Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  It was a sight both wondrous and repulsive. The shadows set upon themselves like rabid dogs, claws ripping bits and pieces, progressing into chunks and limbs and organs. Shayna heard a sudden splat by her boot and looked down to see an erstwhile patch of what was an eye socket, with the eye squirming in fear. Shayna watched as the eye stretch at the ends, clinging to the rock and dust with millions of tiny hands growing from the edges. There was no mouth, but Shayna swore she heard a scream as the piece of flesh was dragged back to the shifting, pulsing mound of shadow.

  The mound wasn’t content to remain such, though. Bubbles of black ooze surged and popped all over the shadow’s body. Faces slack with disbelief breasted the churning flesh and drowned with silent screams. Limbs shot from the mound, quivering as they took form, to fight back against the screaming, against the howling chaos that sought to take it. Arms and legs first, slimming amidst a torrent of falling blobs. The chest sculpted itself into a chiseled torso no woman could resist. A head next, with the black ooze flowing back into the ears even as the face took shape. The eyes were bits of icy obsidian, no different from the flesh, and yet Mykel detected the same exultation that flared with his earlier defiance.

  “SHE’S TRYING TO TRICK YOU. STAY AWAY. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. NO, STOP!” The Myrrh screeched in horror as the shadow morphed into a torrent of glittering ebony that expanded to swallow him whole. In the space of seconds, the demon was consumed, with only bits of glowing gold bits in the shadow’s eyes to mark his former existence. Shayna matched the gaze of the creature she’d helped to create and felt a twinge of fear. This will work. She hoped. The hunger in the shadow’s eyes, the arrogant curves of its smile, was beyond the obvious. If her theory didn’t prove true...

  The shadow took a step forward...and in that step screamed as jagged golden veins cut their way across the ebony flesh, causing tremors that yanked the shadow in all directions. Shayna cringed at the explosion of black slime, vaporizing into a dazzling array of golden sparks. Like the faulty materials of a common-born shiisaa, the combined power was too much for the Myrrh to contain. The manna destroyed its host.

  Not enough, thankfully. Shayna speared the head before it could dissolve. As she gazed upon it, the demon’s words came back at her. We are not allowed to harm each other directly. So, she sends a cat’s paw to do the chore instead. The very thought boiled Shayna’s blood. Focus, thought the Companion. The woman sounded like she played in both camps. A person balancing so many games was bound to lose sooner or later. She would destroy herself without Shayna’s help.

  Keeping the head at arm’s length, Shayna spun on her heel and started her way out of this miserable place.

  “A beautiful girl, isn’t she?”

  Mykel maintained his silence.

  “You are a lucky boy, to have a girl leap so readily to your defense.”

  Mykel didn’t answer, save to test his bonds again. He sat with his back to the wall, no chains or anything. Nothing physical, at least. No matter how he struggled, his body failed to move. Magic, of course. This Aeon was full of surprises. The only victory he had was his silence. And that victory was fleeting.

  “Your relationship is rare. Most men I know would balk at this. To be saved by a woman. Most men would find this reversal so...taxing.”

  Finally, his resolve snapped. “I’m not like most men.” Mykel said. “I don’t care if I’m the captured. I have gone beyond those feelings.”

  “Hm? Perhaps that it because the task is merited by physical strength. You’ve lived with your weakness for so long it’s become second nature. There is no threat to masculinity where there is none to be found. But what about intelligence? That is, as they say, your bread and butter. It’s all you ever had. You’ve used it to tip the scales in your favor.”

  “Tip the scales of what?”

  “The world. You look at humanity and take solace in the fact that your mind is greater than theirs. A silly delusion when you keep that world at arm’s length.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I? That girl isn’t a simple chambermaid. She’s a Companion, trained in the mind as well as the body. She’s been raised to meet with top-class scholars and kings. And you tell me that when she out-thinks you, you will not be jealous.”

  “I won’t be jealous.”

  “We’ll have to pick this up later. She’s coming.”

  Shayna came into the corridor, something wet and black spiked on the sword-tip. “Here.” She flicked the blade and the head rolled to Aeon’s feet. “You got your damn prize.”

  “That I have.” Droplets of the still-steaming gunk floated up with the din of twisted wind chimes, collected and gathered together on her ring finger. When the droplets of its grease were gone, pieces of pale-white flesh came next, like a jigsaw puzzle in reverse.

  And yet there was life left in the strange ritual. The last drop struggled in mid-air; stretching in length to form a rod. Mykel caught a flicker of movement, and closer inspection he saw the impressions of tiny fingers clawing and tearing from the gooey black, as if trying to escape its end.

  “Silly thing,” Aeon said. Her brow sharpened, and her eyes smoldered. “No one escapes me.”

  The rod reversed its length, bit by terrifying bit, back into a drop that keened with soul’s despair, merging with the rest into an intricate black ring. There was one final struggle, and then the un-life closed as the drop solidified.

  “You have done me a great service,” Aeon said. “And the prize is yours.” Again the sensual smile, the promise of passion beyond mortal scope. “I’ll be watching you,” she promised, blowing a kiss. And then she was gone, as though she were never there.

  “Mykel!” Without Aeon, the magic’s bonds slackened. He intended to rise, but not halfway there he drooped as if his muscles hadn’t woken in hours. He rose with Shayna’s help, and a flash of Aeon’s words came back to him. Your weakness is second nature. Ruthlessly he banished the thought. I have evolved beyond those attitudes.

  “Now, I don’t know about you, but it’d like to get out of here.”

  “I agree.”

  They stepped back into the empty path, and the first thing they saw was a pair of horses. “How?” Shayna asked.

  “Aeon.” The woman and her bag of tricks. I’ll be watching you. “She must have spelled them into existence.” Mykel liked not being a pawn, most definitely in a game he wasn’t familiar with. She’s not done with us yet. Mykel saw his distaste mirrored in Shayna’s eyes. Games aplenty, with enough pawns to satisfy a millennium. Taking to their horses the pair galloped into the night.

  LII

  Klis was exactly as Tolrep remembered it. A haven for foreign merchants, the “town” was a jigsaw puzzle of boats and rafts connected tenuously together by various lengths of rope, with each ship ridiculously larger than the next.

  He couldn’t believe how much had changed, and how much remained the same. The heart of the town was a twenty-eight hundred-foot-long battleship. In happier times, it bore the name Swift; now it was the Iron Hammer. Tolrep almost grunted at the wiry man rising from the captain’s cabin but turned away too late. “Mathias? Mathias, is that you?”

  Damn it. Tolrep put on his best smile. “Hedges. Who did you have to kill to be captain?”

  A donkey’s laugh erupted from the matchstick man. “Always the jester. I heard you got an Elemental ship. That you have some wizard blood in you. Not very trusting to your friends, keeping a secret like that.”

  It took Tolrep everything he had not to grit his teeth. How in the hell does the news spread so fast? “Are we to stand here, or are we to enjoy the Red Cider in your cabin?” Now it was the privateer’s turn to smile. There was a certain satisfaction in catching
people off guard.

  “You have a keen memory, Tolrep. I always said that.” An order was barked to the first mate, and then the pair descended into the cabin. A man twin to Hedges was sitting at a moderately-sized table, leafing through an ancient tome and tapping a four-note ditty into the wood. “Hodges. Look who’s here.”

  Hodges glanced at Tolrep, blinked, rubbed his glasses clean, blinked again. “Thought you were dead.”

  “I missed you too.” Flat and abrupt, the opposite of his brother. They’d been at odds since the cradle. Tolrep hated to admit it, but their dull, changeless manner was refreshing.

  “So.” Hedges said as he poured the first of three flagons. “What brings you to Klis?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Hodges asked tiredly. “He’s a Lazarus man, or so I hear. He’s looking for Thomas DeLuca.”

  Damn it to hell. Was nothing sacred in these times? He burned when the sudden silence perked his ears. “What? Sorry I didn’t catch that. I was thinking.”

  “Yeah. I bet you were.” Hodges’ voice tickled so close to laughter Tolrep entertained the idea of breaking the idiot’s nose. “Anyway, you don’t want DeLuca. He’s not the Silver Tongue anymore.”

  The Silver Tongue. The amazing negotiator who could plant himself between forces who fought for generations unknown at sunup and make them brothers by sundown. “What’s happened?”

  “You’ve been out of port too long, Tolrep.” Hodges grinned sardonically. “You’ll be finding him at the Laughing Rose.”

  “What’s happened?” Tolrep repeated.

  The twins exchanged glances. Not a good sign. “Let’s just say you need to see it for yourself.”

  Riddles to the end. Now Tolrep remembered why he hated these bastards. Offering a smile that was anything from polite, the privateer turned and left the twins to their gossip and books.

  The Laughing Rose was a new change to Klis, though the privateer was familiar with its history. Tolrep had known the inn as the Purple Twilight. Has it really been ten years? The flat roof, once perfect for couples wanting to enjoy time together, was converted into a small garden. Even the balcony was lined with roses. A product of the times, the dangerous rebirth of change.

  The interior remained more or less the same. It was still the same maze of tables, the same game of cat-and-mouse between the drunkards and the wenches. The dancer was new, as was the harper whose music she danced to. If one could call it dancing in the first place.

  The barkeeper was scrubbing the bar with an unhealthy passion. “I’m looking for Thomas DeLuca.” The gold coin disappeared a heartbeat after it landed on the bar. A jerk of the head and Tolrep left the man to his cleaning.

  The table at the end of the path was tucked away in a shadowed corner, with only a pair of tall candles for light. The flames added a reddish cast to the occupant, as if he was already one foot in hell. This was Thomas DeLuca? This was Thomas Of the Silver Tongue?

  The most glaring detail about DeLuca was his diminutive size. He was a dwarf. He had to sit atop a column of thick logs to peer over the table. His dirty brown hair was a tangle of sweat-soaked threads clinging the forehead, and the patchwork rags he wore stank like a dung heap on a hot summer’s day. Tolrep had to fight back the urge to gag just to sit opposite the man, and even then it was a challenge.

  “Wake up.” Nothing save for a snore that could rattle the dead.

  I was afraid it would come to this. It only took a few moments to bribe the barkeep for a flagon of salted wine. The privateer fought back a smile as he upended the flagon over the drunk’s face.

  DeLuca’s gasp went unheeded; it was not the first-time wine had been used in such a fashion. Tolrep sat opposite the cursing, growling drunk and waited until the thrashing spent its course. “DeLuca.”

  The drunkard didn’t hear. He was too busy hollering for a drink that went unheard; also not the first time such a demand was made. “DeLuca!” The privateer was tempted to shake the fool, but who knew what size of bedbugs would come out. “DeLuca!”

  “I told you...put it on my tab...don’t you know who I am?...I’m a private citizen. I’ll have you flogged...”

  Gods be damned. Tolrep’s fist cracked DeLuca’s nose like wet birchwood, fanning blood across the cheeks in the bargain. A serving wench with a worried face was waved away. Sometimes drastic wasn’t enough. Sometimes pain was the only way. “Are you awake now? Or do I have to rattle your teeth some more?”

  “I’m awake, dammit! Who the hell are you?”

  “Mathias Tolrep.”

  “Tolrep? Aren’t you the wizard captain?”

  How does everyone know this shit? “I am, yes.”

  “Good for you. But I’m not coming.”

  Here we go. “You don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “When someone resorts to violence as the beginning of a conversation, that man is desperate down to his toes. Especially when the violence is directed at me. I live here quietly. No one knows who I am. Yet you’re here, and you broke my nose. You need me for something.” DeLuca paused to belch before continuing. “Despite the peace treaty having already been signed.”

  Tolrep saw DeLuca in a new light. He could almost respect this sodden little lump of a man. Almost. “Your kingdom needs you, Thomas Of the Silver Tongue.”

  DeLuca hunched over, balling like a newborn in the womb. His eyes peered into a wine cup he didn’t really see. When he spoke, his words were softer than the wind. “No one’s called me that in years.” Another long gulp and the cup was an inch emptier. “I was hoping everybody would forget it and disappear.”

  “Stupid notion. There are textbooks about you. There are schools named after you. You can’t erase your legacy.”

  “Oh, I think I can.” The cup lowered by another inch, this time; a rap of knuckles on the table for the next shot and finished it because the coin had time to clink on the table. “Did they tell you why I retired?”

  “You were kidnapped and tortured.” Tolrep looked at him sideways through narrowed eyes. “They say you turned onto the enemy side.”

  “You have no idea how close it came to that.” DeLuca squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “You hear of the Abbed Venear?”

  “Some farmers got it in their heads to storm Grogmin Fortress to protest that the tyrant Venear was extending his leadership role long after the situation resolved.” A simple equation. A far too common one. Some customs elected one man to wield king-level power in times of war when ordinary government would muddle the progression of ideas to the point of uselessness. That man – a tyrant – was supposed to relinquish that power when the war ended. Only some of them got a little too greedy. Such was the case with Venear.

  “That’s only half the story.” Again DeLuca’s eyes locked upon the wine cup, following the eddies and whirls of the ale swirling around the glass. The next words were flat and distant. “What the archives never told you was that the protesters were harried into a church under the guidance of a Shepherd Stephen. Stephen was a charming man. He had the ears of local magistrates from three counties. He and his church built a reputation of equality and divine providence.” DeLuca burst out with laughter that twisted into a hacking wheeze. “The fool. A man you can kill, and two more take his place. Kill a symbol, kill an ideal...it is to kill hope itself.”

  “You were the one who killed him.”

  “No. I was the one who advised the field commander to burn down his church.” DeLuca’s eyes quivered with the sudden memory. “No one told me Stephen was leading Mass. Twenty-two people dead. Sixteen of them children. Just like that.” DeLuca snapped his fingers. “I resigned the next day. It didn’t work. I still see them in the flames. Only this –” DeLuca swirled the
cup. “– keeps their faces away.”

  Tolrep grimaced. Sympathy flared within despite himself. “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Not my fault?” DeLuca roared. “I’m a negotiator! I don’t kill people!” His hands squeezed his face as to deny the sudden memory. “I thought without Stephen the rebellion would falter in its grief. I thought that negotiations would go more smoothly without him. I took an ideal man and tore him down to win. And I killed a few innocent people in the bargain. That’s why the King didn’t make me a fugitive.” His knuckles whitened around the wine cup, as if simple pressure could banish the memory.

  “You won’t find any answers in there,” Tolrep said, nodding at the cup.

  “Oh, but I think I can. Thanks for thinking of me, but you’ll just have to fight your own damn war.”

  Irritation stiffened every hair on the privateer’s head. The flicker of the fireplace at the far wall caught his eye before returning to DeLuca. It was a risky idea he had, but the drunken bastard left him no choice.

  The privateer grabbed DeLuca by the collar and the seat of his pants and marched towards the fireplace. DeLuca screamed obscenities that would make even the toughest sailor wince. No one lifted a finger to help; Tolrep didn’t know whatever to be grateful or disgusted.

  The privateer thrust the drunkard’s face so close to the fireplace his eyes twitched from the merciless heat. “You say you see the faces of the dead in the flame? Try picturing the ones who will die if the treaty falls apart! Try picturing the mothers and the fathers when they hear their children are dead! You have the power to save so many lives, and you’re throwing it all away because of one failure! Damn it, man!” DeLuca made an audible thump on the wooden floor. “Go back to feeling sorry for yourself. I guess that’s what you do best, now.” The privateer turned and marched towards the saloon doors.