Mindripper

by Baron Blackwell

  “What happened was my fault. Mine. And mine alone.” Anad slammed a liver-spotted fist against the table and carried on in a croaking voice. “We used to be a family of means and status. I was a doctor before my wife died. A doct—”

  The man inhaled a lungful of azure smoke from his pipe. And Enk watched him, knowing that he observed something more tragic than the overindulgence in alcohol and spirits. He watched a man held captive by the mind-numbing oblivion of nala—the daemon weed.

  “It was the pain that did me in,” Anad continued, exhaling colored plumes of the brightest blues. “She was my everything, my wife. I lost myself when I lost her. Lost everything to the only thing that made the hurt less. My home. My trade. My daughter! I was the reason she was selling her flesh. She was doing it to feed me and my addiction for more . . . more. Me! I’m the reason she was on the streets so late. It might have been the Scarlet Apron that did the deed, but I killed her. I murdered my daughter.”

  The man gagged on the admission, snarled at those that dared raise objections. He glared at them, his dismayed congregation, clutching at penitence with a desperation matched only by the way he clasped his pipe.

  Sympathy pinched Enk’s gut. Of life’s many torments, perhaps none were so grueling as those we inflicted upon ourself. He thumbed his cup of untouched wine and studied it with grim deliberation.

  He had the power to uplift others with otherworldly insight.

  But did he have the right?

  Was revelation still revelation if it was unearned?

  Good questions, but it could not hurt to. . . .

  All was seething metaphysics and shifting slopes. Vacillating monochromes. Enk retreated from Anad’s surface, gagging. Nala had clouded the man, clouded his edges, polluting what he had lived, what he had experienced, until crazed shapes overshadowed the opening where profundity lay.

  Enk gulped on his wine, gulped so that he might not hurl up the contents of his stomach. Pupils like dark moons watched him, pitched voices waned, and, above, Tizkar had stilled his pacing to peer down at the gathering below.

  He can feel when. . . . I forgot.

  Enk lowered his empty cup onto the table, and despite the strange looks, he quickened his moist lips into a pinched smile. Faith, a plump woman with a grandmotherly disposition, refilled his cup with a somber sigh.

  “It’s your turn, dear,” she mumbled, “but only if you think you can manage.”

  “I—” Enk peered into his brimming cup. Some trick of light delivered his reflection back to him far redder than he had last encountered it and he paused. “I’m like you. I grieve for what was lost, for what was taken. I also blame myself, not for the murder but for all the opportunities that went. . . . Merka was more than a mere servant, she was one of the few points of light left in a world almost fully consumed by the dark. And I. . . .”

  A warm finger brushed a tear from his cheek. “It’s all right. No one here will judge if you weep,” Faith whispered.

  “I could have been better to her!” he cried in a voice that sounded small to his ears—almost childlike. “That’s what wounds the deepest. All those moments I fell short. Why? Why do we only understand the significance of our actions after it’s too late? Why must great revelations only precede suffering?”

  “Oh, child.” Faith collected him in her arms and hugged him tight.

  This simple act as much as everything else struck Enk breathless, and he buried his chin in the hollow of Faith’s neck, inhaling her slightly bitter scent and the odor of burnt cinnamon. Beyond the ring of lamplight, where the factory was still mostly dark, a tattered door flung open, screeching a song across the intervening space.

  Two slender figures—one tall and the other short—stumbled into the building clutching hands, tailed by a barking dog. Lightning wheeled in the sky behind them, and droplets dangled from the rim of their mottled hoods, above two pairs of bright eyes. Effeminate eyes. So radiant, and so distant, in a way that made them seem stars.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alpenglow

  Duty. Duty demanded this sacrifice, from him and from his men.

  Kalum swayed upon his horse, moved with his white steed’s careful steps under the sputtering predawn sky. A sudden gust swept past him, pelted his bare skin with icy droplets, whistled through the gnarled greenery that lined either side of the large roadway. A cluster of mutters rang out behind him, voices pitched in low curses.

  Kalum knotted his fingers about his reins. The old need throbbed within, an odd counter to the chill pooling in his sinew. He sighed inwardly. Just one little line of the Red Dust, that was all it would take to eradicate the wind’s frigid bite. The crimson powder would fly up his nostrils, a touch of fire that would bloom into slow-flowing magma, spreading warmth to his farthest extremities. His body, relieved of earthly limitations, would ascend to its zenith. And all he had to do was reach into his inner coat pocket and sprinkle a wisp onto the back of his hand then inhale.

  “Just over this hill then we should see it,” Kalum’s second in command, Lieutenant Bodua Westlund, said, his eyes shifting away from Kalum’s trembling hands.

  Kalum frowned, contemplating the narrow-faced man. He could almost see his concern as a visible manifestation, as if gray flakes instead of rain drifted from the dark sky to mar his brow with ash. A fear had become a reality, his addiction had began to be noticed by others.

  No. Not that. Kalum clenched his teeth. Why would he think it anything but the cold? “I remember,” he said out loud. “I’m not that old yet, Bodua. My memories are still intact . . . for now.”

  Bodua smirked at that and rubbed at his smooth chin. “I’m contemplating growing a beard. Thoughts?”

  “It couldn’t make you any uglier.”

  Kalum glanced over his shoulder, scratching at his face with a numb hand. Illuminated by handheld lanterns, rows of black-and-silver coated soldiers marched in formation, filling both sides of the roadway, skulking beneath a dark, cloud-strewn sky, loathe to speak, clutching dripping muskets at their sides. Behind them, carriages and carts loaded with cannons and personnel ambled on, wheels bouncing over uneven cobbled stone, horses neighing and pulling back against tightly held reins.

  Guff laughter pulled his attention back onto Bodua.

  “Anymore compliments like those,” the lieutenant was saying, “and my head will swell with untold pride, Lord-Inquisitor.”

  “Ah. . . .” Kalum said, fixing his coffee-brown face with what he hoped was the hint of hilarity. “And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

  They continued on in the kind of wry silence only capable of those well used to each other's dry humors, then their horses crested the slope, ears flicking away splattering raindrops. Nestled beneath peaked immensities, the sight of an ancient city greeted them, dark despite the thousands points of caged light that lined its streets. The Cobalt Gate, only slightly less immense than the snow-touched peaks, cut at Kalum scarred heart. Even from this distance, there was something profound about it, something primeval, that bent his mind to a half-forgotten memory. To the moment when he had glimpsed the artifact for the first time and imagined running his hand across its rippling surface, he had known then, without his father’s whispers, that he witnessed something beyond the ability of Warlocks and Clans—the work of Cunt Witches and Empire.

  His horse slowed without urging, and he scrubbed the water from his face. The black bricked eastern horizon was broken by the first azure threads of branching light passing through the golden bulwark. Dawn . . . here again, returned to illuminate a bitter world. Old beyond measure and uncorrupted by the machinations of Gods and Daemons and Men.

  “I hate working in cities,” Bodua muttered to himself. A sort of desolation haunted his brown eyes. “It always turns into a bloodbath.”

  Kalum sucked air through his teeth, feigning disinterest, but Bodua’s words bothered him—the man spoke true, though it ached him to admit it. The streets of Dilgan would be painted in scarlet by the time
they were done. Half a million souls . . . half a million tools in the hand of a Mindripper.

  “Lord-Inquisitor,” a breathless voice called from behind Kalum.

  The sky rumbled, crackled as brief flashes waltzed, hissed as another deluge plunged from storm-piled heavens. Kalum lifted his face and closed his eyes. The Waters Above drenched him anew in its glory, icy for the span that separated it from the Fires Below.

  “Lord-Inquisitor!” the same breathless voice called.

  Kalum opened his eyes and sighed. Spotting the purple bruise and busted lip Kalum had gifted him, Ragon pulled abreast with Kalum’s steed, huffing, his thin mustache glossy with droplets.

  “What is it, soldier?” Bodua asked when Kalum remained silent.

  “The Worship has need of the Lord-Inquisitor, sir.” Ragon saluted, struggling to keep pace with the slow moving horses, watching Kalum with a slant-eyed wariness that irked and irked.

  Kalum found himself gripping his reins tighter, found himself wanting to reintroduce Ragon to the brutality of his ire. Their fight had been a fair one—he had forbidden intervention, no matter the outcome—but it had done the slander man little good. Unlike these Imperials, he had studied War in her archaic iterations, had trained in the Art of Fists and Feet, had slept with an unsheathed blade by his side since before he had been weaned from his mother’s tit.

  “Do you think you can handle it from here?” Kalum raised a wet eyebrow at Bodua, strummed his breast, as if as a reminder there was no softness there, only iron and steel, only . . . damnation.

  Bodua snorted, quickened his lips into a half smile. “I think I may be able to manage. If not—”

  Kalum abruptly wheeled his horse about, drowning out the rest of Bodua’s words. Arms reeling, Ragon tittered back and crashed into a brown puddle, his musket soaring into a screen of spruce and larches. Emerald and violet stitched Kalum’s gut with warm threads of gratification, only to be dwarfed by pangs of shame. Had the man not paid enough for his crime? What right did he have to inflict more torment?

  Mine. She is mine! a small, animal voice howled within.

  Kalum kicked his mount into a canter and fled the spectacle of his moral transgression in a way he could not his own skittering passions. Eyes squinted, he raced down the side of the roadway, whirling past pinched-faced soldiers, until he reached the Worship’s blue and gold-rimmed carriage.

  “You,” he said, pointing at a thick-necked soldier, “watch my horse.”

  “Y-yes . . . sir,” the soldier said, fumbling after the reins that had been tossed in his direction.

  Escaping the vaulted gloom of the seething skies, Kalum slinked into the carriage. Redwood paneled walls affixed with gold-plated sconces and savoring icons of Holy Consorts made the interior seem to smolder with religious fervor. Worship Osei rocked upon a red-cushioned seat, blind to all but the inner mysteries of her Order, fondling prayer beads. Across from her, Sister Fana sat, watching Kalum with her jade-fire eyes, her expression absence of those things that stymied mere mortals.

  “Lord-Inquisitor,” she breathed.

  He tugged on his wet coat and negotiated himself a place beside her. For a time, they simply observed Osei’s trance-like state.

  Though their moments together had been spent doing much the same, Kalum found himself unsettled. The world outside was loud, harsh with the odd note of thunder. And yet he could hear his heart. A roar like dragon-song. He secretly pinched his thigh in an attempt to regain something of his usual composure, used a breathing technique to impose discipline on a thumbing organ.

  “She didn’t summon me, did she?” Kalum asked at last.

  Fana shifted in her seat. “I have questions.”

  “Oh,” he said, simultaneously alert and worn thin.

  “Life in the convent was much different. There, everything was preordained. An endless cycle of meditation, study, and reflection. Every waking moment was spent plundering those things yoked to the intangible mesh of existence, so some things you find obvious, I find mysterious.”

  “You know,” Kalum intoned, pawing moisture from his face, “you still haven’t really explained why you were placed with us.”

  Fana’s brow remained uncreased, yet there was something there, something bothersome. “Why is her Worship pushing herself so hard?” she asked. “What makes this mission different from the rest?”

  “A piece of advice, Sister. Freely given, but you may do with it what you will. In conversations among equals, as in life, what one party shares determines what comes after.”

  Once again the Sophic Nun gave no outward sign of irritation, but the carriage suddenly seemed to broil with hostility. Inexplicably, Kalum leaned closer to her. The air that entered his nostrils was much more biting, much more intoxicating, than any he had inhaled before. But how could any person’s scent be so mercurial? How could black spots, scattered across pale features, be so beautiful?

  The heat retreated, then Fana nodded. “Thank you, Lord-Inquisitor,” she said. “I take your point, but some things are not mine to share. I hope you don’t hold my oaths against me.”

  Etiolated, the fiery odor lingered.

  “I-I. . . .” Kalum cleared his throat. “The birth of Mindrippers follows a set pattern—a predictable cycle of death and rebirth. In the last century, this cycle has quickened once, going from years to months. And now it has happened once more. It’s barely been five weeks since—”

  “Once before.” Fana’s lips pressed into a hard line, as understanding appeared to dawn. “You speak of the Second Crusade. . . ? Yes, I believe you do. It must be true . . . the Wards are. . . .” Her fingers quivered upon her lap.

  “The Wards?”

  She shook her head, then her eyes, ordinarily so remote, softened. “How many ways are there into the Empire from the east?”

  Kalum scowled. How he hated the pompous oratory of the clergy. Without fail, whether here or in the Ancient World, when asked any question of great import, they would reply with one of their own. As if mystery was preferable to answers.

  “One,” he drawled, then unknotted his hand from his thigh. “The Cobalt Gate is the only way into the Empire from the east.”

  “Why is that?”

  “God sealed the—”

  “I rather you speak not at all than repeat dogma you don’t believe.” She paused, as if to allow silence to bewilder. “Those in the west might have forgotten, but the Ancient World remembers. Why? Why, Lord-Inquisitor?”

  Kalum swallowed, studying his scarred knuckles. A legion of engilded maidens stippled the vaulted reliefs of Clan Balkha’s Hall of Recollection, their hands outstretched with glimmering emanations, the world below them flexed with ruin and ash. And he could remember it now with the same apprehension with which he had felt then.

  He glanced at her, flinched inwardly at the prick of alien scrutiny. “Your ancient sisters sang madness into the land, separated east from west, made the Empire unassailable through all but the Great Gates,” he said.

  Fana nodded in reply, her expression one of bemused acknowledgment. “They bent the outside with the inside, defiled space with hymns of such power that it almost undid them. The cost was immense. So much lost—so much ancient blood sacrificed, and now it seems their great work is failing.”

  Kalum loosed a bark of laughter, more unbridled fear than wry amusement. He grabbed his thigh with a fierceness that not only ached, but added to the chill pooled in his sinew. “For all our sakes, Sister, let us pray that it’s nothing of that sort.”

  “And if prayer isn’t enough?”

  “Then millions die.”

  ■■■

  Kalum looked beyond those things his eyes could perceive, struck by the realization that errors never loomed so large as when they were reflected upon. Some truths not only demanded but required contemplation to be fully grasped—which explained why so many men feared isolation. To be alone was to be consumed by unwanted insight, to be needled by what could have beens. Nothing cut
s deeper. And Dilgan was one giant gash across his tattered carcass.

  He rode his horse beneath the shade of mighty foundations. This part of the city, he knew, was among the oldest, raised by the Immortal-Emperor himself, a thousand years after the Great Flood.

  The city seemed to close in on him and his men, so narrow were the old streets. Rain splattered down from the dark sky, pierced with faint rays of the invisible sun. Whenever they turned onto a new street, the few carriages out this early were forced to drive onto sidewalks to give them space to maneuver. Over and over, eyes turned toward him with fear, as much for his uniform as for the men that marched at his back.

  A Lord-Inquisitor, their blotched expressions seemed to say. A Lord-Inquisitor has come to Dilgan!

  Yet despite the upheaval his passing caused, Kalum barely noticed the gaping faces, so used to the looks of dread was he. Wherever a Lord-Inquisitor went, death soon followed. They had reason to fear.

  A short time later, he found himself in front of the Episcopal Palace, a long building towering over all others, hewn out of what almost seemed living rock, sparkling with a congregation of lamps within a battery of glittering windows. Awaiting his arrival in the rain, Bishop Mangesh, looking like nothing so much as a plump worm unearthed by the downpour, stood with his white-and-gold robed attendants, one of whom held a yellow umbrella over the man’s cube-shaped mitre.

  Kalum yanked his steed to a stop, purposefully kicking up a small deluge. Bishop Mangesh jerked back from the neighing beast, then he smoothed his now dirty, vestment. His chubby face flexed into a smile, appeasing if not for its lack of depth; it was barely skin deep.

  “I bid you welcome, Lord-Inquisitor.” Bishop Mangesh bowed from the waist, speaking with the high-pitched voice of all eunuchs.

  “Morning, I assumed my man delivered my message?” Kalum surrendered his steed to a nervous-eyed stable hand.

  “Yes, the others are waiting in—” Bishop Mangesh began.