, Nextor?”
“I drove a jail cart in Saemos. When you were caught, we failed to find an iron dagger on you. You could have used it to pry the door off and escape. Instead, you plunged it up through the back of the seat and into me. You killed me to create a distraction, so the other driver would have to stop.”
“I’m sorry,” Melbourn said.
“I know.”
“Erin… Erictha… Eri—”
“My name is Erithanus,” a younger one answered. “I was a guard in the employ of Lady Shelessa of Yaer. You came to rob her. When I caught you, you fought and beat me. But instead of just leaving me that way, you cut my throat. I died. I didn’t need to.”
“No, you didn’t,” Melbourn said. “And I’m sorry – I’m so sorry. I know this won’t help at all, but I no longer do that. I won’t wantonly kill a guardsman just doing his job. I can’t anymore. I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“You did it to me, too,” said another. “My name is Loridanus.” He spoke, and Melbourn listened. He listened as all of them gave their stories. When he was finished, he looked at the room full of shades, all pale and flickering. He drew the dagger from his belt and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry.” He slashed his right arm to let the blood flow. Dizziness slammed into him and the blade clanged on the dusty stone floor. Reality blurred at the corners and as the shades reached for him, he collapsed again.
* * *
“There are…no memories…”
“What?” Beverley asked him, touching his face again.
“When those…men…touch me…I can’t remember…anything. They’re just…gone.” Lying on his side, he lifted his arm to look at the damage done to it. Some blood remained, dried and sticky. He lowered his arm and twisted himself to look around. Behind him, Nextor stood – still pale, still limned in flickering light.
“Why didn’t you…?”
“Eleven years,” the aged jail-wagon driver said. “Eleven years you’ve come here and found us. Each time you’ve listened, apologized, begged forgiveness. I’m ready to give you that.”
Melbourn blinked and tried to sit straight. Beverley helped push him up.
“Yes, you killed me – wrongly so. But your pain is clear to me, and it’s clear that you resent what you’ve done. You’ve chosen to take on a burden you don’t have to carry. You seek forgiveness, and I forgive you.”
He was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”
“Go now. I won’t see you again next year.”
“I’m afraid I won’t remember you.”
The old man smiled. “Though you don’t remember our names, it’s clear that you remember us.” He nodded toward Beverley. “Isn’t it?”
Beverley turned to face Melbourn. “This is why you killed me – because of the guard?”
“The guards,” Melbourn answered. “Besides the one I found you murdering, I found two other bodies that night.” He stopped to get his breath. “There was another dead one on our first job, but I had hoped it wasn’t you. Three men dead to steal a set of paintings, and another one f a pair of vases.” He caught his breath again. “I simply couldn’t go on with you, knowing you’d do it again, and again, and again.”
“But I loved you!”
“And I loved you – at least I did until I realized you’d killed all those men simply to make it easier to get away with an armload of pretties.”
“How many have you killed? How many of us are here?”
“I’ve never counted; I don’t want to know. The ones I kill now deserve to die.”
“I didn’t deserve that!”
“I think you did. Would you have come here, year after year, to beg forgiveness?”
“Wh—no.”
“I do.”
“I will never forgive you!”
“I know that,” Melbourn said. He staggered to his feet and left the kitchen. He passed Lord Chongas, a bounty hunter, and a pair of cultists on his way back to the entry hall. He gathered up the bowls and candles, the flask, and his cloak. He looked up. Jacob watched from a corner. Artur stood near the front door. Rain had begun to spatter through him again. Lightning flashed through glassed-in windows; trapezoids of light appeared on the floor. He shoved everything into his pouch and threw the cloak over his shoulders.
“Melbourn.”
He turned to face Beverley again.
“I… I…” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you in that position. I’m sorry I killed those guards. I’m sorry we’re not together anymore.”
“I am, too, Beverley.” He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers. As he touched her, she began to fade and her touch fell away. “And I forgive you.”
He turned and strode to the door.
“Thank you, Nextor,” he said, turning to face them. “I’ll see the rest of you next year.” He pulled open the door and stepped into the lashing rain. As he pulled it closed behind him, they began to fade.
The door slammed and the bolt locked itself. He bundled himself up against the storm and started walking back home.
It's about 4,800 words - about 17 pages on Word. As usual, let me know what you think of this. Be kind; it's only a first go-round.
Thanks!
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Melbourn’s Storm
Dirt crunched underfoot as the mal sidhe made his way toward the sprawling house overlooking the sea. Early spring wind blew off the water; his long bronze-colored hair had blown and snapped in the constant breeze and become snarled. Cold, brittle surf washed on the rocks only a few feet away. Whitecaps dotted the dark gray of the water to the horizon. Overhead, the lighter gray of the sky roiled with tumultuous clouds, and seagulls sculled the air from land to sea to land again. The weather came from the west, where the sea was, where the house faced.
The sounds of the dirt and surf, the wind and gulls, and his breathing were the only noises. He was miles from any settlement, more than a day’s journey from the nearest cattle station, and more than fifty miles north of Harbordown, the city he called home. No road came closer than a dozen miles to it, and the only trail to follow was one he’d blazed himself more than a decade ago.
He had walked the entire way; it was a pilgrimage of sorts.
Two stories above ground, who knew how many below; the house sprawled just above a rocky shore on an isolated point. Three wings had struck out in their own directions; nine gables rose god-like above the rest. Fewer than half the windows were glassed, a handful was shuttered, and some were simply voids, empty holes. He yearned to touch those voids, as a tongue longed to prod the cavity where a tooth once was. He didn’t. He’d touched none of the windows, opened no shutters, and broken no glass. In ten years of coming, the thief had left the house unadulterated, as had anyone else who had come. Windows that were glassed now had been glassed then, and those shuttered then were still shuttered now. He had little doubt that years before – and years to come those windows would still be the same.
He approached the small garden wall at the front of the house. Slipping his arm out of his cloak and into the chill air, he ran his hand along the top of the wall, feeling the rough stone-dust, rubbing it into his fingers and thumb. The wall was barely three feet high, ridiculously easy to hop over. He chose not to do so. It might be the tangle of overgrown underbrush in the garden, but he found it more likely to be a cheat, a cutting of a corner in the most literal way. He beat his hand against the cloak, sending stone-dust flying, and shoved open the rotted wooden gate. A few quick steps brought him to the front stoop. He stopped, turning to look at the sea.
Ten years he’d made this trip, almost always in the spring. He’d felt the urge to travel early this year, coming while some patches of snow and ice still clung to Nender soil. He’d only missed the spring appointment once, coming his fourth year in late summer. It had proven… difficult. A late-summer cyclone had followed him that year, brutally assaulting the shore and the house.
None of the windows remaining had broken.
He gazed out at the stormfront on the horizon, sniffing the ozone in the air, feeling the wind upon pointed ears. This one, too, might prove difficult. He drew a key from his belt pouch and held it up in the faint light: three separate barrels of three different materials. Each barrel ended in a different gem fragment, and each was studded with complex layers of teeth. Gold, silver, and steel; diamond, ruby, and onyx – the key had cost him almost a year’s take. And though the fence, Danerel, swore that this was the only one he had recreated, Melbourn knew better than to take the crooked keymaker at his word. Others almost certainly made the pilgrimage out here. Danerel himself had come – one time, he said, only the once.
He slid the key into the lock. Three barrels found tumblers. He turned the key only a fraction of an inch. The barrels turned on their own, each rotating in different directions. The tumblers clicked and the bolt shot back. Melbourn pulled out the key, and pushed open the door. Clouds of dust rose as he stepped into the entrance hall. Mildew and rot: it always smelled of mildew and rot, but never of animal scat or piss. It was almost the smell of an abandoned building, but not quite.
He moved to the center of the entry hall and tossed his cloak to the floor. He sat cross-legged on the cloak and opened his belt pouch again. Under his metal cup and remnants of paper-wrapped food was a small bundle wrapped in canvas. With something approaching reverence, he unrolled the bundle and laid out the instruments inside. Though it had cost nearly as much to learn the ritual involved as it did to acquire the key, buying the items themselves had taken about an hour and only a handful of coins.
He lit a pair of candles, one black and one white, and set them beside him. In front of him he placed two small bowls: one bone, one gold. A small flask of wine lay in front of him next to a fist-sized bag of wheat. As the light began to vanish from the hall, he rolled his sleeves up next, unwrapping the wrist sheaths from his arms. Parallel lines of scars ran across both of his tightly-corded forearms. Drawing his matched fighting daggers from the sheaths, he made short, quick slashes along his arms. He gritted his teeth, and set down the blades. He pushed his wrists together and let blood flow down from the wound and into the bone bowl. Glancing back over his head, he saw that the light from outside had vanished altogether. After a minute, the bowl was nearly full and most of the blood was beginning to darken and thicken on his arms. He lifted a fold of the cloak and pinched it between the wounds, to stop the bleeding. After only a minute more, he released the cloak. He didn’t wipe his hands clean; that was part of the ritual.
The wine was for the golden cup. He filled it to the brim and pushed it away from him. Still seated, he opened the bag of grain and scattered it around him. A breeze crept in, blowing the light dusty grain up and around the room. The candles flickered; the white one blew and was gone.
“My blood,” he said to the empty, nearly-dark room. “Wine and wheat, light in the colors of Embarrath, Lord of the Dead and God of Shades. In his name I ask: which of you will be my guide tonight?”
The black candle flickered and vanished.
* * *
He sat, unmoving. There was no reason to try to use his nightsight muscles. He’d tried it the first year. Only when his eyes ached from the effort and he was weak and unable to see anything did they appear. He would bring the offerings, but they determined the pace of the events. There was no sense in rushing; a decade of this had taught him that.
Rain began to spatter on the house. Moisture blew through some of the voided windows, dampening his back and hair. He didn’t move. As things began to shuffle into the room, sweeping up the grain, sipping from the cups, he didn’t move. Eventually he heard them shuffle away, and the room was quiet again. He remained still. He didn’t know how long it was until he felt someone standing behind him, then heard that someone begin to breathe again. He allowed a few breaths before speaking:
“Artur Ravennock, are you to be my guide again?”
“Not I,” came the voice, behind and above him. “I’ve done it once. Someone else will take the role this year.”
“Why are you here then?”
“To ask why you return.”
“The same reason I always return,” Melbourn answered.
“Then look around.”
Melbourn cast his gaze about the room. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and now he saw dozens of figures, pale, flickering, and ethereal, standing and watching him. Some he knew on sight; others weren’t so familiar. None approached.
“Who will be my guide?”
“I will.” The voice was female, and it was expected. She drifted away from the others and knelt in front of him. Though pale and limned in the tiniest flickers of light, he knew her right away.
“You loved me, Melbourn. Tell me that you did,” she leaned forward, gazing into his face.
“Yes, I did love you, Beverley.”
“I knew so.” She leaned in closer. “Why then did you kill me?”
He’d answered this question every year since he’d first come; it was the first thing they wanted to know. He knew the answer, he could glibly recite it if need be, but he paused to give it some weight.
“I killed you for the same reason that I killed everyone here: because I wanted you to be dead.”
“But why?”
“You’re my guide. Guide me, and I assure you, you’ll find out.”
“Come with me.” She started to back away.
“No,” Melbourn said. “Take my hand.” He offered blood-covered fingers to her.
She gazed at him a moment before grasping his hand and standing. A bubble of memories rose to the surface of his mind. Beverley Samavas, known as Beverley the Viper, a thief like he. They’d met the past summer. He tingled as his body remembered the feel of hers under him, the touch of her dark hair between her fingers, the slightly sweet smell of her breath. Her harnessed, slender body in motion, muscles playing under soft skin as she scaled the high walls of House Vannedine. Her voice – slightly raw and smoky, like good whiskey; her laugh – bold and full-bodied, like fine wine; her kiss – sweet and powerful, like aged rum; he felt, tasted, and remembered her in his eyes, mouth, and ears. Six months they’d been together – six months of powerful lovemaking, explosive arguments, and two jobs shared between them. Six months when he’d thought she might be…
Then was the look – the look of delight on her face, that twinkle in her eye, that broad smile that opened into an “O” of horror as he grabbed her, not for a kiss, and threw her from the top of House Vannedine and to the street below. The whiskey voice that cracked as she screamed, and broke when she did; that last look at her slim, subtly muscular form lying on the cobblestones – these things he remembered.
She gasped. He looked into her eyes, but found delight, not pain, not anger. He couldn’t help but smile.
A hint of color had returned to her face. No longer could he see the others through her.
“I can feel you!”
“It’s my blood,” he said.
“I know that… I know that now. I can feel it.” She touched her face. “I can feel me.”
He reached up and brushed his other hand against her cheek. She always had had pale skin; that came from living mostly at nights. With her black hair, light skin, and slender form, he’d always enjoyed how she looked. He smiled again as she rubbed her cheek against his fingers. Her eyes closed for a moment; real lashes closed against each other, and he pulled his hand away.
“Did you do that for me?” she asked.
He was quiet a moment. “No.”
He raised his arms and held out his hands. The shades began to shuffle toward him. This had frightened him the first year, and unsettled him for a few years after that. He now accepted it for what it was: a sacrifice.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get on with it.”
Artur Ravennock was first to grip the bloody hand. Artur was a gambler, possibly a little better than Melbourn himself. He remembered the first shake of Artur’s hand, the slightly sweaty gambler’s grip, the smoky side room of the gambling hall in New Town. The weeks of nightly card-playing, the shared love of fine whiskey and good tobacco, and their mutual affection for a certain zaftig waitress who kept them in both; he smelled the tobacco, tasted the whiskey, felt the exhaustion of fourteen hours’ gameplay, heard Caren’s laugh, and warmed to the thought of making a new friend.
Then there was the night when they both were drinking as much as they could, to get her to come to the table as often as possible – there was little laughter to remember that night. A few gold dragons in stakes were on the table, and they were the only real contenders. He took another shot of whiskey and glanced at Artur just quickly enough to see him palm a card. He smashed the bottle on the table, grabbed his friend’s hand, and outed him as a cheat. As long-drunk as Melbourn was, Artur had leapt at him, razor in hand. He’d defended himself quickly, and hard. He’d left his new friend dead on the floor, Caren screaming. He never returned to that hall in New Town.
Caren’s soft face vanished, but the scream remained, changing in tone. An old hag tied to a stake, burning alive, shrieking as she begged for death. It was the first thing he’d seen as he wandered through a sweaty little shit-hole village on the Wild Coast. The second thing was the eyes of Lord Chongas watching. He wasn’t a real lord, just a jumped-up merchant-turned-tyrant. The smell of burning flesh bubbled back into his mind, as did the look of shock when he’d told Chongas that burning his subjects alive might not be a good idea. Less than a minute after he’d met the crazed lord, Chongas had tried to have him killed.
He remembered the slow reaction of Chongas’ thugs, the dive and roll that carried him past the fire and men-at-arms, and the pure pleasure of ramming a short blade into Chongas’ eye socket. Warm blood flowed down his hands. Though the lord might despise him, greedy Chongas was still among the first to accept the blood tithe.
He pulled his hands away from Artur and Lord Chongas, letting others take their places. Merchants and mercenaries, sailors and cultists, assassins, thieves, soldiers, and priests all grabbed at him, stealing his blood for this one night, all to become slightly more than just ghosts. He remembered rendezvous at night, battles in winter, assassination attempts under the high sun, and murder at midsummer. Many of them cried, croaked, or said his name as they died; others did not. Some knew him by an alias, some nothing of him at all. Nothing in common they shared, save the fact that all had died at his hand. Blades flashed, bowstrings twanged, women screamed, men shrieked, armor clanged, dogs howled, blood flowed, and he collapsed.
Beverley knelt over him, touching his face with cold, solid hands.
“You’re more pale than I,” she said.
“I’m…not…surprised,” he managed to say. “Have I…been out…long?”
“Half an hour, possibly. You opened your arms three times for them – for us.”
He nodded, still lying on his side. His forearms no longer hurt; he had reached that place beyond pain where dying began.
“Why did you come?”
“Something…I have…to do.”
She leaned in closer, looking into his eyes, close enough to brush their noses together. He didn’t smell her breath.
“I know what you want,” she said, backing away. “But you must say it.”
“Forgiveness.”
She shook her head. “For the love I felt for you, I’ll be kind. As gratitude for letting me feel again…” She brushed her cold lips against his. “I wish you no harm. But you took me in your arms, and threw me to the ground. I won’t forgive you.”
“I didn’t…expect you to.”
He sat up, feeling the floor to find his balance. His eyes were completely adjusted now; what were pockets of darkness earlier revealed themselves to be open doors and hallways leading away. Most of the shades had left the room, but a few remained. All were whole, colored in places, pale in others – touching their own faces, the walls, the floor, or each other. He wondered how long they’d remain this way, but he’d never stayed long enough to find out.
Overhead, a barrel of thunder rolled across the sky. Sine waves of raindrops splashed on the glassed and shuttered windows. Through the voided openings, rain flew, catching the inside breeze, turning to mist and wetting everything inside. He rotated his arms to let the wet drizzle onto his wounds. No blood-tracks remained there; the shades had taken every bit they could. The slashes had reddened and risen, new parallel lines that would soon be new scars, like fortifications on a battlefield.
“I’ll not forgive you, either,” Artur Ravennock said.
“I understand, Artur.” Melbourn climbed to his feet and took a deep breath. “But so you know, I’m sorry.”
Artur simply nodded.
“I’m not forgiving you,” said a woman once paid to kill him. He’d taken her head nearly off her shoulders in the ensuing fight. Thankfully, not she or any of the others appeared the way they had after he had killed them, but before they had died.
“I won’t forgive you,” a soldier from Tassen told him. Melbourn nodded. He didn’t expect any of them to.
“If no one forgives you, what are you going to do?” Beverley asked.
“I will continue,” he said, tucking one of his knives into his belt.
“Follow me.” She led him out of the entryway and into another hall; Melbourn had come to think of it as a trophy hall. Rusted, beaten armor and weapons displayed themselves to each other. Dust rose again as they passed through, but there were no spider webs. There were no spiders. At the end of the trophy hall, she led him up a flight of stairs to the second floor. A priest at the top said he wouldn’t forgive Melbourn for drowning him in his own font.
“To be fair,” Melbourn said, “you were sacrificing an entire family at the time.”
“As my God commanded!”
“Yes, yes. I understand. I was stopping you as my goddess commanded.”
The priest stepped away, grasping the rotted rail, and let them pass. As he left, Melbourn turned. The priest was running his fingers along the moldering wood grain.
They found Jacob in the smallest child’s bedroom, surrounded by dust, mold, mildew, and dozens of wooden toys that had faded and rotted in the sun that came though the room’s one glass window. Still intact and closed, the window rattled and shook from the rain washing across it. Unlike the others, this shade remained pale, limned in flickering light.
“Jacob,” Melbourn said.
“I will never forgive you,” the shade responded.
“If there is one of you here that I don’t care ever does forgive me, it is you.”
“The things you said and did to me as you killed me—”
“Were entirely deserved. You’re dead now, and I’m glad that I’m the one who did it.”
The shade seemed to fade away a bit more.
“Why do you come?” Jacob asked.
“I’m not coming for you,” Melbourn answered.
He faded a bit more.
“Jacob,” Melbourn said, holding out his hand. “Take it.”
“What?”
Melbourn drew the knife from his belt and slashed his left arm.
“Why do this?” Jacob asked, wanting to approach.
“You’re dead. You can’t harm me if I don’t want it. I bear you no ill will anymore.” He continued to hold out the hand. The shade was still a moment then grabbed him.
The smell of Harbordown was the first thing he remembered, more than twenty years ago, after he first arrived. It was the smell of sweat and salt and city. That autumn it was also the smell of tshiram – a pungent poison that had killed thirty-eight people. One of the last was a sweet-natured trollop of his acquaintance. The anger when he’d found her body, the smell of the tshiram in her room, the snarling satisfaction when he realized he knew who made it – these things he remembered. The shocked look on Jacob the Poisoner’s face as he looked up at him, coming through the ceiling; this was a good memory. The echoes of Jacob’s screams as he killed him, slowly, were not so good. Neither was the fact that he remembered again realizing that the poisoner’s death simply couldn’t balance the scales.
“Thank you,” Jacob said, through solid lips. “But I still don’t forgive you.”
“I understand.”
He turned, staggered once, and grabbed the worm-eaten doorjamb to hold himself up.
“You’re dying,” Beverley said, as he pushed away from the door and back towards the stairs. “You have only so much blood to give.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you stop?”
“I’m…not done.”
“Then stay with me,” she said, as she led him back down to the ground floor. His knees buckled twice, but he held onto the soft, rotted rail and kept his balance each time. They passed through the parlor, the study, and another hall, and into the kitchen. Just inside, Lord Chongas stood before a door.
“Come into the cellar, Melbourn,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“It’s just a short trip downstairs, and it will all be over,” the dead tyrant said. “No more begging for forgiveness, no more draining yourself, no more pain. Come with me.”
“No.”
“I’ll ask again next time.”
“I’ll refuse next time.”
“You might not make it that far, not if you continue on your path of murder.”
“I know, but I won’t go into the cellar.”
“Yet. As you wish.” The lord stepped aside. Melbourn and Beverley went into the kitchen. Several pale, flickering shades awaited him, huddled together near the cold, broken hearth.
“It’s you I’ve come for,” he told them. Cold men stood, in archaic armor and uniforms, watching him. Some carried weapons; some did not. Old men stood next to young men, and all had the look of guards, or soldiers.
“I don’t understand,” Beverley said. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know,” Melbourn answered, seeking the eyes of their self-appointed leader.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “It’s my memory. As a sidhe, we start to lose our memory as we age. I’m over two hundred years old. There are many things I’ve forgotten.” He glanced up at the shades in armor. “That includes those I’ve killed.”
“You’re trying to get forgiveness from victims you don’t remember?”
“Aye,” he said. “They are the ones that matter. I can either justify or not justify my actions to myself if I remember them. If I cannot recall what they are, then I can’t assume anything.” He paused, trying to think back to his earliest viable memory. “I believe that death has a place in the world, and I have the right to use it. I believe that most of the decisions I have made to kill another has made the world a better place. I also believe I once believed in wanton cruelty.” He closed his eyes to think.
“Nestor? Is one of you Nestor?”
“Nextor.” One of the older shades stepped forward.
“I thought you didn’t remember him,” Beverley said.
“I don’t. I learn their names each year, to try to recall them when I come back.”
“Does that work?”
“Not usually, no.”
“What did I do to you, Nextor?”
“I drove a jail cart in Saemos. When you were caught, we failed to find an iron dagger on you. You could have used it to pry the door off and escape. Instead, you plunged it up through the back of the seat and into me. You killed me to create a distraction, so the other driver would have to stop.”
“I’m sorry,” Melbourn said.
“I know.”
“Erin… Erictha… Eri—”
“My name is Erithanus,” a younger one answered. “I was a guard in the employ of Lady Shelessa of Yaer. You came to rob her. When I caught you, you fought and beat me. But instead of just leaving me that way, you cut my throat. I died. I didn’t need to.”
“No, you didn’t,” Melbourn said. “And I’m sorry – I’m so sorry. I know this won’t help at all, but I no longer do that. I won’t wantonly kill a guardsman just doing his job. I can’t anymore. I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“You did it to me, too,” said another. “My name is Loridanus.” He spoke, and Melbourn listened. He listened as all of them gave their stories. When he was finished, he looked at the room full of shades, all pale and flickering. He drew the dagger from his belt and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry.” He slashed his right arm to let the blood flow. Dizziness slammed into him and the blade clanged on the dusty stone floor. Reality blurred at the corners and as the shades reached for him, he collapsed again.
* * *
“There are…no memories…”
“What?” Beverley asked him, touching his face again.
“When those…men…touch me…I can’t remember…anything. They’re just…gone.” Lying on his side, he lifted his arm to look at the damage done to it. Some blood remained, dried and sticky. He lowered his arm and twisted himself to look around. Behind him, Nextor stood – still pale, still limned in flickering light.
“Why didn’t you…?”
“Eleven years,” the aged jail-wagon driver said. “Eleven years you’ve come here and found us. Each time you’ve listened, apologized, begged forgiveness. I’m ready to give you that.”
Melbourn blinked and tried to sit straight. Beverley helped push him up.
“Yes, you killed me – wrongly so. But your pain is clear to me, and it’s clear that you resent what you’ve done. You’ve chosen to take on a burden you don’t have to carry. You seek forgiveness, and I forgive you.”
He was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”
“Go now. I won’t see you again next year.”
“I’m afraid I won’t remember you.”
The old man smiled. “Though you don’t remember our names, it’s clear that you remember us.” He nodded toward Beverley. “Isn’t it?”
Beverley turned to face Melbourn. “This is why you killed me – because of the guard?”
“The guards,” Melbourn answered. “Besides the one I found you murdering, I found two other bodies that night.” He stopped to get his breath. “There was another dead one on our first job, but I had hoped it wasn’t you. Three men dead to steal a set of paintings, and another one f a pair of vases.” He caught his breath again. “I simply couldn’t go on with you, knowing you’d do it again, and again, and again.”
“But I loved you!”
“And I loved you – at least I did until I realized you’d killed all those men simply to make it easier to get away with an armload of pretties.”
“How many have you killed? How many of us are here?”
“I’ve never counted; I don’t want to know. The ones I kill now deserve to die.”
“I didn’t deserve that!”
“I think you did. Would you have come here, year after year, to beg forgiveness?”
“Wh—no.”
“I do.”
“I will never forgive you!”
“I know that,” Melbourn said. He staggered to his feet and left the kitchen. He passed Lord Chongas, a bounty hunter, and a pair of cultists on his way back to the entry hall. He gathered up the bowls and candles, the flask, and his cloak. He looked up. Jacob watched from a corner. Artur stood near the front door. Rain had begun to spatter through him again. Lightning flashed through glassed-in windows; trapezoids of light appeared on the floor. He shoved everything into his pouch and threw the cloak over his shoulders.
“Melbourn.”
He turned to face Beverley again.
“I… I…” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you in that position. I’m sorry I killed those guards. I’m sorry we’re not together anymore.”
“I am, too, Beverley.” He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers. As he touched her, she began to fade and her touch fell away. “And I forgive you.”
He turned and strode to the door.
“Thank you, Nextor,” he said, turning to face them. “I’ll see the rest of you next year.” He pulled open the door and stepped into the lashing rain. As he pulled it closed behind him, they began to fade.
The door slammed and the bolt locked itself. He bundled himself up against the storm and started walking back home.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
"A Chilling Wind" (edit)
This is the first (and probably final) edit of "A Chilling Wind." I got some outstanding feedback from my writer's group - the North County Writers of Speculative Fiction - and wanted to put this up with some of their suggested changes.
A Chilling Wind
Fifty-four stories over the city, a blond man stepped out onto a small patio. Shirtless, he buttoned his jeans closed as he stepped to the railing. A chilling breeze tossed the curls around his ears and neck and puckered the sweaty skin of his chest. He started to rest against the wrought-iron railing, but his left hand slipped. He wiped it on his leg and grabbed the rail again. Leaning over as far as he could, he gazed down into the steel and concrete canyons below him. In the movies, one could always hear sirens and screams and watchdogs barking. In reality, from this height the air was mostly silent; the wind across his ears was the dominant sound.
He’d left the woman in the bedroom, lying spent on damp sheets. To be honest, which he preferred to be, he couldn’t remember her name, but he thought it started with an M – a Michelle, or Melissa, or Melinda perhaps. Her two sons were sleeping in their bedroom. He’d done his best to avoid waking them as he left their mother’s bedroom and came outside. There was no reason to scare these children. It would be pointless and cruel.
Fear was contagious, and there was no one for them to share their fear with. There’d be no comfort from their mother, no rescue from men in uniforms. Like most apartments in buildings this tall, the rooms were nearly soundproof, and even if he left the door to the patio open, any noise they made would simply be lost in the silence outside.
He turned and went back into the living room. Leaving the lights off, he made his way past darkened modern furniture and went into the kitchen. He found and flipped a switch. Overhead lights flickered a moment and came on. Glancing around, he found what he was looking for a few feet away. He began to reach for a knife block and stopped. He raised both his hands. The palm of his right hand was somewhat clear of blood, from when he wiped it on his jeans. His left hand was stained, and the fluid was beginning to dry. For a few seconds, he wiped both his hands on his pants. He would wash them, but it might make the knife slip, and he wanted this over with as quickly as possible.
It was a distasteful thing, killing children.
He yanked the largest knife from the block and hurried from the room. As he passed their mother’s bedroom, he pushed the door open again. “M” lay on her back on red sheets, her eyes open, her face disfigured from the beating he had given her before using a small razor to rip her throat open. He gave his handiwork only a moment’s more thought, then moved on to the boys’ room.
He was quick. In all the years he’d been doing this, he’d never enjoyed killing the children. He’d never call it a necessary evil, but it was that. Neither boy woke as he worked. He breathed a sigh of relief as he finished. It was much easier if the children never woke, never cried, or screamed or begged.
He tossed the knife to the floor and left it. Fingerprints weren’t something that worried him; no one had ever printed him. He left the bedroom and went back to the patio, flipping blood onto the glass door as he passed it. Again he grabbed the rail and let the wind caress him.
“Why do you persist in doing this?”
The blond man didn’t startle or jump at the voice from the living room. He didn’t even turn to see who it was or bother to answer.
“Not even we do this,” a dark man in the darkened room stated.
“Yes,” the blond man answered. “Yes, you do.”
“No,” the man said from inside. “My people have no hand in that. You forget what we do.”
The blond man turned around and leaned against the railing, letting the air cool his sweaty back. From here, he couldn’t quite see his opponent. A moment later, he saw a dull red glow at around head height.
“Are you smoking?” The blond man asked.
“I usually do. It’s how I handle fear.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“You. Your people. Your side.”
He laughed. “You people always get things wrong. We offer hope. We offer security. We offer—”
“Safety? A world free of psycho killers, someone that will murder a single mother and her two boys – is that what your side offers?”
“Yes,” the blond man said.
“And you think we get it backwards. You traffic in terror, fear. It’s your side that has spent all these years trying to frighten the people – not us.”
The blond man pushed away from the railing and walked back into the apartment. His opponent sat on one of the modern chairs, a cigarette in his hand.
“It’s your side we’re keeping them from,” the blond man said. He’d had this conversation before, so many times. He had answered, using the same points he always did.
“Why?” the man asked him. “We’re not the party of the first choice. We’re the party of failed expectations. We’re those who aren’t perfect. Of course people will come to us. You ask for too much. You always have. You’ve seen that striving for a narrow definition of perfection doesn’t work, so you’re trying to frighten them to come to you.”
“One should always strive for perfection,” the blond man said, as he turned and walked out onto the porch again.
“One can strive and seek, but one should be allowed to fall short.”
“No,” the blond man said, as he rested against the rail. “But they do, time and again they do.”
“So instead of seeking perfection, the people seek sanctuary. That’s been your go-to move for a very long time. Offer them hope, offer them security, then offer them…”
“Salvation,” the blond man said.
“Keep doing that,” the dark man said, and stood. “Terrorize the people, frighten them. Give them enemies of the world, enemies of the country, enemies of God, enemies on the own block. Give them a world to be frightened of, and then…” He waved his hand toward the bedroom. “Show them that some things really are as terrible as they’ve been told.”
The dark man walked to the doorway and grinned at the blond man. “And you wonder why we’re going to win. We don’t have to do a thing.”
“You can’t,” the blond man said, glancing over his shoulder at his opponent. “We have all the power.”
“At this point,” the dark man said, “all you have is the power to frighten. What’s worse – the horrifying acts of a madman, or the terrifying hand of God?”
The blond man leapt up onto the rail. He wavered just a moment, then caught his balance. He raised his head and looked up into the sky. His wings unfurled, grasping at the breeze. He turned once more and looked at the dark man, waiting in the doorway for an answer. He gave him the best one he had:
“Does it matter?”
His feet left the railing and the chilling wind played across his face and body as he rose into the sky.
A Chilling Wind
Fifty-four stories over the city, a blond man stepped out onto a small patio. Shirtless, he buttoned his jeans closed as he stepped to the railing. A chilling breeze tossed the curls around his ears and neck and puckered the sweaty skin of his chest. He started to rest against the wrought-iron railing, but his left hand slipped. He wiped it on his leg and grabbed the rail again. Leaning over as far as he could, he gazed down into the steel and concrete canyons below him. In the movies, one could always hear sirens and screams and watchdogs barking. In reality, from this height the air was mostly silent; the wind across his ears was the dominant sound.
He’d left the woman in the bedroom, lying spent on damp sheets. To be honest, which he preferred to be, he couldn’t remember her name, but he thought it started with an M – a Michelle, or Melissa, or Melinda perhaps. Her two sons were sleeping in their bedroom. He’d done his best to avoid waking them as he left their mother’s bedroom and came outside. There was no reason to scare these children. It would be pointless and cruel.
Fear was contagious, and there was no one for them to share their fear with. There’d be no comfort from their mother, no rescue from men in uniforms. Like most apartments in buildings this tall, the rooms were nearly soundproof, and even if he left the door to the patio open, any noise they made would simply be lost in the silence outside.
He turned and went back into the living room. Leaving the lights off, he made his way past darkened modern furniture and went into the kitchen. He found and flipped a switch. Overhead lights flickered a moment and came on. Glancing around, he found what he was looking for a few feet away. He began to reach for a knife block and stopped. He raised both his hands. The palm of his right hand was somewhat clear of blood, from when he wiped it on his jeans. His left hand was stained, and the fluid was beginning to dry. For a few seconds, he wiped both his hands on his pants. He would wash them, but it might make the knife slip, and he wanted this over with as quickly as possible.
It was a distasteful thing, killing children.
He yanked the largest knife from the block and hurried from the room. As he passed their mother’s bedroom, he pushed the door open again. “M” lay on her back on red sheets, her eyes open, her face disfigured from the beating he had given her before using a small razor to rip her throat open. He gave his handiwork only a moment’s more thought, then moved on to the boys’ room.
He was quick. In all the years he’d been doing this, he’d never enjoyed killing the children. He’d never call it a necessary evil, but it was that. Neither boy woke as he worked. He breathed a sigh of relief as he finished. It was much easier if the children never woke, never cried, or screamed or begged.
He tossed the knife to the floor and left it. Fingerprints weren’t something that worried him; no one had ever printed him. He left the bedroom and went back to the patio, flipping blood onto the glass door as he passed it. Again he grabbed the rail and let the wind caress him.
“Why do you persist in doing this?”
The blond man didn’t startle or jump at the voice from the living room. He didn’t even turn to see who it was or bother to answer.
“Not even we do this,” a dark man in the darkened room stated.
“Yes,” the blond man answered. “Yes, you do.”
“No,” the man said from inside. “My people have no hand in that. You forget what we do.”
The blond man turned around and leaned against the railing, letting the air cool his sweaty back. From here, he couldn’t quite see his opponent. A moment later, he saw a dull red glow at around head height.
“Are you smoking?” The blond man asked.
“I usually do. It’s how I handle fear.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“You. Your people. Your side.”
He laughed. “You people always get things wrong. We offer hope. We offer security. We offer—”
“Safety? A world free of psycho killers, someone that will murder a single mother and her two boys – is that what your side offers?”
“Yes,” the blond man said.
“And you think we get it backwards. You traffic in terror, fear. It’s your side that has spent all these years trying to frighten the people – not us.”
The blond man pushed away from the railing and walked back into the apartment. His opponent sat on one of the modern chairs, a cigarette in his hand.
“It’s your side we’re keeping them from,” the blond man said. He’d had this conversation before, so many times. He had answered, using the same points he always did.
“Why?” the man asked him. “We’re not the party of the first choice. We’re the party of failed expectations. We’re those who aren’t perfect. Of course people will come to us. You ask for too much. You always have. You’ve seen that striving for a narrow definition of perfection doesn’t work, so you’re trying to frighten them to come to you.”
“One should always strive for perfection,” the blond man said, as he turned and walked out onto the porch again.
“One can strive and seek, but one should be allowed to fall short.”
“No,” the blond man said, as he rested against the rail. “But they do, time and again they do.”
“So instead of seeking perfection, the people seek sanctuary. That’s been your go-to move for a very long time. Offer them hope, offer them security, then offer them…”
“Salvation,” the blond man said.
“Keep doing that,” the dark man said, and stood. “Terrorize the people, frighten them. Give them enemies of the world, enemies of the country, enemies of God, enemies on the own block. Give them a world to be frightened of, and then…” He waved his hand toward the bedroom. “Show them that some things really are as terrible as they’ve been told.”
The dark man walked to the doorway and grinned at the blond man. “And you wonder why we’re going to win. We don’t have to do a thing.”
“You can’t,” the blond man said, glancing over his shoulder at his opponent. “We have all the power.”
“At this point,” the dark man said, “all you have is the power to frighten. What’s worse – the horrifying acts of a madman, or the terrifying hand of God?”
The blond man leapt up onto the rail. He wavered just a moment, then caught his balance. He raised his head and looked up into the sky. His wings unfurled, grasping at the breeze. He turned once more and looked at the dark man, waiting in the doorway for an answer. He gave him the best one he had:
“Does it matter?”
His feet left the railing and the chilling wind played across his face and body as he rose into the sky.
Friday, July 31, 2009
A Chilling Wind
Fair warning: this has a couple of 'ick' moments, but I've done my best to keep it pretty mellow. I expect I'll offend some of you.
More Fair Warning: This is no longer the current version of the story. It was an early (first) draft. The current version is here: "A Chilling Wind" (edit).
-------------------------------------------
A Chilling Wind
Fifty-four stories over the city, a blond man stepped out onto a small patio. Shirtless, he buttoned his jeans closed as he stepped to the railing. A constant chilling breeze tossed the curls around his ears and neck and puckered the sweaty skin of his chest. He started to rest his hands on the rail, but his left hand slipped. He wiped that hand on his leg and grabbed it again. Leaning over as far as he could, he gazed down into the steel and concrete canyons below him. In the movies, one could always hear sirens and screams and watchdogs barking. In reality, from this height the air was mostly silent; the wind across his ears was the dominant sound.
He’d left the woman in the bedroom, lying spent on damp sheets. To be honest, which he preferred to be, he couldn’t remember her name, but he thought it started with an M – a Michelle, or Melissa, or Melinda perhaps. She was no barroom victory, no nightclub conquest. They’d met at a gallery opening after she had purchased one of his pieces. It had given him no pleasure – little did anymore – but he smiled at her and asked her to dinner. That was only a week ago.
Her two sons were sleeping in their bedroom. He’d done his best to avoid waking them as he left their mother’s bedroom and came outside. There was no reason to scare these children. It would be pointless and cruel.
Fear was contagious, and there was no one for them to share their fear with. There’d be no comfort from their mother, no rescue from men in uniforms. The rooms were nearly soundproof, and even if he left the door to the patio open, any noise they made would simply be lost in the silence outside.
The blond man turned and went back into the living room. Leaving the lights off, he made his way past darkened modern furniture and went into the kitchen. He found and flipped a switch. Overhead lights flickered a moment and came on. Glancing around, he found what he was looking for a few feet away. He reached for a knife block and stopped. He raised both his hands. The palm of his right hand was somewhat clear of blood, from when he wiped it on his jeans. His left hand was stained, and the fluid was beginning to dry. For a few seconds, he wiped both his hands on his pants. He would wash them, but it might make the knife slip, and he wanted this over with as quickly as possible.
It was a distasteful thing, killing children.
He yanked the largest knife from the block and hurried from the room. As he passed their mother’s bedroom, he pushed the door open again. “M” lay on her back on red sheets, her eyes open, her face disfigured from the beating he had given her before using a small razor to rip her throat open. He gave his handiwork only a moment’s more thought, then moved on to the boys’ room.
He was quick. In all the years he’d been doing this, he’d never enjoyed killing the children. He’d never call it a necessary evil, but it was that. Neither boy woke as he worked. He breathed a sigh of relief as he finished. It was much easier if the children never woke, never cried, or screamed or begged.
He tossed the knife to the floor and left it. Fingerprints weren’t something that worried him; no one had ever printed him. He left the bedroom and went back to the patio, flipping blood onto the glass door as he passed it. Again he grabbed the rail and let the wind caress him.
“Why do you persist in doing this?”
The blond man didn’t startle or jump at the voice from the living room. He didn’t even turn to see who it was or bother to answer.
“Not even we do this.”
“Yes,” the blond man answered. “Yes, you do.”
“No,” the man said from inside the darkened room. “My people have no hand in that. You forget what we do.”
The blond man turned around and leaned against the railing, letting the air cool his sweaty back. From here, he couldn’t quite see his opponent inside. A moment later, he saw a dull red glow at around head height.
“Are you smoking?” The blond man asked.
“I usually do. It’s how I handle fear.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“You. Your people. Your side.”
The blond man laughed. “You people always get things wrong. We offer hope. We offer security. We offer—”
“Safety? A world free of psycho killers, someone that will murder a single mother and her two boys – is that what your side offers?”
“Yes,” the blond man said.
“And you think we get it backwards. You traffic in terror, fear. It’s your side that has spent all these years trying to frighten the people – not us.”
The blond man pushed away from the railing and walked back into the apartment. His opponent sat on one of the modern chairs, a cigarette in his hand.
“It’s your side we’re keeping them from,” the blond man said. He’d had this conversation before, so many times. He had answered, using the same points he always did.
“Why?” the man asked him. “We’re not the party of the first choice. We’re the party of failed expectations. We’re those who aren’t perfect. Of course people will come to us. You ask for too much. You always have. You’ve seen that striving for a narrow definition of perfection doesn’t work, so you’re trying to frighten them to come to you.”
“One should always strive for perfection,” the blond man said, as he turned and walked out onto the porch again.
“One can strive and seek, but one should be allowed to fall short.”
“No,” the blond man said, as he rested against the rail. The wind tossed his hair again. “But they do, time and again they do.”
“So instead of seeking perfection, the people seek sanctuary. That’s been your go-to move for a very long time. Offer them hope, offer them security, then offer them…”
“Salvation,” the blond man said.
“Keep doing that,” the dark man said, and stood. “Terrorize the people, frighten them. Give them enemies of the world, enemies of the country, enemies of God, enemies on the own block. Give them a world to be frightened of, and then…” He waved his hand toward the bedroom. “Show them that some things really are as terrible as they’ve been told.”
The dark man walked to the doorway and grinned at the blond man. “And you wonder why we’re going to win. We don’t have to do a thing.”
“You can’t,” the blond man said, glancing over his shoulder at his opponent. “We have all the power.”
“At this point,” the dark man said, “all you have is the power to frighten. What’s worse – the horrifying acts of a madman, or the terrifying hand of God?”
The blond man leapt up onto the rail. He wavered just a moment, then caught his balance. He raised his head and looked up into the sky. His wings unfurled, grasping at the breeze. He turned once more and looked at the dark man, waiting in the doorway for an answer. He gave him the best one he had:
“Does it matter?”
His feet left the railing and the chilling wind played across his face and body as he rose into the sky.
---------------------------------------------
Stop by the Writer's Washroom.
More Fair Warning: This is no longer the current version of the story. It was an early (first) draft. The current version is here: "A Chilling Wind" (edit).
-------------------------------------------
A Chilling Wind
Fifty-four stories over the city, a blond man stepped out onto a small patio. Shirtless, he buttoned his jeans closed as he stepped to the railing. A constant chilling breeze tossed the curls around his ears and neck and puckered the sweaty skin of his chest. He started to rest his hands on the rail, but his left hand slipped. He wiped that hand on his leg and grabbed it again. Leaning over as far as he could, he gazed down into the steel and concrete canyons below him. In the movies, one could always hear sirens and screams and watchdogs barking. In reality, from this height the air was mostly silent; the wind across his ears was the dominant sound.
He’d left the woman in the bedroom, lying spent on damp sheets. To be honest, which he preferred to be, he couldn’t remember her name, but he thought it started with an M – a Michelle, or Melissa, or Melinda perhaps. She was no barroom victory, no nightclub conquest. They’d met at a gallery opening after she had purchased one of his pieces. It had given him no pleasure – little did anymore – but he smiled at her and asked her to dinner. That was only a week ago.
Her two sons were sleeping in their bedroom. He’d done his best to avoid waking them as he left their mother’s bedroom and came outside. There was no reason to scare these children. It would be pointless and cruel.
Fear was contagious, and there was no one for them to share their fear with. There’d be no comfort from their mother, no rescue from men in uniforms. The rooms were nearly soundproof, and even if he left the door to the patio open, any noise they made would simply be lost in the silence outside.
The blond man turned and went back into the living room. Leaving the lights off, he made his way past darkened modern furniture and went into the kitchen. He found and flipped a switch. Overhead lights flickered a moment and came on. Glancing around, he found what he was looking for a few feet away. He reached for a knife block and stopped. He raised both his hands. The palm of his right hand was somewhat clear of blood, from when he wiped it on his jeans. His left hand was stained, and the fluid was beginning to dry. For a few seconds, he wiped both his hands on his pants. He would wash them, but it might make the knife slip, and he wanted this over with as quickly as possible.
It was a distasteful thing, killing children.
He yanked the largest knife from the block and hurried from the room. As he passed their mother’s bedroom, he pushed the door open again. “M” lay on her back on red sheets, her eyes open, her face disfigured from the beating he had given her before using a small razor to rip her throat open. He gave his handiwork only a moment’s more thought, then moved on to the boys’ room.
He was quick. In all the years he’d been doing this, he’d never enjoyed killing the children. He’d never call it a necessary evil, but it was that. Neither boy woke as he worked. He breathed a sigh of relief as he finished. It was much easier if the children never woke, never cried, or screamed or begged.
He tossed the knife to the floor and left it. Fingerprints weren’t something that worried him; no one had ever printed him. He left the bedroom and went back to the patio, flipping blood onto the glass door as he passed it. Again he grabbed the rail and let the wind caress him.
“Why do you persist in doing this?”
The blond man didn’t startle or jump at the voice from the living room. He didn’t even turn to see who it was or bother to answer.
“Not even we do this.”
“Yes,” the blond man answered. “Yes, you do.”
“No,” the man said from inside the darkened room. “My people have no hand in that. You forget what we do.”
The blond man turned around and leaned against the railing, letting the air cool his sweaty back. From here, he couldn’t quite see his opponent inside. A moment later, he saw a dull red glow at around head height.
“Are you smoking?” The blond man asked.
“I usually do. It’s how I handle fear.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“You. Your people. Your side.”
The blond man laughed. “You people always get things wrong. We offer hope. We offer security. We offer—”
“Safety? A world free of psycho killers, someone that will murder a single mother and her two boys – is that what your side offers?”
“Yes,” the blond man said.
“And you think we get it backwards. You traffic in terror, fear. It’s your side that has spent all these years trying to frighten the people – not us.”
The blond man pushed away from the railing and walked back into the apartment. His opponent sat on one of the modern chairs, a cigarette in his hand.
“It’s your side we’re keeping them from,” the blond man said. He’d had this conversation before, so many times. He had answered, using the same points he always did.
“Why?” the man asked him. “We’re not the party of the first choice. We’re the party of failed expectations. We’re those who aren’t perfect. Of course people will come to us. You ask for too much. You always have. You’ve seen that striving for a narrow definition of perfection doesn’t work, so you’re trying to frighten them to come to you.”
“One should always strive for perfection,” the blond man said, as he turned and walked out onto the porch again.
“One can strive and seek, but one should be allowed to fall short.”
“No,” the blond man said, as he rested against the rail. The wind tossed his hair again. “But they do, time and again they do.”
“So instead of seeking perfection, the people seek sanctuary. That’s been your go-to move for a very long time. Offer them hope, offer them security, then offer them…”
“Salvation,” the blond man said.
“Keep doing that,” the dark man said, and stood. “Terrorize the people, frighten them. Give them enemies of the world, enemies of the country, enemies of God, enemies on the own block. Give them a world to be frightened of, and then…” He waved his hand toward the bedroom. “Show them that some things really are as terrible as they’ve been told.”
The dark man walked to the doorway and grinned at the blond man. “And you wonder why we’re going to win. We don’t have to do a thing.”
“You can’t,” the blond man said, glancing over his shoulder at his opponent. “We have all the power.”
“At this point,” the dark man said, “all you have is the power to frighten. What’s worse – the horrifying acts of a madman, or the terrifying hand of God?”
The blond man leapt up onto the rail. He wavered just a moment, then caught his balance. He raised his head and looked up into the sky. His wings unfurled, grasping at the breeze. He turned once more and looked at the dark man, waiting in the doorway for an answer. He gave him the best one he had:
“Does it matter?”
His feet left the railing and the chilling wind played across his face and body as he rose into the sky.
---------------------------------------------
Stop by the Writer's Washroom.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Heroes... Chapter Seven - "Harbordown by Night"
Howdy! This is the newest chapter of "Heroes..." and features almost everyone you've met so far, and introduces two more - you'll know them when you see them.
Please remember, I am actively seeking feedback on this. Please let me know what you think. My plan is this: if it sees publication, those folks who have given me regular feedback - or plenty of it - will find their names listed in the dedication. I am not kidding about this. It's very important to me.
This is a long chapter - nearly 4000 words. I thank you for reading!
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Chapter Seven
Harbordown By Night
“Good evening, Dunbar.”
“Mr. Jerrold.”
“You’ve come for the bounty, I assume.”
“I have,” Dunbar said.
“Just a moment; it’s in the back. Watch the front, will you?” Titus Jerrold, Harbordown’s exchequer, left him alone in the front office. Dunbar drifted to the only wall that interested him. A dozen hand-copied posters hung there, the gallery of felons whom the city most wished to have in custody. A dozen hard faces drawn in ink glared down as Dunbar perused their crimes. Two-Dagger Hamish’s poster was gone, along with his list of crimes. The face of a church-thief was nailed in its place. Dunbar memorized the face, name, and list of crimes. Before Mr. Jerrold returned, he was waiting at the exchequer’s desk.
“I’ll need you to sign,” Mr. Jerrold said.
“Of course.” Dunbar signed his name in florid script on the receipt offered him and pushed it back across the desk.
“Ten silver sails,” Jerrold told him, placing a fist-sized sack in his hand. “I’ve broken it into shields and pennies, as you prefer.” As usual, Dunbar weighed it in his hand and slipped it inside his shirt.
“Is there still no word on Jaan Craymore or Den Tuller?” Dunbar pointed to the oldest posters.
“No,” the exchequer told him, folding the receipt neatly. “We’ve heard nothing from Tuller; he’s simply vanished. We believe Craymore took ship and left months ago. He has family in Northport, we’re told.”
“Another one gone to sea.”
“It’s the simplest way to avoid capture.”
“It’s cowardly,” Dunbar stated.
“Yes,” Mr. Jerrold said, “but not too many wish to remain here and be nabbed by the Watch or be caught up by the city’s finest bounty hunter.”
“I’m not yet the finest. Burrell the Bold still holds that honor.”
“He has retired, Dunbar.”
“Until I – or someone else – surpasses his number of retrievals, he’s the best.”
“Have it your way. Will you be attending the hanging?”
“The trial hasn’t been held yet.”
“What’s your point?”
The woman dressed as he was looked up and nodded. She pulled on her boots and stood up, flipping hair out of her eyes.
“I’m ready.” She spoke a language not often heard in Harbordown.
“Speak Talberan,” the man said. “Ye know I can’t understand ye.”
“Ready,” she said.
“Good. I’ve got our place picked out. It’ll do.” He turned and saw her blades lying on the bed, near where they had just been.
“Don’t faerget yer swaerds.”
“Knives,” she said in perfect Talberan, sliding the blades into their sheaths.
“Knives then,” Jaan Craymore said. “Let’s get moving. That lamplighter’s not going to kill himself.”
With his eyes still closed, he reached out toward a small table holding a tray, a glass, and a bottle. He fumbled a moment, found the glass, and slid it away. He wrapped his hand around the neck of the bottle and drank deeply. He sighed again and set the bottle back on the tray. Fine, he thought, two things. There were two things he missed when he was at sea.
He inhaled the aroma of the bath oils, the scents of jasmine and lavender. With the scalding water seeping into his muscles, he relaxed further. Content, he slipped into sleep. When he jerked awake, a sharp blade rested against his throat. He looked into the eyes of the woman holding it.
“Hello, Raeline.”
“Good evening, Mr. McMarsen,” she said.
Malcolm pulled away from the razor and turned to look at her. She was young, with blond hair and bright green eyes. He knew she’d never be called beautiful, but he suspected she’d often been called pretty. She was nude but for the comb in her hair and the razor in her hand.
Three things – three things he missed about land when he was at sea.
“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Malcolm?”
“As many times as I’ve had to tell you that we run a respectable place, Mr. McMarsen,” she said. “Now are you going to let me shave you?”
Malcolm made himself comfortable as Raeline lathered his face and used the bright blade to scrape it smooth. He sat still until she finished. When she grabbed soap and sponge and started washing his back and shoulders, he sighed in her direction.
“That’s my favorite part,” he said.
“Mmm?”
“Whenever you touch me…that’s my favorite part.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“No, no. You can encourage me all you want,” Malcolm said.
She laughed until a rap at the door spoiled the moment.
“Enter!” Malcolm roared.
A short, balding man entered the room. He was dressed conservatively, yet squarely within fashion.
“Mr. Trowbridge. It’s good to know your bathhouse’s service hasn’t suffered while I was at sea.”
The proprietor bowed. “Thank you, Mr. McMarsen. The man from Lamaster’s has arrived with some samples.”
“Excellent. Send him in, please.”
Trowbridge bowed again and left, shutting the door behind him.
“Want to help me pick out some new clothes, Raeline?”
“Don’t I always, Malcolm?”
“Yes, you do.” He paused. “Did you call me Malcolm?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do it again.”
“Not now. Maybe later tonight I will.”
Malcolm raised an eyebrow and smiled.
Danerel Snowmantle had been one of the city’s most successful thieves. He’d never been caught, never even been seriously considered a criminal. He retired at age thirty and went into business as a fence. Now he bought items from other thieves, rarely asking questions, but often taking notes. Melbourn knew that he remained retired, but only from thieving. He still dabbled occasionally in piracy, kidnapping, and smuggling. The man had rooms all over Harbordown and on Castigan Island. He had a home in Port Wehry that Melbourn knew of and owned a portion of Tattenrall Station, a cattle ranch on the north end of the big island. Melbourn was certain that Danerel had more even more homes, more businesses, and more secrets. Only a terrible fence would let anyone know all the dirt – even if they claimed to be friends.
Melbourn unfolded his arms and stepped away from the door – business at the desk was done. He nodded to the customer as she passed, and waited for her to leave. As the door closed, he crossed to the desk and dropped the scroll case on it.
“You’re late,” Danerel said.
“I’ve been busy – and so were you.”
“Bah. Selling Goodwife Horrocks a new set of keys isn’t busy. Would you like her house number and a spare key?”
“No. You’d probably send me to the home of a watch commander.”
“For anyone who’d steal from a goodwife? You’re right. I’d also send you there for making me work past dusk. There’s a lot of bad folk out there. What do you have?”
“This.” Melbourn uncapped the case and let the contents slide free.
“Artwork?”
“If this deiscape isn’t a Pevello, I’m a dwarf.”
Melbourn let Danerel pull the multi-colored canvas toward him. The fence removed the protective cloth and spread it out. He glanced over the painting and began to scan its borders. He turned the painting ninety degrees, then another ninety degrees.
Melbourn watched Danerel’s face as the fence looked over the painting. Danerel wasn’t a handsome man, not by any definition of the word. His skin was pale and pasty; his hair three different shades of orange. None of the sharp features appeared to be exactly where they were supposed to be. He often smiled broadly. When he wished it, it was a pleasant smile, but too often his smile shifted into a corpse-like rictus grin. For just a moment, the rictus grin appeared. He looked up at Melbourn; it shifted back to a smile.
“You’re right. He’s hidden his mark up here in the red.”
“What do you think?” Melbourn asked.
“It’s possible I have someone who might want to add this to their collection.”
“Possible? Might?”
“Possible, might, and maybe are the most powerful words.” Danerel favored Melbourn with his smile again. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the charcoal drawing.
“Just a little something I picked up.”
“Hm. Noble features. Is that the Barrendon chin I see?”
Melbourn shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I can’t move charcoal drawings.”
“Maybe not, but you could return it for a tidy reward.”
“I might at that. But I’d have to use a middleman. That cuts into the reward money, you know.”
“Your pain…it touches me,” Melbourn said. “How much for both?”
Numbers clicked, shifted, and aligned themselves behind Danerel’s eyes. Melbourn waited a few seconds for the fence to answer.
Danerel named a sum.
“What? I thought you were my friend!” Melbourn yelped. “But you treat me like a mark.” He named a second, much higher sum.
“You’d break me?” Danerel responded happily. “I have children to feed.”
“You have no children,” Melboun said, shaking his head.
“Not fair. It’s likely there are quite a few ugly little red-hair bastards in the city.” He named a third sum.
Melbourn grabbed at his heart, named a fourth sum, and the game went on.
“Who are you?” Lord Cleitus Barrendon asked from across the table.
“Why ask? You know I won’t answer,” Sloan told him, waving to a waiter. “You’ll be paying for dinner, of course.”
They sat opposite each other in the center of the Blue Knight, Harbordown’s most exclusive restaurant. A single white candle flickered between them. Around them, members of the city’s Quality ate their dinners, unaware of the conversation that might possibly affect their futures. Sloan smiled. Rarely had he taken such a risk.
“Bring me the most expensive dinner on the menu,” Sloan told the attentive waiter. “Bring us two, unless it’s snails or worms or any of that. In which case, give us the most expensive dinner that ever grazed, flew, or swam. I’d also like a bottle of expensive wine. Select the color to go with dinner. Don’t forget the amenities: bread, butter, soup, salad, dessert, all that. Oh, and a nice vegetable – preferably something leafy. Lord Barrendon will be paying.”
“Of course.” The waiter turned to face the lord, who nodded and waved him away.
“I want the books. I want all the books,” Barrendon said. “I also want my pipe and the drawing of my great-great-grandmother.” He glared.
“I don’t know anything about the drawing, but you may have the pipe. As for the books…I’m going to keep three. You will get one returned.”
“I want all of them.”
“The priests say it’s a good thing for the soul to want.”
“I need those books to do my business.”
“Oh no, my lord, you need one to do business. You have chosen to use four. No one needs four ledgers. This is my proposal.”
“Proposal?”
“Don’t mistake the soft wording for the soft option. If you prefer, I’ll use the firm, and accurate wording. This is what will happen. I will return the one ledger, the one that gives a complete and accurate total of all Barrendon properties, assets, and holdings. I will keep the other three books.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
“You have no idea what you’re playing at,” Barrendon snarled.
“Don’t I? The city selects its Nine next month.”
Barrendon’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”
“I have. I seem to recall that you may be patriarch of one of the nine most powerful families, but you are far from the most powerful. The Barrendons fall seventh, I believe.”
“Keep your voice down,” Barrendon hissed. “And it’s sixth.”
“Ah, well. Congratulations. Of course, without the one true ledger, the total value of the family’s holdings will appear to be much, much less – enough to ensure that you will fall to fifteenth or sixteenth at best, and therefore you will no longer be in power. It seems to me that the Beltaynes or the Slandos are both in position to claim your spot. How long between selections?”
“Ten years,” Barrendon answered darkly.
“If you do what I ask, I will return that one ledger, and you get to continue to prove to the selection agents why you should remain one of the city’s rulers. It shouldn’t be too difficult; it looks like you’ve done very well this year. I will keep the other books. Judging by them, I’d guess that you’re not a major contributor to the city at tax time.”
He paused as the waiter set a basket of trifles in front of them. Sipping from his water glass, he watched Barrendon struggling to remain calm. Only when the waiter was away, did he continue.
“It seems you pay taxes on only about twenty percent of your holdings. The sun has risen over House Barrendon, and it’s time you paid your dues.”
“What do you want of me?”
“Besides multiplying your taxes by five, I have only one demand, and it’s a simple one. Your son, Donol, has gotten a common girl with child. He marries her. Your problem ends.”
“You jest,” Barrendon said after a moment.
“I do not,” Sloan responded, somewhat taken aback.
“That’s the fifth commoner he’s done this to. I’ve simply paid them off every other time.”
“That won’t be good enough,” Sloan said. “He marries her.”
“And then I get back my ledger?”
“You have it correct.”
“When do I get it?”
“After I’ve enjoyed your generosity at the wedding, which you will pay for.”
“I want proof that I’ll get it back.”
Sloan shook his head. “No. You may choose to believe me, or not. But if it’s convincing you need, let me say this: I dislike all of you. I could care less which families rule Harbordown. What I get from this is seeing that the right thing is done for a young woman.”
“What about the drawing?”
“I know nothing about it,” Sloan said, irked by the change of direction. “I wasn’t in your home.”
“Clearly you hired that man that was.”
“Clearly.”
Barrendon glared at him without speaking as the waiter opened a bottle of red wine and poured a glass. The lord lifted to his lips and drank the contents in one swallow.
“Pour a third glass,” Sloan told the waiter.
“Sir?”
“Pour a third glass. My wife will soon be joining us.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. “Shall I change the menu?”
“No. Lord Barrendon will soon be leaving.”
The waiter filled Sloan’s glass, refilled Barrendon’s, and hurried off to fetch a third.
“You’ll not survive this, you know.”
“Oh, I will,” Sloan said. “By the time you get your one ledger back, I’ll have it so covered in spells and rituals that every time you even think of doing something vicious to me, a page will disintegrate. You have my word on that.”
“Ridiculous. You’ll not be able to find a sorcerer to do that.”
“You would be right, were I not the sorcerer. Her name is Ananda Aristei. Learn it, my lord. She is to be your daughter-in-law.”
Barrendon stood. “Ananda. Yes, I believe I remember that name. Donol called her Nanda. As in, ‘that whore, Nanda.’”
Sloan was quiet for a moment.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, “I’m keeping your pipe.”
“Piss on the pipe. I have others.”
“Pay the bill, my lord. I’ll not have you upset my meal further.”
“This is not over.”
“I don’t expect it is – not until the wedding.”
When Barrendon had left the room, Sloan reached into his pocket and drew out the stolen pipe. He held it in his hand as the waiter cleared away Barrendon’s glass and poured a new one. After he left, Sloan raised the pipe to admire the craftsmanship. Satisfied that it had been worth stealing, he turned it in his fingers and held it by the stem.
It shattered when he slammed it into the edge of the table.
Tzal staggered and stumbled, falling down the last two stairs. He smashed his knees on the hard-packed dirt and fell forward. Unable to get his hands up in time, his chest and face slammed into the ground. Desperate to get his breath back, his heart throbbing, Tzal lay unmoving for several minutes. His joints burned, his fingers had cramped, and bands of pain had wrapped around his head. He breathed raggedly, doing his best to ignore the pain, trying to focus on something far more troubling.
For the first time since he had become a full priest, he was empty; he had drained his soul of every iota of magic; nothing connected him to Semessa’s divine presence. Other priests used to say that they felt naked without their ability to channel Her power, but he felt more violated than anything else. It was as if he had been raped by his own desire to help others. He had gone too far and lost touch with Her.
He tried to move, but his muscles hurt so much he made no progress. He stayed where he was, lying flat on the ground, his feet elevated only by their accidental placement on the bottom stair. Only because it had fallen next to his face did he know that the people of Torval’s Alley had left his bag alone. The people had been more frightened of him than he was of them. He had come into their homes and healed man after woman after child. One couple was sick for reasons other than bad water, and one young man with a knife wound in his side wasn’t bothered by anything as piddling as a fever. Tzal chuckled to himself, and then went into spasms of pain. He smiled, accepted the pain, and laughed out loud.
She sauntered to him, hands on her knife hilts.
"Finished.”
He didn’t ask her to translate; he was fairly certain he knew what she had said. He moved into a doorway, to conceal himself further. She joined him, pressing herself against him.
“It won’t be long,” he said.
He felt, rather than saw her nod.
“Same as last time,” Craymore said. “I’ll grab the boy. You do the work.” He glanced over into her pale, scarred face. “Unless yer going to need the help.”
She parted her lips and smiled, shaking her head.
He glanced at her teeth a moment – teeth that had been filed to sharp points – and smiled back.
To his left, the street gently declined; to his right, it climbed a steep hill. He glanced back to the left, preferring the idea of not climbing, but he didn’t like the narrow street or the shadows that permeated it, lit only as it was by the flickering oil lamps. To the right, the way seemed a bit safer, a bit brighter. Up near the top of the hill he glimpsed a warm pool of light.
“It’s uphill all the way,” he told himself.
Ten minutes climbing brought him to a roadway plateau. A block or so away, a bright line shone higher and brighter than anything else on the street. He cinched up his bag and followed the cobblestone street toward the light. As he approached, he cocked his head. He appeared to be walking toward a lighthouse. A moment later, his sense of scale twisted when he realized the lighthouse was merely the stone façade of a wooden building sitting at an intersection. He smiled.
The lighthouse façade was white, painted with three red diagonal stripes, rising left to right. Atop the façade was the light – a glass lamp the size of a chest. Warm beams of reflected lamplight lit Anchorage and the intersecting road, Candle Street. He found the door in the base of the lighthouse, painted to match the rest of the façade. A signboard hung out over the door, but from this angle, he couldn’t read it.
A trio of old men sat on a long bench next to the door, sharing a long pipe and a bottle. As Tzal approached, the one holding the rippled glass bottle raised it toward him.
“Ye look like ye need a bit o’ this!” The man spoke and chortled.
“I could use a drink,” Tzal admitted.
“Ye come to the right place, ye did,” the one with the pipe said.
“Do they have rooms for rent?”
“Aye,” said the third, who was angling for either pipe or bottle. “Plenty of ‘em. Fact is, they’s always one or two for let. Ask him for the back room.”
Tzal nodded, thanked the men, and looked up at the signboard. He smiled his approval and entered the Shining Way.
Coming Soon - Chapter Eight - "The Shining Way"
Please remember, I am actively seeking feedback on this. Please let me know what you think. My plan is this: if it sees publication, those folks who have given me regular feedback - or plenty of it - will find their names listed in the dedication. I am not kidding about this. It's very important to me.
This is a long chapter - nearly 4000 words. I thank you for reading!
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Chapter Seven
Harbordown By Night
“Good evening, Dunbar.”
“Mr. Jerrold.”
“You’ve come for the bounty, I assume.”
“I have,” Dunbar said.
“Just a moment; it’s in the back. Watch the front, will you?” Titus Jerrold, Harbordown’s exchequer, left him alone in the front office. Dunbar drifted to the only wall that interested him. A dozen hand-copied posters hung there, the gallery of felons whom the city most wished to have in custody. A dozen hard faces drawn in ink glared down as Dunbar perused their crimes. Two-Dagger Hamish’s poster was gone, along with his list of crimes. The face of a church-thief was nailed in its place. Dunbar memorized the face, name, and list of crimes. Before Mr. Jerrold returned, he was waiting at the exchequer’s desk.
“I’ll need you to sign,” Mr. Jerrold said.
“Of course.” Dunbar signed his name in florid script on the receipt offered him and pushed it back across the desk.
“Ten silver sails,” Jerrold told him, placing a fist-sized sack in his hand. “I’ve broken it into shields and pennies, as you prefer.” As usual, Dunbar weighed it in his hand and slipped it inside his shirt.
“Is there still no word on Jaan Craymore or Den Tuller?” Dunbar pointed to the oldest posters.
“No,” the exchequer told him, folding the receipt neatly. “We’ve heard nothing from Tuller; he’s simply vanished. We believe Craymore took ship and left months ago. He has family in Northport, we’re told.”
“Another one gone to sea.”
“It’s the simplest way to avoid capture.”
“It’s cowardly,” Dunbar stated.
“Yes,” Mr. Jerrold said, “but not too many wish to remain here and be nabbed by the Watch or be caught up by the city’s finest bounty hunter.”
“I’m not yet the finest. Burrell the Bold still holds that honor.”
“He has retired, Dunbar.”
“Until I – or someone else – surpasses his number of retrievals, he’s the best.”
“Have it your way. Will you be attending the hanging?”
“The trial hasn’t been held yet.”
“What’s your point?”
* * *
“Are ye ready?” asked the man dressed in red and black.The woman dressed as he was looked up and nodded. She pulled on her boots and stood up, flipping hair out of her eyes.
“I’m ready.” She spoke a language not often heard in Harbordown.
“Speak Talberan,” the man said. “Ye know I can’t understand ye.”
“Ready,” she said.
“Good. I’ve got our place picked out. It’ll do.” He turned and saw her blades lying on the bed, near where they had just been.
“Don’t faerget yer swaerds.”
“Knives,” she said in perfect Talberan, sliding the blades into their sheaths.
“Knives then,” Jaan Craymore said. “Let’s get moving. That lamplighter’s not going to kill himself.”
* * *
Malcolm sighed. He leaned back in the huge copper bath, arms behind his head, and closed his eyes. Steam clouded around him and embedded sea salt started to loosen from his skin. The only thing he missed about land while he was at sea was being able to get properly clean. The two pints of water he was allotted per day for ablutions simply didn’t cut it.With his eyes still closed, he reached out toward a small table holding a tray, a glass, and a bottle. He fumbled a moment, found the glass, and slid it away. He wrapped his hand around the neck of the bottle and drank deeply. He sighed again and set the bottle back on the tray. Fine, he thought, two things. There were two things he missed when he was at sea.
He inhaled the aroma of the bath oils, the scents of jasmine and lavender. With the scalding water seeping into his muscles, he relaxed further. Content, he slipped into sleep. When he jerked awake, a sharp blade rested against his throat. He looked into the eyes of the woman holding it.
“Hello, Raeline.”
“Good evening, Mr. McMarsen,” she said.
Malcolm pulled away from the razor and turned to look at her. She was young, with blond hair and bright green eyes. He knew she’d never be called beautiful, but he suspected she’d often been called pretty. She was nude but for the comb in her hair and the razor in her hand.
Three things – three things he missed about land when he was at sea.
“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Malcolm?”
“As many times as I’ve had to tell you that we run a respectable place, Mr. McMarsen,” she said. “Now are you going to let me shave you?”
Malcolm made himself comfortable as Raeline lathered his face and used the bright blade to scrape it smooth. He sat still until she finished. When she grabbed soap and sponge and started washing his back and shoulders, he sighed in her direction.
“That’s my favorite part,” he said.
“Mmm?”
“Whenever you touch me…that’s my favorite part.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“No, no. You can encourage me all you want,” Malcolm said.
She laughed until a rap at the door spoiled the moment.
“Enter!” Malcolm roared.
A short, balding man entered the room. He was dressed conservatively, yet squarely within fashion.
“Mr. Trowbridge. It’s good to know your bathhouse’s service hasn’t suffered while I was at sea.”
The proprietor bowed. “Thank you, Mr. McMarsen. The man from Lamaster’s has arrived with some samples.”
“Excellent. Send him in, please.”
Trowbridge bowed again and left, shutting the door behind him.
“Want to help me pick out some new clothes, Raeline?”
“Don’t I always, Malcolm?”
“Yes, you do.” He paused. “Did you call me Malcolm?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do it again.”
“Not now. Maybe later tonight I will.”
Malcolm raised an eyebrow and smiled.
* * *
The sign over the shop read “Danerel’s Keys & Locks.” Melbourn threw open the door and let the hinges squeak, as he knew they would do. The man behind the high desk didn’t glance in his direction; he continued chatting with the customer in front of him. Melbourn crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. It was useless to attempt to be stealthy here; one simply couldn’t sneak up on Danerel.Danerel Snowmantle had been one of the city’s most successful thieves. He’d never been caught, never even been seriously considered a criminal. He retired at age thirty and went into business as a fence. Now he bought items from other thieves, rarely asking questions, but often taking notes. Melbourn knew that he remained retired, but only from thieving. He still dabbled occasionally in piracy, kidnapping, and smuggling. The man had rooms all over Harbordown and on Castigan Island. He had a home in Port Wehry that Melbourn knew of and owned a portion of Tattenrall Station, a cattle ranch on the north end of the big island. Melbourn was certain that Danerel had more even more homes, more businesses, and more secrets. Only a terrible fence would let anyone know all the dirt – even if they claimed to be friends.
Melbourn unfolded his arms and stepped away from the door – business at the desk was done. He nodded to the customer as she passed, and waited for her to leave. As the door closed, he crossed to the desk and dropped the scroll case on it.
“You’re late,” Danerel said.
“I’ve been busy – and so were you.”
“Bah. Selling Goodwife Horrocks a new set of keys isn’t busy. Would you like her house number and a spare key?”
“No. You’d probably send me to the home of a watch commander.”
“For anyone who’d steal from a goodwife? You’re right. I’d also send you there for making me work past dusk. There’s a lot of bad folk out there. What do you have?”
“This.” Melbourn uncapped the case and let the contents slide free.
“Artwork?”
“If this deiscape isn’t a Pevello, I’m a dwarf.”
Melbourn let Danerel pull the multi-colored canvas toward him. The fence removed the protective cloth and spread it out. He glanced over the painting and began to scan its borders. He turned the painting ninety degrees, then another ninety degrees.
Melbourn watched Danerel’s face as the fence looked over the painting. Danerel wasn’t a handsome man, not by any definition of the word. His skin was pale and pasty; his hair three different shades of orange. None of the sharp features appeared to be exactly where they were supposed to be. He often smiled broadly. When he wished it, it was a pleasant smile, but too often his smile shifted into a corpse-like rictus grin. For just a moment, the rictus grin appeared. He looked up at Melbourn; it shifted back to a smile.
“You’re right. He’s hidden his mark up here in the red.”
“What do you think?” Melbourn asked.
“It’s possible I have someone who might want to add this to their collection.”
“Possible? Might?”
“Possible, might, and maybe are the most powerful words.” Danerel favored Melbourn with his smile again. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the charcoal drawing.
“Just a little something I picked up.”
“Hm. Noble features. Is that the Barrendon chin I see?”
Melbourn shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I can’t move charcoal drawings.”
“Maybe not, but you could return it for a tidy reward.”
“I might at that. But I’d have to use a middleman. That cuts into the reward money, you know.”
“Your pain…it touches me,” Melbourn said. “How much for both?”
Numbers clicked, shifted, and aligned themselves behind Danerel’s eyes. Melbourn waited a few seconds for the fence to answer.
Danerel named a sum.
“What? I thought you were my friend!” Melbourn yelped. “But you treat me like a mark.” He named a second, much higher sum.
“You’d break me?” Danerel responded happily. “I have children to feed.”
“You have no children,” Melboun said, shaking his head.
“Not fair. It’s likely there are quite a few ugly little red-hair bastards in the city.” He named a third sum.
Melbourn grabbed at his heart, named a fourth sum, and the game went on.
* * *
“Good evening,” Sloan said, as he sat.“Who are you?” Lord Cleitus Barrendon asked from across the table.
“Why ask? You know I won’t answer,” Sloan told him, waving to a waiter. “You’ll be paying for dinner, of course.”
They sat opposite each other in the center of the Blue Knight, Harbordown’s most exclusive restaurant. A single white candle flickered between them. Around them, members of the city’s Quality ate their dinners, unaware of the conversation that might possibly affect their futures. Sloan smiled. Rarely had he taken such a risk.
“Bring me the most expensive dinner on the menu,” Sloan told the attentive waiter. “Bring us two, unless it’s snails or worms or any of that. In which case, give us the most expensive dinner that ever grazed, flew, or swam. I’d also like a bottle of expensive wine. Select the color to go with dinner. Don’t forget the amenities: bread, butter, soup, salad, dessert, all that. Oh, and a nice vegetable – preferably something leafy. Lord Barrendon will be paying.”
“Of course.” The waiter turned to face the lord, who nodded and waved him away.
“I want the books. I want all the books,” Barrendon said. “I also want my pipe and the drawing of my great-great-grandmother.” He glared.
“I don’t know anything about the drawing, but you may have the pipe. As for the books…I’m going to keep three. You will get one returned.”
“I want all of them.”
“The priests say it’s a good thing for the soul to want.”
“I need those books to do my business.”
“Oh no, my lord, you need one to do business. You have chosen to use four. No one needs four ledgers. This is my proposal.”
“Proposal?”
“Don’t mistake the soft wording for the soft option. If you prefer, I’ll use the firm, and accurate wording. This is what will happen. I will return the one ledger, the one that gives a complete and accurate total of all Barrendon properties, assets, and holdings. I will keep the other three books.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
“You have no idea what you’re playing at,” Barrendon snarled.
“Don’t I? The city selects its Nine next month.”
Barrendon’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”
“I have. I seem to recall that you may be patriarch of one of the nine most powerful families, but you are far from the most powerful. The Barrendons fall seventh, I believe.”
“Keep your voice down,” Barrendon hissed. “And it’s sixth.”
“Ah, well. Congratulations. Of course, without the one true ledger, the total value of the family’s holdings will appear to be much, much less – enough to ensure that you will fall to fifteenth or sixteenth at best, and therefore you will no longer be in power. It seems to me that the Beltaynes or the Slandos are both in position to claim your spot. How long between selections?”
“Ten years,” Barrendon answered darkly.
“If you do what I ask, I will return that one ledger, and you get to continue to prove to the selection agents why you should remain one of the city’s rulers. It shouldn’t be too difficult; it looks like you’ve done very well this year. I will keep the other books. Judging by them, I’d guess that you’re not a major contributor to the city at tax time.”
He paused as the waiter set a basket of trifles in front of them. Sipping from his water glass, he watched Barrendon struggling to remain calm. Only when the waiter was away, did he continue.
“It seems you pay taxes on only about twenty percent of your holdings. The sun has risen over House Barrendon, and it’s time you paid your dues.”
“What do you want of me?”
“Besides multiplying your taxes by five, I have only one demand, and it’s a simple one. Your son, Donol, has gotten a common girl with child. He marries her. Your problem ends.”
“You jest,” Barrendon said after a moment.
“I do not,” Sloan responded, somewhat taken aback.
“That’s the fifth commoner he’s done this to. I’ve simply paid them off every other time.”
“That won’t be good enough,” Sloan said. “He marries her.”
“And then I get back my ledger?”
“You have it correct.”
“When do I get it?”
“After I’ve enjoyed your generosity at the wedding, which you will pay for.”
“I want proof that I’ll get it back.”
Sloan shook his head. “No. You may choose to believe me, or not. But if it’s convincing you need, let me say this: I dislike all of you. I could care less which families rule Harbordown. What I get from this is seeing that the right thing is done for a young woman.”
“What about the drawing?”
“I know nothing about it,” Sloan said, irked by the change of direction. “I wasn’t in your home.”
“Clearly you hired that man that was.”
“Clearly.”
Barrendon glared at him without speaking as the waiter opened a bottle of red wine and poured a glass. The lord lifted to his lips and drank the contents in one swallow.
“Pour a third glass,” Sloan told the waiter.
“Sir?”
“Pour a third glass. My wife will soon be joining us.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. “Shall I change the menu?”
“No. Lord Barrendon will soon be leaving.”
The waiter filled Sloan’s glass, refilled Barrendon’s, and hurried off to fetch a third.
“You’ll not survive this, you know.”
“Oh, I will,” Sloan said. “By the time you get your one ledger back, I’ll have it so covered in spells and rituals that every time you even think of doing something vicious to me, a page will disintegrate. You have my word on that.”
“Ridiculous. You’ll not be able to find a sorcerer to do that.”
“You would be right, were I not the sorcerer. Her name is Ananda Aristei. Learn it, my lord. She is to be your daughter-in-law.”
Barrendon stood. “Ananda. Yes, I believe I remember that name. Donol called her Nanda. As in, ‘that whore, Nanda.’”
Sloan was quiet for a moment.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, “I’m keeping your pipe.”
“Piss on the pipe. I have others.”
“Pay the bill, my lord. I’ll not have you upset my meal further.”
“This is not over.”
“I don’t expect it is – not until the wedding.”
When Barrendon had left the room, Sloan reached into his pocket and drew out the stolen pipe. He held it in his hand as the waiter cleared away Barrendon’s glass and poured a new one. After he left, Sloan raised the pipe to admire the craftsmanship. Satisfied that it had been worth stealing, he turned it in his fingers and held it by the stem.
It shattered when he slammed it into the edge of the table.
* * *
Dunbar tossed the bag Mr. Jerrold had given him onto his desk and unbuckled his sword belt. Only when his belt and blade were hung on the correct pegs on the wall and his boots drying on their rack did he take the seat behind the desk. He pulled an inkwell toward him. Dabbing a quill pen into it, he wrote directly on the bag: “Two-Dagger Hamish,” then “10S.” He replaced the pen and walked over to a small chest. Unlocking it, he lifted the lid out of the way and placed the bag inside, on top of a pile that nearly filled the chest. He smiled and closed the lid.* * *
Tzal staggered and stumbled, falling down the last two stairs. He smashed his knees on the hard-packed dirt and fell forward. Unable to get his hands up in time, his chest and face slammed into the ground. Desperate to get his breath back, his heart throbbing, Tzal lay unmoving for several minutes. His joints burned, his fingers had cramped, and bands of pain had wrapped around his head. He breathed raggedly, doing his best to ignore the pain, trying to focus on something far more troubling.
For the first time since he had become a full priest, he was empty; he had drained his soul of every iota of magic; nothing connected him to Semessa’s divine presence. Other priests used to say that they felt naked without their ability to channel Her power, but he felt more violated than anything else. It was as if he had been raped by his own desire to help others. He had gone too far and lost touch with Her.
He tried to move, but his muscles hurt so much he made no progress. He stayed where he was, lying flat on the ground, his feet elevated only by their accidental placement on the bottom stair. Only because it had fallen next to his face did he know that the people of Torval’s Alley had left his bag alone. The people had been more frightened of him than he was of them. He had come into their homes and healed man after woman after child. One couple was sick for reasons other than bad water, and one young man with a knife wound in his side wasn’t bothered by anything as piddling as a fever. Tzal chuckled to himself, and then went into spasms of pain. He smiled, accepted the pain, and laughed out loud.
* * *
Craymore stood in a pool of shadow, watching her come back to him. Only the silhouette of her lean warrior form was visible in the light behind her. She’d kept this one a bit more subtle – only extinguishing half a dozen lamps along Black Cat Cut. The boy would be here soon enough to relight them.She sauntered to him, hands on her knife hilts.
"Finished.”
He didn’t ask her to translate; he was fairly certain he knew what she had said. He moved into a doorway, to conceal himself further. She joined him, pressing herself against him.
“It won’t be long,” he said.
He felt, rather than saw her nod.
“Same as last time,” Craymore said. “I’ll grab the boy. You do the work.” He glanced over into her pale, scarred face. “Unless yer going to need the help.”
She parted her lips and smiled, shaking her head.
He glanced at her teeth a moment – teeth that had been filed to sharp points – and smiled back.
* * *
Tzal staggered out of Torval’s Alley and back onto Anchorage Street. For about the tenth time in ten minutes, he wished Gitto or Ruben were still around. Gitto left not long after Tzal had begun helping the others; Ruben vanished a few hours later. With no one to assist him, the exhausted priest stopped on the street and looked quite literally up and down Anchorage. To his left, the street gently declined; to his right, it climbed a steep hill. He glanced back to the left, preferring the idea of not climbing, but he didn’t like the narrow street or the shadows that permeated it, lit only as it was by the flickering oil lamps. To the right, the way seemed a bit safer, a bit brighter. Up near the top of the hill he glimpsed a warm pool of light.
“It’s uphill all the way,” he told himself.
Ten minutes climbing brought him to a roadway plateau. A block or so away, a bright line shone higher and brighter than anything else on the street. He cinched up his bag and followed the cobblestone street toward the light. As he approached, he cocked his head. He appeared to be walking toward a lighthouse. A moment later, his sense of scale twisted when he realized the lighthouse was merely the stone façade of a wooden building sitting at an intersection. He smiled.
The lighthouse façade was white, painted with three red diagonal stripes, rising left to right. Atop the façade was the light – a glass lamp the size of a chest. Warm beams of reflected lamplight lit Anchorage and the intersecting road, Candle Street. He found the door in the base of the lighthouse, painted to match the rest of the façade. A signboard hung out over the door, but from this angle, he couldn’t read it.
A trio of old men sat on a long bench next to the door, sharing a long pipe and a bottle. As Tzal approached, the one holding the rippled glass bottle raised it toward him.
“Ye look like ye need a bit o’ this!” The man spoke and chortled.
“I could use a drink,” Tzal admitted.
“Ye come to the right place, ye did,” the one with the pipe said.
“Do they have rooms for rent?”
“Aye,” said the third, who was angling for either pipe or bottle. “Plenty of ‘em. Fact is, they’s always one or two for let. Ask him for the back room.”
Tzal nodded, thanked the men, and looked up at the signboard. He smiled his approval and entered the Shining Way.
Coming Soon - Chapter Eight - "The Shining Way"
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Heroes... Chapter Six - "Tzal"
Greetings! This is the introductory chapter of the last of our five main characters, even though you got a glimpse of him last time. Tzal is a short chapter, barely 7 printed pages - less than 2000 words.
For those who need to know, Tzal is pronounced like the second half of "pizza" with an "L" on the end.
Remember, I am actually rewriting an already-written novel. Since I am seeking publication for this, feedback is the most important thing I need. If you can do it, please let me know what you think. It can be as short or as long, as gentle or as harsh as you'd like. To me, receiving it is the point.
You can leave your comments here, or contact me via email, Twitter, or Facebook. I thank you!
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Chapter Six - "Tzal"
The bald man led Tzal to a building fronting an alley off Anchorage Street. It was old, and a decade ago it had badly needed paint. It hadn’t gotten it. Tzal tried to remember which turns he had taken while keeping up his end of a mostly one-sided conversation. The bald man, he had learned, was Ruben Verner. Ruben used to be a member of the Seaman’s Brotherhood with this other man, Gitto. Gitto’s wife, Zenna, had taken sick a few days ago and had not left the bed. Tzal glanced around the shabby neighborhood, not wondering what could have caused it, but now many different illnesses she may have picked up.
They stopped at the door of the building and Ruben beat on it. After a moment, a short man with the build of a dumpling and a face like an old foot answered the door.
“Gitto,” Ruben said.
“Wait here,” the short man said, slamming the door on them.
“Doorman?” Tzal asked.
“They pay extra for that,” Ruben answered.
A few minutes later, a different man opened the door. He was short, thin, and hunched over. A patina of grime lived in the pores of his skin and Tzal doubted that anything as simple as a bath would remove it. Gitto had an aroma of his own, not a pleasant one. When he grinned, a missing tooth high in his smile broke it. Tzal felt a pang of shame. Had this wretched little man, and not Ruben asked for help, he would likely have dismissed him as a beggar.
The little man shoved his hand toward Ruben, who shook it. Ruben introduced Tzal to Gitto and said that he was a priest.
“O happy day!” the little man said, shoving his hand at Tzal. He grasped it and vowed not to wipe his hand on his tunic until both their backs were turned.
Muttering ‘thank you’s’ the entire way, Gitto led them up a dusty ramshackle staircase. The stairs sank and groaned with every step. Tzal hugged the wall as he ascended to the third floor. He was not surprised to see Ruben do the same; friend or not, the bald man had common sense on his side. They reached a door – one of four on the third floor – and Gitto opened it for them.
“These be my lodgings, and this be my wife.”
The room was small and cramped: a small table and chairs, a rope bed, a trunk, and a hearth barely large enough to cook in. Tzal walked to the bed and set down his bag. Next to the bed, he noticed a tiny side table, decorated with a cracked pitcher and washbowl. In the bed, a softly moaning woman was covered high with blankets. Tzal leaned down. The sickness had aged her; Ruben had told him that she was in her thirties – ten years younger than her husband, but she looked twenty years older now. She shivered and sweated both. Tzal confirmed fever by touching her forehead.
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know, m’lord, she was sick a few mornin’s ago.”
“I’m not a lord, Gitto. What did she eat the night before?”
“I don’t remember…a bit of meat, I think, and a potato. Aye, definitely meat.”
Tzal didn’t ask what kind of meat. He continued to look her over.
“Will you heal her?” Ruben asked. “Are you a healer?”
“I am. But my old teacher used to say that healing only solves the immediate problem. I want to make sure she won’t get sick again.” He looked at the pitcher then sniffed it. Dipping his finger into the water, he tasted it and spat. He glanced at Gitto. Under the grime on his face, he could plainly see bottle blossoms on his cheeks and nose.
“You don’t drink much water, do you?”
“No, sir. Don’t like the taste too much.”
“It shouldn’t taste like that. Your wife?”
“Aye. She can’t stand the ale and milk’s too hard to come by.”
Tzal nodded. “Does she drink a lot of it?”
“Aye. Particularly lately – she’s been like a fish.”
“Is it the water?” Ruben asked.
“I think so. I’ll know in a minute. Gitto, do you and your wife worship Mannanan Mac Lir perhaps?”
“No, sir. I’ve dropped a coin in the waves time and again, but all sailors do that.”
“Is there any god you worship regularly?”
“No, sir.”
“Since I won’t offend the household god, I can do this.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I don’t have much in the way of coin to pay.”
Tzal turned and faced the little man: “Pardon?”
“Forgive me, sir, but I can’t pay you much.”
“This doesn’t cost you anything, Gitto. My gifts are mine to share, not to sell. They’re given to me, for me to pass on to those who need it.” Tzal turned and began to chant. It took only a moment. He rested his hand on her belly. His fingers cooled until they felt icy then warmed suddenly, as if submerged in hot water. Purple sparks danced across the tips of his fingers and the back of his hand. Finally, golden light rose like a mist and drifted across the woman’s body. After a moment, he removed his hand and took a deep breath.
“She’ll be fine. Let her sleep. She’ll wake up exhausted in the morning, but she’ll wake up healthy.” He handed the pitcher to Gitto. “Dump that out and show me where you get your water.”
“Thank you, sir! Did you mean what you said?”
“About what?”
“About not makin’ us pay for this?”
“Of course. Religion is not a business.”
“It is in Harbordown.”
“I didn’t know that,” Tzal said, looking away.
“Everything’s a business here. Everything’s for sale.”
Tzal looked back at Gitto and shook his head.
“I’m not.”
* * *
Gitto led Tzal and Ruben out of the building and to an alley with a small well, little more than a hole in the ground. Tzal glanced around before examining the well. The alley was almost wide enough to be a street, but its atmosphere declared it as a place to be wary. Discarded wood scraps, masonry, and garbage littered the ground. Splashes of rotten grease, dried blood, and other fluids were scattered around. A squad of rats feasted on the putrefying body of a tailless cat. In one corner, two people were asleep under feather-thin blankets.
Tzal knelt by the well and picked up the bucket. It was heavy, waterlogged from years of use. It exuded a slight foul odor.
“It’s here,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” Ruben asked.
“I’m going to purify the well.”
“You can do that?” Gitto asked.
Tzal nodded and began to chant. As he did, the stone on his ring began to glow. The men listened, as the simple words of the chant became Words, the verbal facets of magic. Around him, the air grew denser, cooler. Keen eyes might even have noticed mists of condensation rising from the ring. Anyone focusing on the chant would have heard nonsensical words becoming non-words, increasingly harder and harder to hear. By the time he was ready to unleash the purification spell, the Words had evolved beyond the point where they were merely heard and had moved to a place where they affected all six senses; they carried an undertone of white noise, but they could now be felt, smelt, seen, tasted, and captured in a thought. Ruben, Gitto, the sleeping beggars, and a few approaching people all suddenly felt a light pleasant tickling between the shoulder blades; the tiniest hints of apples blossoms crossed their noses and tongues; their vision came to a slightly crisper focus; and, for only a second, each of them thought of their mothers.
Pure white light danced along Tzal’s fingers. He smiled, understanding what had caused the corruption. White light sprang from his fingers and entered the well as he released the incantation. He stood, feeling clean, and told Gitto that the body of a diseased cat had gotten in the well and was poisoning the water. He told him how far down it was. It would need to be recovered soon, to keep the rot from returning.
A worried-looking bystander, a man whose sense of style and cleanliness split the difference between Ruben and Gitto, asked what he was doing.
“He’s cleaned the well, bless him, he did!” Gitto said.
“Cleaned the well?”
“It was poison. He cleaned it up and saved my wife, too!” Gitto crowed, pointing to Tzal. “He’s a priest, this genne’man is!”
Tzal smiled and began to say it was his pleasure to help, but before he could, the bystander rushed at him, grabbing his sleeve and begging for assistance. Tzal asked what he needed. His son was sick, and his son drank from the well. Tzal started to speak, but someone else grabbed him. He spun. A young woman had a sick baby – would he help? He nodded and heard Gitto’s voice rise above the rest:
“He said he wasn’t for sale!”
Tzal stood straight and looked over the young woman’s head at Gitto, who was speaking to a group of shocked Harbordowners. The man with the sick son grabbed his left hand; the woman with the sick baby clutched his right. Both needed him then. He told them both he’d help them. As he spoke, he heard a shrill whistle and looked up. Two stories above, a woman said her husband was sick. Next to that window, a little boy yelled out that his mamma wasn’t moving. The man pulled at his left arm and the young mother entreated him to come with her. A crowd gathered, some needing him, some just watching. Ruben stood aside, watching and smiling.
“Did you plan this?” Tzal yelled to the bald man.
“On my word, I did not.”
From above came another cry of help. Tzal looked up and smiled. As a priest, he’d always done his best to serve. Yet he’d never once been asked to serve so many. He’d only arrived, but he had found something good to do.
He glanced at the young mother. “Follow me,” he said.
He turned and faced the first man who had asked him to help. Tzal nodded to him.
“Take me to your son,” he said. “I’ll help him. I’ll help everyone I can.”
Continue with Chapter Seven - "Harbordown by Night"
For those who need to know, Tzal is pronounced like the second half of "pizza" with an "L" on the end.
Remember, I am actually rewriting an already-written novel. Since I am seeking publication for this, feedback is the most important thing I need. If you can do it, please let me know what you think. It can be as short or as long, as gentle or as harsh as you'd like. To me, receiving it is the point.
You can leave your comments here, or contact me via email, Twitter, or Facebook. I thank you!
---------------------------------------------
Chapter Six - "Tzal"
The bald man led Tzal to a building fronting an alley off Anchorage Street. It was old, and a decade ago it had badly needed paint. It hadn’t gotten it. Tzal tried to remember which turns he had taken while keeping up his end of a mostly one-sided conversation. The bald man, he had learned, was Ruben Verner. Ruben used to be a member of the Seaman’s Brotherhood with this other man, Gitto. Gitto’s wife, Zenna, had taken sick a few days ago and had not left the bed. Tzal glanced around the shabby neighborhood, not wondering what could have caused it, but now many different illnesses she may have picked up.
They stopped at the door of the building and Ruben beat on it. After a moment, a short man with the build of a dumpling and a face like an old foot answered the door.
“Gitto,” Ruben said.
“Wait here,” the short man said, slamming the door on them.
“Doorman?” Tzal asked.
“They pay extra for that,” Ruben answered.
A few minutes later, a different man opened the door. He was short, thin, and hunched over. A patina of grime lived in the pores of his skin and Tzal doubted that anything as simple as a bath would remove it. Gitto had an aroma of his own, not a pleasant one. When he grinned, a missing tooth high in his smile broke it. Tzal felt a pang of shame. Had this wretched little man, and not Ruben asked for help, he would likely have dismissed him as a beggar.
The little man shoved his hand toward Ruben, who shook it. Ruben introduced Tzal to Gitto and said that he was a priest.
“O happy day!” the little man said, shoving his hand at Tzal. He grasped it and vowed not to wipe his hand on his tunic until both their backs were turned.
Muttering ‘thank you’s’ the entire way, Gitto led them up a dusty ramshackle staircase. The stairs sank and groaned with every step. Tzal hugged the wall as he ascended to the third floor. He was not surprised to see Ruben do the same; friend or not, the bald man had common sense on his side. They reached a door – one of four on the third floor – and Gitto opened it for them.
“These be my lodgings, and this be my wife.”
The room was small and cramped: a small table and chairs, a rope bed, a trunk, and a hearth barely large enough to cook in. Tzal walked to the bed and set down his bag. Next to the bed, he noticed a tiny side table, decorated with a cracked pitcher and washbowl. In the bed, a softly moaning woman was covered high with blankets. Tzal leaned down. The sickness had aged her; Ruben had told him that she was in her thirties – ten years younger than her husband, but she looked twenty years older now. She shivered and sweated both. Tzal confirmed fever by touching her forehead.
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know, m’lord, she was sick a few mornin’s ago.”
“I’m not a lord, Gitto. What did she eat the night before?”
“I don’t remember…a bit of meat, I think, and a potato. Aye, definitely meat.”
Tzal didn’t ask what kind of meat. He continued to look her over.
“Will you heal her?” Ruben asked. “Are you a healer?”
“I am. But my old teacher used to say that healing only solves the immediate problem. I want to make sure she won’t get sick again.” He looked at the pitcher then sniffed it. Dipping his finger into the water, he tasted it and spat. He glanced at Gitto. Under the grime on his face, he could plainly see bottle blossoms on his cheeks and nose.
“You don’t drink much water, do you?”
“No, sir. Don’t like the taste too much.”
“It shouldn’t taste like that. Your wife?”
“Aye. She can’t stand the ale and milk’s too hard to come by.”
Tzal nodded. “Does she drink a lot of it?”
“Aye. Particularly lately – she’s been like a fish.”
“Is it the water?” Ruben asked.
“I think so. I’ll know in a minute. Gitto, do you and your wife worship Mannanan Mac Lir perhaps?”
“No, sir. I’ve dropped a coin in the waves time and again, but all sailors do that.”
“Is there any god you worship regularly?”
“No, sir.”
“Since I won’t offend the household god, I can do this.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I don’t have much in the way of coin to pay.”
Tzal turned and faced the little man: “Pardon?”
“Forgive me, sir, but I can’t pay you much.”
“This doesn’t cost you anything, Gitto. My gifts are mine to share, not to sell. They’re given to me, for me to pass on to those who need it.” Tzal turned and began to chant. It took only a moment. He rested his hand on her belly. His fingers cooled until they felt icy then warmed suddenly, as if submerged in hot water. Purple sparks danced across the tips of his fingers and the back of his hand. Finally, golden light rose like a mist and drifted across the woman’s body. After a moment, he removed his hand and took a deep breath.
“She’ll be fine. Let her sleep. She’ll wake up exhausted in the morning, but she’ll wake up healthy.” He handed the pitcher to Gitto. “Dump that out and show me where you get your water.”
“Thank you, sir! Did you mean what you said?”
“About what?”
“About not makin’ us pay for this?”
“Of course. Religion is not a business.”
“It is in Harbordown.”
“I didn’t know that,” Tzal said, looking away.
“Everything’s a business here. Everything’s for sale.”
Tzal looked back at Gitto and shook his head.
“I’m not.”
* * *
Gitto led Tzal and Ruben out of the building and to an alley with a small well, little more than a hole in the ground. Tzal glanced around before examining the well. The alley was almost wide enough to be a street, but its atmosphere declared it as a place to be wary. Discarded wood scraps, masonry, and garbage littered the ground. Splashes of rotten grease, dried blood, and other fluids were scattered around. A squad of rats feasted on the putrefying body of a tailless cat. In one corner, two people were asleep under feather-thin blankets.
Tzal knelt by the well and picked up the bucket. It was heavy, waterlogged from years of use. It exuded a slight foul odor.
“It’s here,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” Ruben asked.
“I’m going to purify the well.”
“You can do that?” Gitto asked.
Tzal nodded and began to chant. As he did, the stone on his ring began to glow. The men listened, as the simple words of the chant became Words, the verbal facets of magic. Around him, the air grew denser, cooler. Keen eyes might even have noticed mists of condensation rising from the ring. Anyone focusing on the chant would have heard nonsensical words becoming non-words, increasingly harder and harder to hear. By the time he was ready to unleash the purification spell, the Words had evolved beyond the point where they were merely heard and had moved to a place where they affected all six senses; they carried an undertone of white noise, but they could now be felt, smelt, seen, tasted, and captured in a thought. Ruben, Gitto, the sleeping beggars, and a few approaching people all suddenly felt a light pleasant tickling between the shoulder blades; the tiniest hints of apples blossoms crossed their noses and tongues; their vision came to a slightly crisper focus; and, for only a second, each of them thought of their mothers.
Pure white light danced along Tzal’s fingers. He smiled, understanding what had caused the corruption. White light sprang from his fingers and entered the well as he released the incantation. He stood, feeling clean, and told Gitto that the body of a diseased cat had gotten in the well and was poisoning the water. He told him how far down it was. It would need to be recovered soon, to keep the rot from returning.
A worried-looking bystander, a man whose sense of style and cleanliness split the difference between Ruben and Gitto, asked what he was doing.
“He’s cleaned the well, bless him, he did!” Gitto said.
“Cleaned the well?”
“It was poison. He cleaned it up and saved my wife, too!” Gitto crowed, pointing to Tzal. “He’s a priest, this genne’man is!”
Tzal smiled and began to say it was his pleasure to help, but before he could, the bystander rushed at him, grabbing his sleeve and begging for assistance. Tzal asked what he needed. His son was sick, and his son drank from the well. Tzal started to speak, but someone else grabbed him. He spun. A young woman had a sick baby – would he help? He nodded and heard Gitto’s voice rise above the rest:
“He said he wasn’t for sale!”
Tzal stood straight and looked over the young woman’s head at Gitto, who was speaking to a group of shocked Harbordowners. The man with the sick son grabbed his left hand; the woman with the sick baby clutched his right. Both needed him then. He told them both he’d help them. As he spoke, he heard a shrill whistle and looked up. Two stories above, a woman said her husband was sick. Next to that window, a little boy yelled out that his mamma wasn’t moving. The man pulled at his left arm and the young mother entreated him to come with her. A crowd gathered, some needing him, some just watching. Ruben stood aside, watching and smiling.
“Did you plan this?” Tzal yelled to the bald man.
“On my word, I did not.”
From above came another cry of help. Tzal looked up and smiled. As a priest, he’d always done his best to serve. Yet he’d never once been asked to serve so many. He’d only arrived, but he had found something good to do.
He glanced at the young mother. “Follow me,” he said.
He turned and faced the first man who had asked him to help. Tzal nodded to him.
“Take me to your son,” he said. “I’ll help him. I’ll help everyone I can.”
Continue with Chapter Seven - "Harbordown by Night"
Monday, June 8, 2009
Welcome to the New Writer's Washroom Annex!
After several weeks of frustration with the site where I was archiving my work - and linking to Works-in-Progress, I decided the time had come to change the archives.
In other words, it was time to move the Annex. After trying a few different sites, and considering trying to "host my own URL" and such - which is so far beyond my technical ken that it makes my head hurt, I finally decided on this.
Yes, it's a blog. But, heck, I've pretty much always called the Washroom my 'blogsite.' It's all just terminology to me.
I've made this as user-friendly as I can. In the left-hand side are "starting points" for works-in-progress and for the various types of non-fiction I've written and published. A link to The Pop-Up Prophecy script, and the short film made from it are there as well.
I made the decision not to repost Wasteland, the appalling short story I wrote and had published back in the day, because I'm going to rewrite the damn thing as practice. When it's complete - which shouldn't be long - I'll post it here.
I've also posted an unpublished script, Afterword, which was written by myself and Thomas Beck - one of my good friends and long-time blog members.
For Heroes..., The Wyrd Magnet, and Conduit, each chapter in each work is linked to the next. At the bottom of the Heroes... Prologue is the link to Chapter One. This will be standard operating procedure.
Please look around and check things out. Some of this is fun to read, and some is just informative. I've reposted a couple of items from works here to the main blog, so you can see where this comes from.
It's taken about two days to put this together, link it all, and de-clutter the main blog. I'm fairly well delighted with the results, so I won't be offended if you just want to do some reading here. (Oh, yes, I borrowed a clue from a reader and decided to go with printer-friendly black text-on-white background. You are very welcome.)
Feel free to leave comments here, there, or anywhere you wish. I'm happy to have the readers. At the moment, I'd suggest that if anyone wants to become a "Friend & Member" on the blog, to consider joining at the main one. That will still be the site where most of my work is done. This is primarily to give readers an easy way (finally!) to dig through my stuff.
Welcome to the Annex! Please enjoy!
Heroes... starting point - Prologue - "Darkness"
The Wyrd Magnet starting point - Chapter One - "Sub-culture"
Conduit starting point - Prologue - "Obelisks"
Non-fiction starting point
The Pop-Up Prophecy (script and short film)
Afterword (script only)
In other words, it was time to move the Annex. After trying a few different sites, and considering trying to "host my own URL" and such - which is so far beyond my technical ken that it makes my head hurt, I finally decided on this.
Yes, it's a blog. But, heck, I've pretty much always called the Washroom my 'blogsite.' It's all just terminology to me.
I've made this as user-friendly as I can. In the left-hand side are "starting points" for works-in-progress and for the various types of non-fiction I've written and published. A link to The Pop-Up Prophecy script, and the short film made from it are there as well.
I made the decision not to repost Wasteland, the appalling short story I wrote and had published back in the day, because I'm going to rewrite the damn thing as practice. When it's complete - which shouldn't be long - I'll post it here.
I've also posted an unpublished script, Afterword, which was written by myself and Thomas Beck - one of my good friends and long-time blog members.
For Heroes..., The Wyrd Magnet, and Conduit, each chapter in each work is linked to the next. At the bottom of the Heroes... Prologue is the link to Chapter One. This will be standard operating procedure.
Please look around and check things out. Some of this is fun to read, and some is just informative. I've reposted a couple of items from works here to the main blog, so you can see where this comes from.
It's taken about two days to put this together, link it all, and de-clutter the main blog. I'm fairly well delighted with the results, so I won't be offended if you just want to do some reading here. (Oh, yes, I borrowed a clue from a reader and decided to go with printer-friendly black text-on-white background. You are very welcome.)
Feel free to leave comments here, there, or anywhere you wish. I'm happy to have the readers. At the moment, I'd suggest that if anyone wants to become a "Friend & Member" on the blog, to consider joining at the main one. That will still be the site where most of my work is done. This is primarily to give readers an easy way (finally!) to dig through my stuff.
Welcome to the Annex! Please enjoy!
Heroes... starting point - Prologue - "Darkness"
The Wyrd Magnet starting point - Chapter One - "Sub-culture"
Conduit starting point - Prologue - "Obelisks"
Non-fiction starting point
The Pop-Up Prophecy (script and short film)
Afterword (script only)
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