Mindripper

by Baron Blackwell

  Kalum tore his gaze away from the Lord-Inspector’s beguiling garment. From experience, he knew, the longer he stared the more deformed the motifs would become, until his heartbeats fell as hammer blows. It was the reason agents of the Dark Agency were so feared, that and secret arrests in the dead of night.

  “It would seem that it’s just the two of us now,” Sargon said, dabbing a handkerchief at his chin and goatee.

  Kalum grunted, unknitted his fingers atop his chair’s armrests. Anticipation and need thrummed his insides. He had to move. To act! Sitting still in the midst of chaos went against his every instinct, yet the price of the only action he saw possible staggered him, hobbled him with indecision. There had to be another way, a way that would not end with such a toil.

  Soft.

  When would he stop being so soft?

  Had not such weakness cost him a brother, a father, a wife. . . ?

  Nweh.

  He blinked through a stinging in his eyes.

  When would he learn? When—

  Calls of “Sister” and “Sophic Nun” pulled his gaze back toward the room’s threshold, where church functionaries parted and bowed before Sister Fana. The Nun sauntered past the deistic throng and into the chamber, face impassive as ever, eyes forest green, pale fingers thumbing dark prayer beads. Sargon jerked upright, kicking away his impromptu footstool as he stood.

  “News?” Kalum asked, remaining seated.

  Fana pressed her lips together. “Nothing helpful, this time, I’m afraid. Just general premonitions of destruction and death.”

  “Great.”

  “Allow me, Sister,” Sargon said, dusting off the cushion of his former footstool.

  The Sophic Nun took the offered chair with a slight smile. “Thank you, Lord-Inspector. You at least seem to know the meaning of the word manners.”

  Kalum grunted, glared down at the map of Dilgan. Colored-streamers rippled above its pin-pricked surface, stroked by a draft that blew in through the partially opened window.

  “Perhaps you should offer someone we know a lesson or two,” she continued, staring pointedly in Kalum’s direction.

  “I wouldn’t presume to be so bold, Sister Fana,” Sargon replied, retaking his seat with regal stiffness.

  “Ah, too bad.”

  Kalum lurched from his chair. Wood groaned and protested, scratched the floor, banged off the wall. Avoiding Fana’s and Sargon’s gaze, he smoothed his coat and walked to the window. Thousands ringed the Episcopal Palace, surging onto the lawns, flinging themselves at the bayonets held by rows of black-and-silver coated soldiers. The first line of the Guardians of the Flame fired their muskets, and, for a time, the mob retreated, dragging away their wounded. But before long the crazed masses came roaring back, a seething tide of humanity.

  Madness.

  This could only be the work of the Mindripper. No rioting mob Kalum had ever witnessed had ever taken this much punishment and not broken up into fragments of its assembled whole. Slowly, the Guardians of the Flame were being pushed back toward the Episcopal Palace and their final line of defense: a row of glistening, black cannons.

  Kalum studied the farthest fringes of the mob. Was the Mindripper out there somewhere, watching it all unfold from a place of safety? That was likely the case—no, it was more than likely. It was an almost certainty.

  He slapped his thigh. Enough of this.

  “Out of my way!” an out of breath voice shouted behind him.

  Kalum spun to faced the door, saw Ragon burst into the chamber, a letter clutched tight in his hand. He transferred it to his other hand and threw a sloppy salute, only to falter and blush under the force of Fana’s gaze.

  “Is that for me?” Kalum asked.

  “Sir. . . ?” Ragon muttered, tearing his eyes away from the Nun.

  Kalum ground his teeth, motioned at the letter. Now was not the time to give into anger, now was not the time to fly into a fit of murderous rage. His knuckle cracked about the pommel of his sword.

  “Ah . . . no, sir.” The black-and-silver coated man handed the letter to Sargon. “Lord-Inspector, this is for you.”

  “Ah, thank you, soldier,” Sargon said, his eyes waxy with confusion.

  Kalum returned his attention to the drama unfolding outside the window. The fury of the mob lammed the air as the wings of the Guardians of the Flame were pinched inward, forcing them to bunch together. Behind him, he heard Ragon salute and spin on his heels. . . .

  Blood. It always ended in blood.

  “Ragon,” Kalum began, taking a deep breath, a calming breath that seemed to do nothing for his fluttering heart.

  “Yes, sir?” the man squeaked.

  “Tell Lieutenant Bodua to have the men fall back to the palace,” Kalum continued in a steadier tone. “Tell him to deploy the cannons.”

  “Sir . . are you—”

  “Now soldier!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kalum rubbed his throbbing forehead, listened to the retreat of the soldier’s racing footsteps. There had been a hint of apprehension in Ragon’s voice, but duty would carry a man where morality failed and faltered. Was not the horror inked into his soul proof enough?

  The sound of feminine breathing.

  He blinked watery eyes, noticed Fana standing next to him, peering at him. Despite the lack of an expression, her face gave the impression of comfort, of an understanding that can only come from those well-versed in the dark bruise of decisions hard made.

  The jarring cry of an overturned chair.

  Kalum spun around, his hand falling onto his pistol as a shudder plunged through him. The Lord-Inspector stood, eyes wide and glistening, an open letter rattling in between his trembling fingers.

  “What is it?” Kalum asked, a premonition of doom seizing his breast.

  “It’s . . . from my son.” Sargon held out the letter for inspection. His fear seemed the dread of a father who learns of the injury of his most beloved child. “He says he found the Mindripper.”

  Cannons howled in a sudden explosion of depraved concussions, and the golden lamps hanging above Kalum shivered, chasing shadows with wavering brilliance.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Oath-breaker

  Enk did his best to blend in with the rioting throngs that clotted the bustling streets as he walked away from the Dancing Bell. He roared along with their full-throated bellows, trailed at the back of their murderous processions, eyes slackened in the glazed manner of another intoxicated fool, ears flogged by the cries of wailing victims. Thrice he was forced to restrain himself when glimpsing keening maidens, thrashing as they were despoiled by phallus pumping packs of jeering multitudes. His heart rebelled at these and far worse sights, but he kept his thoughts attuned to his secret purpose. He was just one among many, there was nothing to be done, not when a greater obscenity still beckoned.

  Soon Tizkar would understand the depths of his mistake.

  Today was the day Merka would be avenged.

  He traveled deeper into the Shade, transferring from roving band to roving band, though at times it seemed he simply floated as flotsam upon the waters of a torrential flood. He walked around the corpses that lay slumped upon the streets, pretending to swig from a bottle of wine, and not once did his lungs ache for the lack of air. In the distance, the sun dappled the Pit’s domed roof with amber light.

  The young scion’s steps faltered for the deformity he knew the building concealed. And so he lost the immunity being part of a disheveled assembly provided, while simultaneously gaining the attention of another degenerate gang of rioters moving in the opposite direction. He did not so much see as smell the foulness their gazes hid. A jarring sonance, at once dangerous and anxious, bombarded. The rioters prodded and elbowed each other as they approached him, casting fugitive glances at the other retreating group.

  “Down with the Second Estate!” Enk cried, flashing a lunatic grin. He took a swig from his bottle, spilled more than he swallowed. “Down with the nobility!”


  A few members of the blood-smeared company took up his cry, only to slink into silence as a thick-necked brute with beady eyes halted before the young scion. The brute was a large man, corded with pulsing muscles, but despite his size, he was forced to crane his head to meet Enk’s stare.

  “You’re a big fucker, ain’t you?” the thick-necked man spat.

  “Aye,” Enk replied, “I got a touch of the Senmonth bloodline from me da.”

  “Only a touch?”

  Enk shrugged. “That’s what me ma told me. I never met the bastard. Only things he ever gave me was this here sword. . . .” He tapped the blade at his hip, partly concealed by his wrinkled cloak, grabbed his crouch. “. . . and this large cock.”

  “Mighty fine yarn, friend . . . but do you mind if I see it.”

  “No offense, friend, but I prefer my whores well-bathed. Burns less that way.”

  A scattering of rueful laughter.

  The beady-eyed man snarled. “The sword. Not your cock.”

  “Sure!” Enk shouted in fury. He smashed the bottle across the man’s face, heard an ugly wretch reach for him even as the thick-necked man collapsed.

  Unsheathing his sword, he whirled, leaped clear of knifes and callused hands, slashing and stabbing in a furry of strikes. He glimpsed the thick-necked man roaring back to his feet, buried his blade in the other man’s throat, laughed at the scrambling terror that sent the rest of the fiends fleeing.

  Then he was alone, just him and the dying man. He peered down at his reflection within a pool of growing scarlet, saw the mad aspect of a black-haired boy, touched a finger to a dark curl.

  Thief. Betrayer. Oath-breaker!

  Enk shuddered for the sociopathic enormity of his crime, raised a hand to block the image of Ilima’s visage. Faint whimpering, gurgling. For as long as he could remember, he had looked up to Ilima as an ideal, and now he had become him to do what he on his own could not.

  “This was the only way!” he hissed.

  Yet despite these words, on and on his self-recriminations capered. A large part of him disapproved of this path. . . .

  As a gore-splattered wraith, he plodded toward his sunlit destiny and watched those scant number of people on the street flinch out of his way. He drifted into the gloom of a nearby building and crouched, peering out at the Pit’s open maw. A squad of hard-eyed men stood out front, garbed in Peacebringer blues, musket straps hooped over their shoulders, cudgels dangling at their hips. Enk chuckled softly at the sight of them, not for the absurdity of their presence here as for the absurdity of having Minna’s words prove true. He touched the garrote he had stuffed into the side of his boot, breathed deeply, savoring the way his lungs expanded without a hint of hurt.

  Merka, your vengeance comes.

  The young scion strode into the amber sunlight and halted, stood before the Pit’s threshold as the Peacebringers surrounded him with bayonet-tipped muskets. While in Ilima’s body, he could not use his other Mindripper powers, but he did not need them for what he had planned. He smiled at the snarling faces, buoyed by an unnerving air. Somehow he just knew nothing would or could go wrong.

  “I have a message for—” he began, then fell silent as a bayonet came to rest against his neck.

  “Fuck off,” someone unseen snapped.

  “Tizkar. . . .” A swallow. “I have a message for Tizkar.”

  The bayonet retreated, and the Peacebringers lowered their muskets.

  Enk touched his neck, felt a weeping cut dampen his fingertips.

  “This way,” a broken-nosed thrasher spat.

  Enk took a step forward, only to drop to the hard ground as something clubbed the back of his knee. Witless, he was slow in understanding, which was why he did not immediately reach for his sword. As quick as a smith’s hammer, a cudgel struck the young scion’s back. He cried out, struggled to stand, but another impact stole all reason from him, whacked him flat.

  Voices shouting, cawing, fading. . . .

  Pain and darkness.

  ■■■

  As one luminous Enk plunged through sheets of silken blackness, a falling star—burning for the kick and punch of titanic forces.

  He glimpsed a point of green bloom in the abyss below, but lost sight of it as he spun head over heels, arms flailing, voice wailing. When he came back around, the point had blossomed into something blinding and cylindric. He had no time for surprise, for he immediately struck the structure’s side. Reeling from the impact, he crashed to the ground, limbs askew. He coughed out a cloud of radiant gas, watched it drift upward then fade.

  Reverberations, like an anvil repeatedly pounding a pillar of ice.

  Enk blinked his eyes, saw Ilima trapped within the cylinder, hammering his fist against the transparent wall of his otherworldly prison. Cracks appeared with almost every blow, cracks that seethed with violent light.

  No.

  Enk knotted his hand, watched his own limited light dim as the cylinder’s bleeding fractures healed. Ilima clobbered the wall harder, but these strikes had zero effect. His face twisted into a soundless howl, his eyes agleam for murderous intent.

  The abyss echoed with incongruous sounds, the hum and clatter of an unseen world. The young scion turned his back to Ilima’s prison, drawing wheezing breaths, felt the sting of a palm striking another’s cheek, gazed upward. . . .

  This is the only—

  Chapter Forty

  Before the Fall

  Enk gasped upon a kicking intake, head thrown back, arms restrained by unseen hands, body aching for the bruise of cudgel blows, face smarting for the imprint of a human palm. Golden lamps dangled from the vaulted ceiling, swayed like trees cuffed by gusts from a volcanic vent. He knelt upon the threshold of the Pit’s fighting ring, thankful that he had not been murdered outright, nostrils clogged by the reek of sulfur and other still more hellish scents.

  The Pit croaked and cawed with an unholy enterprise, zoetic for the sum of a Warlock’s wicked toil. He looked about, terrified at the transformation that had been wrought on this place. Naked, six captives hung bound to stakes jutting about the ring’s perimeter—three men and three women. The Black Lion stalked the space between them, scarlet cape ripping as he used a red-dripping brush to scroll looping patterns into the sand. The shifting lamps made a grotesquerie of the eerie designs. Suni followed a step behind the Clansman, hands clasped about a bowl overflowing with blood.

  Enk saw Tizkar slumped atop a chair at the composition’s center, his gaze downcast for peering into his silver locket. A wig of azure curls streamed down his forehead, partially obscuring his pale face. He wore a blue-and-white coat decorated with nothing but bare branches, so many and packed so closely as to give the impression of otherworldly forest depths. The scion of House Gueye sighed for the buzzing relief of spotting his target.

  “Tizkar!” he shouted.

  The young man’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowed. His shadows danced as he stood and approached Enk, careful to step over the spiraling lines of the Warlock’s diagram. Muffled wails clapped the air, bounced across the vaulting ceiling like fist-seized balls of hail. The Peacebringer tightened their grips at Enk’s back. Despite disarming him—he could see his sword tossed on the ground to his right—it seemed they meant to take every precaution.

  “Ilima, is it?” Tizkar said, halting before House Gueye’s heir. “I suppose Enk sent you.”

  The young scion grinned. “No—”

  Tizkar pressed a finger to Enk’s forehead, produced a dark light from the tip of his digit as if by magic from the intricate tableau of his soul. The young scion sensed more than witnessed the vile glow that tried to invade what he had already claimed as his own.

  “That won’t work,” Enk continued, riding a shudder hooked to the jolt of uncanny light. “Not on me.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, so there are still some tricks you haven’t learned.”

  Tizkar blinked, stared in calculation.

  “Enk?”
<
br />   “Yes.”

  “Our power allows us to inhabit other’s bodies?” Tizkar whirled, shouted at the Black Lion’s back. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “I have held nothing from you,” the Warlock said, not shifting his attention from his task. “All the knowledge my master imparted to me, I gave to you.”

  Master?

  Could this mean Gagan, the Black Lion, worked for the White Worm?

  Enk swallowed.

  He had not expected to find a link to Modin so soon. Not here.

  “When your master and I finally meet, we will have words,” Tizkar spat, touching the sword that hung at his waist. “I will not be played, or made to ape the fool.”

  The Black Lion motioned Suni forward, dipped his brush into the bald man’s bowl.

  “Why?” Enk asked.

  Tizkar turned, graced him with a gray-eyed glare.

  “Why,” Enk repeated, “why go through all this? The killings? The riots? Whatever evil sorcery that the Black Lion is even now working?”

  “Survival.”

  “Survival?”

  “Yes, I simply refuse to lie down and die. Not after coming so far. Not after sacrificing so much.”

  “I don’t understand. Who hunts you besides me?”

  Tizkar took out his locket, thumbed its glossy surface.

  “The same person that will soon be bedding the apple of your eye,” the young man whispered. “The Immortal-Emperor and his accursed Empire.”

  “What?”

  “Surely you saw the Lord-Inquisitor that was racing toward the Pit when we were fleeing from it? Who do you think he was hunting?”

  Enk frowned up at the young man.

  “Our kind is anathema to those in the know,” Tizkar continued. “We have been hunted before the Empire’s founding, before Arkrest, before the Flood. The Great Gates were created to contain our births to a fixed area. Why do you think Modin was the first God-King since their construction? This place is not our home but our prison.”