SMOKE AND BLADES

by D Elias Jenkins

  The Vigilante just stared at Vagranz. His death rattle filtered through the mask.

  “People keep offering me money. Do I look poor and hungry?”

  Vagranz shook his head.

  “You look insane.”

  A noise that might have been a cynical laugh behind the mask.

  “I’m here to help you.”

  Vagranz furrowed his heavy brow.

  “Help me? Help me do what?”

  “Get better.”

  Vagranz’ eyes were darting about the room looking for an out.

  “Well I wish I was a better shot.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. Better.”

  “Better.”

  “Yes.”

  Vagranz felt his shoulder’s slump. He could smell his own death. It didn’t smell great.

  “Look you clearly have a grudge mister. Can you at least tell me what you think I’ve done? I got a lotta sins on my conscience. I need to know what one I’m going to my grave for.”

  “Count them.”

  “My sins?”

  “Mhmm.”

  Vagranz had begun to weep and now he could not control it. His voice came in gulps and sobs.

  “Bastard. I killed folks. I stole. Stole from old people couldn’t fight me off. I did so much. Now which one am I dying for you freak?”

  “It alright. You’ll be better soon.”

  Vagranz spat in the stranger’s face.

  “Get on with it then! You like toying with your food you bastard?”

  “Story first.”

  “What story?”

  “Your boss. Where is he?”

  Vagranz sniffed up some mucous and laughed.

  “You kidding? I can’t give him up. He’d do worse than you.”

  The Wraith lunged forward over his shoulder and stopped and inch from Vagranz’ face.

  “Alright! He’s hiding out in Fallen Willow. He made a deal with the Death-Heads.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “He promised them souls. Black market souls he’d smuggle in for them. Keep them well fed.”

  The Plague Doctor stood up and cocked his head at Vagranz.

  “Thank you.”

  The Wraith shot over his shoulder and covered Vagranz like a ragged blanket. The incessant whisper of knives moving in and out of him flowed under his breathless gasps. The Plague Doctor looked down impassively.

  “Take your medicine. All better.”

  11.

  THE VIGILANTE’S TALE PART 2

  Izabella Gaunt feigned listening to the boorish aristocrat’s anecdotes with the practiced efficiency of a politician’s spouse. She laughed at his jokes with carefully timed spontaneity, agreed with his every sentiment and touched his arm with the promise of lingering without actually doing it. There was no doubt about it, she was an immaculate spy.

  At first the pregnancy had annoyed and embarrassed her, thrown her off her game. She found herself becoming irritable and weepy at things her old self would have scoffed at. Izzy was blessed with natural beauty but regarded feminine wiles as nothing but a working tool in her profession. She scorned the ladies of Free Reign who relied on their gender as if it was a character trait. Izzy’s character had been earned in war zones and murky crime scenes. Her enviable physique, which in her mind the baby was currently turning to blubber, was the result of endless hours of swordplay and unarmed combat practice, not starvation and corsetry.

  She had prided herself on her pragmatism and cold efficiency, and never felt that her husband had to cut her any slack when they were operational. Recently she had found herself feeling a plethora of emotions and doubts that had never crossed her mind. She also noticed that John was more reluctant to put her in harm’s way than he used to be.

  It had bothered her at first, but with every week that went on it had bothered her less and less. She had started to love her new curves, relish her cravings and blush whenever John looked at her with protective eyes.

  She was scared of being a mother. Terrified.

  But with each passing day she was also excited and happier than she had been in years. They hadn’t planned it. There had been little room for such things in the lives of John and Izabella Gaunt. Yet now that nature had thrust it upon them they found themselves thinking less of less of risking their lives for the City of Illumination and more for the light she carried within her.

  She nodded and laughed gracefully at the Zalenian’s punchline.

  “Oh Lord Brevvit, you simply must visit Free Reign. Your wit will light the streamlines ever brighter.”

  Brevvit puffed his cigar smoke out into Izzy’s face as he guffawed. His breath smelled of fermenting sugar and stomach acid. Suddenly he pointed to the row of plinths covered with glass bell jars that lined the balcony.

  “Most of these exhibits have been found within the last six months. Our technomancers have retro-engineered some of them and are already developing prototypes. We hope for Zalenberg to be the new centre for such fusion of machine and sorcery as we usher in the next century. Perhaps we shall even rival Free Reign.”

  They walked outside into the night. The sounds of the reception faded as Brevvit led Izzy out along the long tiled walkway that jutted from the Prism Palace. Built on a natural protuberance of rock, it reached out into the night high above the city like the prow of a great ship. It stretched a hundred metres like a catwalk and terminated in a round platform. As Izzy got closer she saw that a transparent pyramid of crystal was built upon a rostrum. It was illuminated from within and sat there at the end of the protuberance like a crystal of sugar on a long spoon. Brevvit smiled at her and puffed his soggy cigar.

  “Mrs. Gaunt have you seen the pride of our city? The exhibition has been running all month at the museum of antiquities.”

  Izzy drew her fur stole around her. The night breeze raised gooseflesh on her bare arms. Again she blamed her condition for the diminished resilience.

  “Unfortunately the ambassador has kept me busy with administrative duties. Did you bring me out here to show me your greenhouse, Lord Brevvit? Is this where you grow your tomatoes?”

  Brevvit turned with an air of bruised pride which softened the instant Izzy gave him a coy wink.

  Brevvit flushed and chortled like a man unaccustomed to laughing, particularly at himself.

  “Madam, you mock me. You are very privileged. I allow almost no one into this inner sanctum of mine.”

  Izzy gave him the smallest curtsy.

  “Then I consider myself very privileged.”

  Brevvit reached into his overcoat pocket and took out a shard of duramite crystal. It was the mineral that had made Zalenberg its fortune and was one of the hardest substances known to man. Izzy ran a finger down the crystal pyramid.

  “Duramite also? I’ve never seen it so polished or clear.”

  Brevvit beamed.

  “It is almost ninety five percent free from impurities. Neither bullet, sword or sorcery could penetrate this little portable vault.”

  Izzy gave Brevvit a sly smile.

  “You aren’t planning to keep me in there are you?”

  Brevvit gave an unpleasantly lecherous laugh and waggled a fat finger at Izzy.

  “Now now Mrs. Gaunt, don’t tempt me.”

  He turned the key in the lock and the pyramid door swung open.

  “This, Izabella Gaunt, is the pride of our exhibition. A mysterious treasure of unparalleled beauty and value.”

  On a small dais in the middle of the pyramid sat an orb like a small black cannonball. It was housed in an ornate gold lattice. An egg of pure night in a golden nest.

  Izzy took a step closer and saw that it was not a solid mass at all but a transparent sphere housing a churning cloud of gloom. It was a blackness of untarnished perfection. As she leaned in closer she was struck that it was not dark like night, or shadow, or even the beady eye of a bird. It was the utter absence of light entirely. A hole cut into the world.

&nb
sp; Just looking at it made her dizzy.

  “I have never seen anything quite like it.”

  Brevvit took his cigar stub from his mouth and spread his hands wide.

  “I don’t believe anyone has. Our own thaumaturgists have been conducting experiments on it for weeks. It’s a completely enclosed mystery to them. Although bear in mind we don’t engage in sorcery the way your people do in Free Reign.”

  Izzy almost reached out to touch the orb but some deep instinct in her warned her against it.

  “Yet it’s clearly magical, Lord Brevvit. I am a mere civil servant and even I can see that. Is it safe?”

  Brevvit shrugged.

  “Seemingly so. The substance swirls and moves inside it but emanates nothing. The mages and empaths say they do not detect any sorcery in it. On the contrary they said something rather odd to me.”

  Izzy looked up at him.

  “Which was?”

  Brevvit took a breath and held up his hand as if about to explain something complicated to a child.

  “That it emanates literally nothing. It is a vacuum, a void in a bottle. It’s the complete absence of anything that is so…noticeable. As such it poses no danger. You can stand a little closer you know.”

  Izzy felt every warning signal in her brain ignite. She lived in Free Reign, the most sorcery soaked city in the world. Thaumaturgic springs were filtered up from deep beneath the earth and fed into an intricate network of transparent pipes that warmed and illuminated the city. The entire place positively reeked of sorcery and always had done. She knew how sorcery tingled at the back of the throat, how it rose hair like static electricity, how it stank of spent lightning.

  That was what was disturbing her about this artefact. Inside it swirled a maelstrom of clearly unnatural energy. Yet she felt absolutely nothing. Absence.

  “Have you asked Sir Skallen to contact the mages at Candlehill? Send an emissary to assist you with…it?”

  “I did. Your high councilor Crawl sent me a letter personally stating that he had researched such things and they were generally mere baubles, items of beauty with no significant purpose. But most definitely precursor in origin.”

  “You found this in your mines?”

  Brevvit tapped a tobacco stained fingernail on the sloping wall of the pyramid.

  “Yes, the crystal mines that provided the duramite that forged this very prism where we stand. Although work has been stopped during the excavation. You can imagine the trouble that is causing between the trade minister and the minister of culture.”

  Izzy tried not to look at the orb but it kept drawing her eye and each time she glanced at it her fear rose. She wanted to blame her raging, incubating body but she knew it was something more.

  “So it’s a precursor excavation? Doesn’t that automatically make it a joint venture so to speak? I thought almost every city had signed the Original Artefacts declaration.”

  “Oh we have. Although under clause thirty two paragraph seven of the agreement, that primarily covers artefacts of functional value so that we may share the technology. This, as I said, is a mere ornament.”

  Izzy glanced around her at the supremely armoured shell they stood in.

  “So why is it here in your impenetrable crystal greenhouse?”

  Brevvit straightened as if about to give his speech.

  “It is on display in order to demonstrate to the emissaries that have arrived from each nation that we are open and transparent about our discoveries. As per the treaty. It was my idea to house the exhibition here. My intention was to raise awareness of the possible rich findings at the excavation site and encourage the offer of both funding and expertise from our cousin states. All my own idea of course.”

  Izzy felt her nerves rise. She had been putting this moment off but knew what she had to do.

  “Well you seem to have thought everything through to the last detail Lord Brevvit. You are quite an extraordinary man.”

  Brevvit puffed up and gave her a polite nod. He twirled his long moustache until it curled.

  “And you a unique and beautiful woman, Izabella. May I call you Izabella?”

  “I do allow my friends to call me that.”

  Brevvit seemed a little flustered as if he couldn’t believe his tactic was working.

  “Oh so I am a...well, I am flattered. Although I must ask, how did a woman clearly so well raised end up as the wife of a mere captain? You could have your pick of Generals, naval Admirals or even Cloud Commanders.”

  Izzy looked him in the eye for a long moment. Then she brushed some dandruff from his shoulder like a fussy aunt.

  “Your epaulettes, Lord Brevvit. What rank do they signify in Zalenberg?”

  “Why I am a brigadier general, madam. I command the entire Zalenberg light brigade.”

  Izzy gave him her most naive expression as she stared at him with wide eyes.

  “You must have led them into many battles. I bet you know each of your men by name. I bet you can recognize them by their scars.”

  Brevvit chewed his lip and rolled his eyes in mock abashment.

  “Well I…I could perhaps pick out one or two of the more decorated men...it’s often more of a ceremonial role…I am there to inspire the men more than lead them directly into battle.”

  “Someone for them to look up to.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Like a noble mascot.”

  Brevvit glanced behind him down the long walkway. The guests had not yet begun to filter out for his address and he slicked his hair down with a clammy palm.

  “Izabella. If I may be so bold, if you were to stay here in Zalenberg for a time, as our official advisor from Free Reign. A conduit to those difficult to reach magi of yours. I would regard it as a personal favour.”

  Izzy playfully slapped him on his flaccid arm.

  “Oh Lord Brevvit, I think you’ve engineered this entire tour, showing off your shiniest big baubles and offering me this vista of your beautiful city, just to attempt to seduce me.”

  Brevvit drew close and Izzy could smell his boozy sweat.

  “Is it so obvious? I have admired you from afar since your delegation arrived.”

  “My husband can be a terribly jealous man. And he is away so often with the army. It does get very lonely for a woman.”

  Brevvit’s eyes hardened and he jutted his chins.

  “I am not afraid of your husband Izabella. We military men have a way of smoothing these things out. Besides, he will naturally defer to my superior rank.”

  Izzy feigned a swoon.

  “How could he not? And your natural authority.”

  “May I kiss you?”

  Izzy looked around her and saw the distant rectangle of light that led back into the soiree and safety from this man. For a moment her guise slipped and she could barely conceal her revulsion. Then she resumed character and gave him a tight lipped smile.

  You’ve done worse with worse for the service, girl. Think about the job.

  “Why not.”

  Brevvit smoothed down his moustache and leaned awkwardly in towards Izzy. She placed a finger on his lips and he hovered there like a buffoon.

  “I’m not just another one of your conquests am I?”

  “No Izabella, you shall be my greatest triumph, and most treasured possession.”

  “Your possession. In your little greenhouse. How romantic.”

  Izzy compartmentalized her brain as the fat fraudulent warrior kissed her. She ignored the probing of his dry tobacco tongue, the slippery rubber feel of his wet lips and the shameless hardening in his trousers. She set her body to automatic, making small appreciative whimpers as her hand slipped into his pocket and swapped his crystal key with the one she had carried concealed in the fox fur stole draped across her shoulders.

  Her task complete, Izzy broke away with blushing cheeks.

  “This is all too soon, Lord Brevvit. The feelings overwhelm me.”

  Brevvit was breathing heavy, his ruddy cheeks flush
ing bright.

  “They overwhelm me too. Meet me in my chambers tonight. I will send a messenger for you on some pretense.”

  Izzy smiled at him and stroked his unearned medals.

  “You are such a rogue, Lord Brevvit. Let me return to my husband for now. Besides, you have a speech to give. I can distract you no longer.”

  Brevvit’s brow furrowed and he gave a nervous belch.

  “Yes, Indeed. In a few minutes by my timepiece. Return to your husband, Izabella. I will remain here and conduct a last minute consultation of my notes. I must confess to nerves at public speaking.”

  Izzy walked to the door and smiled back at him.

  “Remember, Lord Brevvit. You’re an inspiration to your men. How could you do anything other than command the room?”

  Brevvit belched nervously again and smoothed down his uniform. He took a sheaf of papers from his jacket and began to mumble to himself, gesticulating to an imagined audience all the while.

  Gaunt felt warm breath at his cheek and caught the honey scent of his wife’s perfume. She whispered in his ear.

  “Hello lover.”

  He turned and kissed her cheek.

  “Where’s Brevvit? Was he gentle?”

  Izzy gave him a sly grin.

  “He was dynamic yet caring. It took every ounce of my training not to vomit in his mouth. He’s currently filling his crystal prism with nervous farts.”

  Gaunt trusted his wife with his life and the fate of their city, but it still took every ounce of his training to tolerate her kissing that disgusting pompous fake. He swallowed his protectiveness and winked.

  “Well I was going to be the one to volunteer to seduce him, but he wouldn’t have survived the encounter.”

  They walked together amongst the guests, sipping wine and appearing as casual as they could. On the bandstand, the string orchestra had started up again and a few of the merrier guests had taken to the dance floor.

  “Did you get it?”

  Izzy smoothed down her voluminous ball gown.

  “I’m currently sporting this year’s summer bunched silk collection from New Reign’s finest designers in powder blue, replete with a stolen crystal key to a vault housing a city-destroying device of terrifying thaumaturgic power. I think that may technically been an act of war.”