Black Halo (53 page)

Lesser men had pleasures. Librarians had duties.

He had just turned away from the Cragsman when he heard the chuckle. He turned, hardly astonished to see the man rising. Bralston was prepared for that, prepared to put him back down if need be, and more likely prepared to let him retreat and subsequently rot in the shadows.

Bralston, however, was not prepared for the sight of him in the yellow, pitiless light.

‘Is your aim to inflict suffering, sir?’ A pair of hands, three fingers between them, splayed their fleshy stumps, hoisting up a great, tattooed bulk. ‘I lament your lateness, my friend.
Lament
it.’ He levelled a single eye at Bralston as the other one, a colourless mass surrounded by tiny lines of scar tissue, stared off into nothingness. ‘You see, kind sir …’

His smile was all the broader for the flesh that had been neatly sliced from the left side of his lip, baring dry, grey gum beneath a mass of scab. His grey hair was matted all the more from the dried crimson where his left ear had once been. His face all the more akin to a slab of flesh and sinew for the two gaping punctures where he had once bore a nose.

‘I’ve nothing left to feel it with.’

Bralston’s veneer of indifference cracked; he did not notice, did not care that the shock was plain on his face, the horror clear in his eyes. Rashodd’s black humour dropped, as though he were suddenly aware of the great joke and no longer found it funny. He shuffled backwards, back into the gloom, but Bralston’s mouth remained agape, his voice remained a whisper.

‘You …’ he said softly. ‘Someone …
spited
you?’

‘You’ve seen this before,’ Rashodd replied, gesturing to his face. ‘I somehow thought you might. You are … a Djaalman, yes?’

‘That’s … yes …’ Bralston said, struggling in vain to find his composure again. ‘During the riots, the Jackals … they spited people, spited everyone they could. There were …’ His eyes widened. ‘When did you meet a Jackal? Are they active outside of Cier’Djaal?’

‘Enough questions from your end, sir,’ Rashodd said, and Bralston did not challenge him. ‘You are an observant Djaalman, yes? Touched your eye in reverence for the Houndmistress. Lady most admirable, she was … culled the Jackals, restored the common man’s faith in the city.’

‘Until she was murdered,’ Bralston said. ‘Her husband and child likely dead, too.’

‘Likely?’

‘They disappeared.’

‘Disappeared, sir? Or fled?’

‘What do you mean?’ Bralston’s eyes flared to crimson light. ‘What do you know?’ He stepped forward brashly at Rashodd’s silence, scowl burning without care. ‘Her murder started the riots, killed over a
thousand
people.
What do you know?
’

‘Only what I’ve read, sir,’ Rashodd said, ‘only what I’ve seen, sir.’ His vigour left him with every whispered word. ‘I have heard rumours, descriptions … her husband …’

‘A Sainite,’ Bralston replied. ‘I met him, when the Houndmistress formalised relations with the Karnerians. Tall man, red hair, dark eyes.’ He stared intently at the Cragsman. ‘You … have you seen him?’

‘Seen him …’ Rashodd repeated. ‘Yes. I saw him …’

He ran a ruined hand over a ruined face.

‘And I didn’t scream.’

Before the Librarian had even set foot upon the docks, Argaol could sense the man’s presence. An invisible tremor swept across the modest harbour of Port Yonder, sending tiny ripples across the water, dock cats fleeing and the various sailors and fishermen cringing as though struck.

They parted before the wizard like a tide of tanned flesh, none eager to get in his way as he moved toward the captain with rigid, deliberate movements and locked a cold, relentless gaze upon him.

‘What happened?’ Argaol asked, questioning the wisdom of such an action.

‘Many things,’ Bralston replied. ‘Ktamgi. How far is it?’

‘What?’

‘I am unfamiliar with the lay of this area. Enlighten me.’

‘You’re looking for the adventurers?’ Argaol shook his head. ‘They went that way, but if they survived, they’d be at Teji by now.’

‘And how far from Ktamgi is that?’

‘A day’s travel by ship,’ Argaol said. ‘My crew is already in the city, but I can have the
Riptide
up and ready to go by then if you need—’

‘I do,’ Bralston said. He purposefully shoved the man aside as he strode to the end of the docks. ‘But I don’t have that long.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Leaving.’

‘What? Why? What happened?’

‘That information is the concern of the Venarium alone.’

‘And what am I supposed to tell the Lord Emissary?’ Argaol demanded hotly. ‘He instructed me to help you!’

‘And you have. Whatever you do next is the concern of anyone
but
the Venarium.’ He adjusted his broad-brimmed hat upon his head, pulled his cloak a little tighter about his body. He glanced at Argaol briefly. ‘Captain.’

Before Argaol could even ask, the wizard’s coat twitched, the air ripped apart as its leather twisted in the blink of an eye. A pair of great, birdlike wings spread out behind Bralston, sending Argaol tumbling to the dock, and he left with as little fanfare as a man with a winged coat could manage, leaping off the edge and taking flight, soaring high over the harbour before any sailor or fisherman could even think to curse.

Something was happening outside, Rashodd could tell. People were excited, shouting, pointing at the sky. He could not see beyond the thick walls of his cell. He could not hear above the nearby roar of the ocean slamming against the cliffs below. But he knew all the same, because he knew the wizard would act.

‘Just as you said he would …’ he whispered to the darkness.

‘
Those without faith are convinced of their righteousness
,’ a pair of voices whispered back from a place far below. ‘
Faith is purpose. To admit a lack of purpose is to admit that they possess no place in this world. Understand this and the faithless become beasts to be trained and commanded
.’

‘It is with a fond lamentation that I make audible that which stirs in my mind,’ Rashodd sighed, ‘but speaking as a man with only time and darkness to his name, I cannot help but wonder if you’re capable of making a point without a religious speech to accompany.’

‘
The point lay in the speech
,’ the voices replied. ‘
You are no beast, Rashodd. Not a beast, but a prisoner, and not much longer
.’

‘So you say,’ Rashodd growled. ‘Of course, and it is with no undue distaste that I point this out, I am only a prisoner because you failed to live up to your end of our prior bargain.’

‘
Lamentable
,’ the voices said. ‘
But your presence here serves our purpose further. You shall be free
.’

‘The door is scarcely more than sticks bound with twine,’ Rashodd replied. ‘I can be free as soon as I wish to strangle the boy outside. I remain only on your promises.’ His voice became a throaty snarl. ‘In days of darkness, though, I must confess I find them less than illuminating.’

‘
And yet, your faith compels you to stay
.’

‘For a time longer.’

‘
We find our own faith in the Mouth falters. The praises we heap upon him are no longer enough to compel his service. He wavers. He wanes
.’

‘And you wish my service,’ Rashodd whispered. ‘You wish me to free this … Daga-Mer.’

‘
For Mother Deep to find her way, the Father must also find his
.’

‘And if I do …’

‘
We grant you what you wish
.’

Rashodd’s thick fingers, what remained of them, ran across his face. No matter how many times he did it, no matter how many times he knew they wouldn’t be there, he continued to anticipate pieces of himself still in their proper place: a nose, an eye, part of his lip. And no matter how many times his fingers caressed jagged rents where those parts were missing, his rage continued to grow.

‘My face …’ he whispered.

‘
We can return it
.’

‘My fingers …’

‘
We can bring them back
.’

He stared down at his hand. He could still feel the kiss of steel, the dagger’s tongue that had taken his digits. He could still see the hand that had held it. He could hear the voice that had told him not to scream. He could remember the tall man, the felon clad in black with the tears in his eyes.

‘My revenge …’ he whispered hoarsely.

With a melodic laughter, the Deepshriek replied.

‘
It will be yours
.’

T
he water is cold today
.

Lenk let that thought linger as he let his hand linger in the rush of the stream. Between the clear surface and the bed of yellow pebbles below, he could see the legged eels, their vast and vacant eyes staring out from either side of their gaping mouths as stubby, pinlike legs clung to rocks and streamweeds to resist the current.

He mimicked their expression, staring blankly into the water as he waited for a reply to bubble up inside his mind. He did not wait long.

‘
Mm
.’

The Steadbrook was never this cold
.

‘
You remember that?
’

It was what the village was named for. It powered the mill that ground the grain. It was the heart of the village. My grandfather told me
.

‘
Memories are returning. This is good
.’

Is it?

‘
Should it not be?
’

You never seemed concerned with that before
.

‘
You never spoke back before
.’

Do you suppose there’ll be more?

‘
More what?
’

Memories
.

He waited, listening patiently for an answer. All that responded was the stream, burbling aimlessly over the rocks. He furrowed his brow and frowned.

Are you still there?

The sun felt warm on his brow, uncomfortably so. Someone, somewhere else, muttered something.

‘
Memories
,’ it replied with a sudden chill, ‘
are a reminder of what was never meant to be
.’

He blinked. Behind his eyes, shadows danced amidst flames in a wild, gyrating torture of consumption. Against a pale and pitiless moon, a mill’s many limbs turned slowly, raising a burning appendage pleadingly to the sky before lowering it, ignored and dejected. And at its wooden, smouldering base, bodies lay facedown, hands reaching out toward a warm brook.

‘
Remember
,’ the voice said with such severity to make Lenk wince, ‘
why we do not need them
.’

‘No,’ he whimpered.

‘Well,
fine
,’ someone said beside him. ‘Refuse if you want, but you don’t have to look so agonised at the suggestion.’

He opened his eyes, glowered at the stream and the quivering reflection of a stubble-caked face staring down at him.

‘If I’m looking pained,’ he said harshly, ‘it’s because you’re talking.’

‘Feel free to leave. I don’t recall inviting you here, anyway.’

Denaos was no longer one singular voice, not so easy to ignore as he had once been. Rather, every noise that emanated from him was now a chorus: complaint followed by a loud slurping sound, an uncouth belch as punctuation and the sound of half a hollowed-out gourd landing in a growing pile of hollowed-out gourd halves to serve as pause between complaints.

He looked down at the young man and grinned, licking up the droplets soaked in his stubbled lip.

‘They can’t figure out the concept of clothing that keeps one’s stones from swaying in the breeze, but they can make some fine liquor.’ He held out the fruit-made-cup to Lenk. ‘You’re
sure
you don’t want any?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know what it is,’ Lenk replied, rising up.

‘Drinking irresponsibly is a time-honoured tradition amongst my people.’

‘Humans?’

‘Drunks.’

‘Uh-huh. What’s it called?’

Denaos glanced to his left and cleared his throat. Squatting on stubby legs beside the stream, fishing pole in hand, the Owauku took one eye off of the lure bobbing in the water and rotated it slowly to regard the rogue with as much narrowed ire as one could manage with eyes the size of melons.

‘
Mangwo
,’ he grunted, slowly sliding his eye back to the bobber.

‘And … what’s it made of?’ Lenk asked.

‘Well, now …’ Denaos took a swig, swished it about thoughtfully in his mouth. ‘I’d say it’s fermented something, blended with the finest I-don’t-want-to-know and aged for exactly who-gives-a-damn-you-stupid-tit.’ He smacked his lips. ‘Delicious.’

‘I suppose I should be pleased you’re making such good friends with the reptiles,’ Lenk said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Or do they just find your sliminess blends well with their own?’