by A. C. Cobble
“A private placement, I’m afraid,” he said. “Four hundred silver sterling is the reserve price. I cannot sell these for less. Authentic weapons from the Darklands and blessed by the spirits! These blades are unique in Enhover, ladies and gentlemen. They are—” The man bit off his statement, as if he’d been about to claim they were truly supernatural, unlike the other auctioned goods. Instead, he merely added, “They are worth every coin. Four hundred silver sterling, who will purchase these fine daggers?”
No one did.
The rest of the auction passed quickly. The auctioneer appeared peeved he wouldn’t receive a rich commission from selling the daggers, and the crowd appeared suspicious that the one offering of true value hadn’t sold.
Thotham, desperately interested in the daggers, didn’t have four hundred silver sterling. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure he’d bid. Someone had found the blades and seemed to know their value, even if the rest of the attendees did not. It could have been a churchman, a man like himself, who’d been trained to oppose sorcery, but what if it wasn’t? As much as he wanted to collect the two inscribed blades, he also wanted to figure out how they’d gotten there.
Crouched in a dark corner of Barnaby House’s clerks’ room, Thotham shifted silently as the door swung open, golden light spilling across the opposite half of the space.
“Viscount or not,” growled a voice, “if that man had put his hand on my shoulder one more time, I would have slapped it off. Spirits be damned if he would have challenged me to a duel. I’m not some naive laundry woman tolerant of his groping!”
“I don’t think that’s how he meant it, sir,” mumbled another voice.
Thotham saw two cloaked shapes stride into the room, the first tearing off a silk mask and cloak, revealing the full face of the auctioneer. The second was burdened with a stack of small boxes and crates in his hands. Staggering into the room, he deposited the load onto one of the clerk’s desks and stood, straightening his back.
Glaring at the pile, the auctioneer groused, “A fifth of the lot did not sell. A fifth of the lot!”
“That’s not bad, sir,” stammered the assistant.
“It’s not bad for artwork, repossessed properties, and mercantile goods,” snarled the auctioneer. “It’s a miserly result for items of the occult. The fools out there tonight will buy anything that they haven’t seen before. If it looks like it’s been within one hundred leagues of the Darklands, they’ll spill the silver from their purses. More wealth than sense, all of them. It was those damned daggers. I should have saved them for the last. Perhaps with only a final chance to ride home with a purchase, someone would have bid. And if they didn’t, at least it wouldn’t have ruined the mood for the rest of the evening.”
“Had they bid, it would have set the bar for the rest of the lot, sir,” protested the assistant. “We would have fetched twice what we did on the remaining items.”
“Would have, but we didn’t,” snapped the auctioneer. “No one bid, and the evening was a failure. More failures like this, and the occult trade will move elsewhere. We’ll be back to selling tallow to the chandlers and soapers.”
“Where else would they go, sir?” complained the assistant. “I know our wares aren’t as… as authentic as they once were, but none of the other dealers in Westundon can offer better! The market is expended. There’s no more supply of this stuff. The true relics are all in private hands, if there ever were any.”
“They’ll find somewhere to go, mark my words,” growled the auctioneer. He stalked to the pile of unsold goods and set half the stack aside, opening a box and staring inside.
The daggers. Thotham recognized the simple wooden case they’d been displayed in.
“Four hundred sterling, what was the man thinking?” complained the auctioneer, his voice quiet, his demeanor resigned. “At half that, I think they could have sold. From the Darklands, used in ritual there, he’d told me. If true, they’re worth a hundred a piece. Maybe more. Without proof though, without his testimony about how he found them, they had no chance at moving at his price. Items like this require a story behind them, something to excite the mind. Everyone’s heard the one about finding a mysterious object tucked away in some Southlands’ market. I told him that. I knew he should have been here, to tell them in person how he’d recovered the blades. Even if it wasn’t true, that would have given these a chance of selling.”
“You did tell him,” agreed the assistant.
The auctioneer stayed still, his gaze fixed on the daggers inside of the box.
“Shall I put them back in the vault, sir?” asked the assistant. “Or do you think he’ll be by tomorrow to pick them up?”
“I don’t know,” responded the auctioneer. “He left instructions where I could send a bank draft after selling the blades, but when I claimed they would not move at his price, he merely waved his hand at me. He said he was certain that by dawn, the daggers would have new owners. The man was so insistent, I’m afraid I didn’t get clearer instructions. We’re to send the banker’s draft on a freighter to the Southlands. Shall I do the same with the weapons themselves? Shall we hold them here? I do not know. A courier to carry them securely so far is a richer fee than I care to spend. Truth, I didn’t even catch the man’s name.”
The assistant scratched his head.
Thotham, frowning, rose slowly. Goldthwaite had been certain the daggers would be at auction before they’d even arrived in the city. Then, a mysterious figure dropped them off knowing they’d find a new owner but leaving no clear instructions on how he was to be compensated. Was the new owner meant to be Thotham, or was another party poised to rob Barnaby House and take what they could not buy?
“Let’s put them in the vault,” said the auctioneer to his assistant. “I won’t risk shipping such valuable merchandise without a known address, and we can’t very well leave them out here for the clerks to find.”
“Understood, sir,” murmured the assistant.
As he stooped to collect the stack of boxes, Thotham cleared his throat.
Both members of Barnaby House jumped in surprise.
“I will be taking those daggers,” advised Thotham. “I would pay you, but I confess, I cannot afford your prices. If it’s any consolation, I am certain that the man who left him here will not inquire about his missing funds.”
The auctioneer, regaining his calm before the assistant, placed fists on his hips and peered into the darkness at Thotham. “How did you get in here? Did you come from downstairs? If so, you ought to have bid on the blades when I offered them. Now, I’m afraid, I must have the guards toss you out on the stoop.”
Thotham stepped closer. “Those blades are inscribed with true patterns. They are a violation of Church law, and those mandates have been adopted by Enhover’s king. I have the authority, and it is my duty, to confiscate those daggers.”
The auctioneer snorted. “And who are you, then?”
“I’m a churchman,” said Thotham. “One who specializes in items of this nature. Please, hand the daggers over peacefully, and we can begin discussing the auction you held this evening, and whether the other items offered were also illegal.”
“If the Church wants these daggers, they can pay them for them like anyone else,” snapped the auctioneer.
“That’s not how we do things,” remarked Thotham coolly.
“Go fetch the guards,” the auctioneer instructed his assistant.
“Do not,” warned Thotham. “Do not, or I will have to end this conversation badly.”
The assistant glanced between Thotham and his master, then moving quickly, he started toward the door.
Thotham launched himself at the two men, bunching his fingers into a tight point and stabbing them into the auctioneer’s throat. The man’s startled cry was quickly transformed into a pained warble as his throat was crushed beneath the blow. The assistant, not thinking quickly enough to shout, was caught two steps from the door. Thotham sprang onto the man’s back, wrapping an a
rm around the hapless assistant’s neck, hugging him tight.
Flailing and kicking, the assistant was throttled to death while his stunned master watched, struggling for his own breath. The auctioneer, his windpipe smashed from Thotham’s strike, fell to his knees, wheezing painfully, his hands clutching ineffectually at his throat. In moments, both men suffocated and died.
Thotham let the assistant drop to the floor beside his master.
Walking around the dead men, Thotham went to the box and picked up the two sinuous kris daggers. They were heavy, built for combat, not ritual. The weapons seemed to sing in his hands. Not cursed, he felt with relief, but imbued with purpose. Sturdy, well-balanced, and razor-sharp. The patterns he’d observed before were distinct, well-marked. The daggers were weapons worthy of being welded by a Knife, even if the Knife was not yet worthy of them.
She would be, he knew. Samantha would be. He’d seen it in his prophesy, and Goldthwaite had as much as confirmed it. The seer wouldn’t have sent him there with instructions to retrieve the blades unless she’d foreseen Samantha using them. Samantha was the answer to the darkness he knew was coming, and these were the blades she would use to stand before it.
He hid the weapons within his robes and stepped over the corpses of the auctioneer and the assistant. His thoughts had already moved on from the dead men. They were on the other side of the barrier now. Instead, he thought of Samantha, and what he must do, how he must prepare her for what was to come. A dark path she would walk, and the two bodies were just the first markers on the way.
3
The Acolyte: a Short Story
“Life! Death! Where in that is Man?” shouted the priest, the boom of his voice surprising, coming from his thin, skeletal frame. “The commons say trust in the spirits. The peers demand we trust in their governance. The merchants tell us to have faith in their shinning silver coins and the pungent spices they bring to our harbors, but I ask you, where in that is Man?”
Timothy Adriance shifted on the hard, wooden bench, reaching up to brush a lock of copper-red hair from his eyes. He thought the man would be better off asking where were the cushions.
“I will tell you where Man is, Man is in the Church!” thundered the priest, smacking a fist into an open hand.
Timothy glanced around at the two dozen other acolytes that were scattered amongst the pews, conscripted as an audience for the orators to practice their sermons. The bald-headed, sinewy man declaiming from the pulpit was older than most of them. He’d come late into the Church’s hard embrace. Only imaginative speculation about the speaker’s background was keeping Timothy awake. Had the older man struggled through the ranks of the acolytes? Had he lived an adventurous life outside of the Church walls before becoming one of her children?
Timothy covered his mouth with a fist and tried to stifle a yawn. Five, six hours now, sermon after sermon. The orators were being evaluated by their mentors. Those who shared the Church’s message most effectively would be sent out and tasked with convincing the commons that the Church offered their salvation and the peers that the Church deserved their tithes.
“Upon the Church’s golden circle, Man rides through both life and death. The spirits are merely witness to our triumph!” shouted the priest, flecks of spittle flying from his lips, evidently trying to earn a position solely by the volume of his exhortation. “Man, the beginning and the end, our own means to victory. Turning on the wheel, Man is immortal. We are immortal! Stand with me brothers, as we celebrate the ascendance of Man!”
Timothy’s yawn could not be contained. It cracked his jaws. He kept his hand tight over his mouth, lest his own mentor at the back of the room see his boredom.
“Stand with me!” cried the orator. “Stand!”
No one stood. The speakers had been at it for six hours, and any enthusiasm the audience had at the start of the day was now ground to nothing, like a soul beneath the wheel.
“Man, we are on the cusp of rising to prominence, towering above the spirits, the merchants, and the peers!” wailed the priest. “Man is immortal, and through the apparatus of the Church, Man shall rule all! Stand with me, brothers!”
“He’s flubbed it,” muttered the acolyte to Timothy’s side, putting a sharp elbow into Timothy’s ribs. “Last we’ll see of him up there.”
Timothy nodded back.
The Church, whether or not it was on the rise to prominence, did not benefit from declaring itself master of the merchants and the peers. The largesse of those groups funded the extravagant edifices the Church built, after all. The tithes the peers shared bought the priests’ cassocks, their food, their wine, and the gold beat into the massive circle hanging at the front of the sanctuary. The wealthy supported the Church so that the Church could keep the commons distracted. The commons were taxed to keep the institutions of government and peerage operating. It was a symbiotic circle, much like the wheel that spun through life and death, and there was no top to a circle. There was no apex one could rest upon comfortably, not while enmeshed in the apparatus of the Church, at least. Some members of the Church understood that, their natural place upon the wheel, and others did not. The Church had no place for actual zealots in her priesthood.
A barked shout from the back of the room stopped the orator mid-sentence. He was thanked for his performance, and the next man was called to deliver the sermon he’d spent the last several months practicing.
Timothy shifted, trying to find some relief for his sore backside, wondering what sick bastard had decided the priests needed an audience for their endless rounds of sermons. Was it the same man who’d decided the acolytes were the ideal candidates to listen, or had that decision come after someone suffered through a similar day and decided to push the responsibility elsewhere?
“Acolyte Adriance.”
He looked up to see Priest Gabriel Yates standing in front of his table. He hadn’t heard the big man’s approach, so engrossed in the tome in front of him that he’d blocked out the rest of the world. It was the way he preferred it since he’d been placed in the Church’s creche three years prior.
“Are you reading that?” questioned Yates.
Timothy blinked back at the older priest, glanced down at the open book in front of him, and replied slowly, “Some of it.”
“You can read ancient Darklands script?” pressed the priest.
“A few words here are there,” admitted Timothy. “I’ve been picking up more, trying to tease out some meaning from—”
“There are only a dozen scholars within the Church that can read those words,” stated Yates, bending forward to look at the book. “Do you know what this book is about?”
“I…”
“You do, then?” queried Yates, a sly, cat-like smile on his fat lips. “Where did you get it?”
“I know it’s from the restricted section, sir, but Priest Myles granted me permission to read it,” said Timothy, speaking quickly. “He spoke to the librarian and they let me have this one, sir, to practice my reading. As you say, there are not many texts—”
“And how did you convince Priest Myles you should be allowed to read this book, that you should be encouraged to learn this script?” wondered Yates.
“He knows of my interest in, ah, battling the creep of the dark arts, sir.”
Yates nodded, the pair of chins hanging around his neck wobbling with the motion. “You want to be a Knife of the Council, then? One of those sharp blades that strikes from behind and serves the Church by spilling blood?”
Timothy blanched. “I just… I think that…”
“Have you ever killed someone, Adriance?” demanded Yates. “Have you ever watched the life flee from their eyes, knowing you were the one who caused that panic and pain? Have you ever cut a man, broken their bones, seriously hurt someone? It’s not all—”
The priest stopped speaking, his beady eyes fixed on the acolyte.
Swallowing, Timothy tried not to look away.
Gabriel Yates, the most prominent schol
ar in the Church’s window-less library, had the sway to bar others from the restricted section, if he desired. The librarians, always loathe to become involved in Church politics, steered wide of the rising-star, and not just because of his bulk. Yates was brilliant when it came to deciphering the hidden trinkets of knowledge buried within an ancient manuscript, but he was vengeful to those who didn’t show him the proper obeisance. A personality relic, Timothy had heard, from when Yates was relentlessly bullied while in the creche. Now, he used the little power he’d obtained to share his pain with those junior to him. At least while in the depths of the library, away from the prying eyes of the Church leaders, he did. Feeling a bead of sweat roll down his back, Timothy remained silent, not wanting to anger the bigger man.
“You have hurt someone, haven’t you?”
“I… once,” whispered Timothy.
“And you enjoyed it?” wondered Yates.
“No, sir, I did not. It was… it was necessary. It was a good thing,” mumbled the acolyte, finally losing the battle and looking down at his book, unable to hold Yates’ gaze.
“Hurting is necessary and good, sometimes,” agreed Yates. “Will you tell me, Adriance, if you learn anything from this book? It is one I have not read myself. Too dry, I suspect, just a recounting of the Darklands’ endless, stagnant history. That’s probably why Priest Myles allowed you to handle it. But if it is not just a tedium, I want to know.”
“Of course, sir,” replied Timothy, looking back up. “You’ll be the first I tell.”
“The only one you tell,” suggested Yates, smiling his oily smile.
“The only one,” confirmed Timothy, nodding quickly. Yates turned, and Timothy blurted, “Is that why you came to find me, sir?”
Looking back slowly, Yates shook his head. “No, acolyte. The book distracted me. I came to ask you a favor.”
“A favor?”
