by Watson Davis
“Yes,” Sifa said, nodding. “There is. You are doing horrible things to these people, treating them as though they are merely chattel. They are human and should be treated with respect.”
Tolyo rolled her eyes. “What would some cow summoned from a two-bit realm know of respect?”
Sifa said, “I am not Summoned.”
“You’re right,” Tolyo said, shaking her head. “The spell I cast is not preventing you from lying.” She stood and ripped the necklace from Sifa’s neck. “Gag her. Let’s leave her in the darkness for a while to consider her fate. And let’s introduce Ofo to their new idiot.”
ALIZADEH, ORC AND APPRENTICE dyer, sprinted into the workroom and threw a stack of damp cloths onto an empty workbench. Over the past few months, he’d grown accustomed to the stink of the inks and the dyes, and the red skin of his hands had turned black up to his forearms.
A bell rang.
“I’ll be right there,” Alizadeh shouted and he dashed back through the open door to the back yard of the dyer’s shop. He grabbed the last pieces of cloth from their drying lines, hugging them to his chest and hunching over them to shield them from the light drizzle falling from the gray sky.
He ran back into the workroom and set the cloth out, spreading it across wooden struts he’d erected by the roaring fire at the end of the room.
The bell rang once more, three times in quick succession.
“Damn it all to the third hell,” Alizadeh said, wiping his hands on his tunic and bouncing on his feet, hopping toward the door into the display room, looking around the workroom at the partially packed crates, the stacks of damp cloth he’d rescued from the lines. He wondered what he needed to do first. “I’m coming.”
The bell rang twice more.
Alizadeh pushed through the door into the display room, bobbing his head and bowing.
A human merchant stood at the counter, his thin, pale hand hovering over the bell. He wore a cap on his head and a thick coat over his expensive clothes, clothes Alizadeh would not have appreciated prior to his apprenticeship. Two workmen waited behind the man, their thick arms crossed over their chests.
“I am sorry for the delay, sir,” Alizadeh said, bowing his head. “What can I do for you?”
The man scowled at Alizadeh. “I didn’t come here to waste my time with pig-faced, orcan underlings. Where is Mistress Thas-eh?”
“I am sorry, sir,” Alizadeh said, bowing his head once more. “My mistress is having her baby. Earlier than expected, but the healers are confident—”
“I have neither the time nor the patience to listen to excuses,” the merchant said. He slammed his palm down on the counter. “Your mistress promised that she would have my order ready to be picked up today. We are here to pick it up.”
“Yes, sir,” Alizadeh said, running his tongue along the back of his tusks and clasping his hands behind his back. “You must be Lord Drast. I was just packing the last of your crates. If you will permit me a few minutes.”
“I did not come here to wait,” the man said.
Alizadeh backed to the door, bobbing his head. “I understand, sir.”
He backed through the door and shut it. He darted around the workbench to a fully packed crate.
A man in worn black leather stood beside it, his left hand resting on the pommel of his sword, his right hand stroking his thin mustache. “Alizadeh of the Lost Eye gang? My name is Wu Cheen.”
“You need to get your skinny ass out of here,” Alizadeh said. He picked a crate up, lugged it to the door, and balanced it on his thigh as he opened the door with his right hand. He hopped into the display room.
Lord Drast moved back and motioned to his workmen. The two men hurried to Alizadeh, and he settled the crate into their waiting arms. They sagged under the weight.
“I’ll have the next crate out in just a moment,” Alizadeh said, backing through the door into the workroom as the workmen staggered toward the front door.
Alizadeh slammed the door behind him and leapt to an open crate. He grabbed bolts of cloth sitting on one workbench, and stuffed them into that half-filled crate. Wu Cheen had not left. Alizadeh said, “I’ve got work to do and you’re not welcome here. So get the hell out.”
“Yeah?” Wu Cheen didn’t move. “The word on the street is you’ve been shooting off your mouth about how you’re good friends with friends of The Magpie. You’ve been telling people that you’re some sort of big-time rebel.”
“I don’t know what in the names of the Nine Hells you’re talking about,” Alizadeh said, grabbing two more bolts of cloth and settling them down into the crate. “But you need to get your skinny human ass out of my mistress’s workroom.” He pulled the top of the crate off a workbench and settled it on the crate.
The bell rang.
“Just a moment!” Alizadeh bellowed. He pulled a hammer and nails from the workbench. “I’ll have the next batch out soon.”
“One last chance.” Wu Cheen drew his sword from its scabbard. “Tell me what you think you know about The Magpie.”
Alizadeh growled, his lips pulling back from the tusks jutting up from his lower jaw. He hammered two nails into place, glaring at Wu Cheen. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
“You’re going to tell me who and what you think you know.” Wu Cheen smiled and admired his blade.
Alizadeh shook his head and hammered nails into two more sides in quick, confident strokes.
The bell rang.
Alizadeh threw his hammer at Wu Cheen and in the same motion, launched himself toward the smaller man. Wu Cheen swung his sword, knocking the hammer aside. Alizadeh slammed into Wu Cheen, driving his shoulder into the man’s side and knocking the sword from his hand.
Wu Cheen dropped to his knee, sliding under Alizadeh as he rolled to the side and flipped Alizadeh over. The big orc landed on his back but bounced to his feet and charged at the smaller man once more. Wu Cheen stopped, slipped his dagger from its scabbard, and flung it underhand at Alizadeh.
The bell rang three times in quick succession.
The blade slammed into Alizadeh’s shoulder, but didn’t stop him. He barreled into Wu Cheen, ramming him through the door, tearing the door from its hinges. The two of them landed behind the counter with Alizadeh on top, trying to get a grip on the man, but Wu Cheen wriggled free and sprang to his feet.
Wu Cheen stopped, his mouth falling open, his eyes wide, staring at the person before the counter. Alizadeh rose to his feet.
It wasn’t Lord Drast standing there before the counter with his hand hovering over the bell, but a priestess and guards with swords drawn. The priestess raised her eyebrow and said, “I’ve heard you know something about The Magpie.”
KA-BES ENTERED TUTH-yoo, the town of her birth and her upbringing, on foot at night with the stars twinkling overhead. With her head bowed, wearing brown, threadbare robes and keeping to the shadows, she prayed no one would recognize her. She skulked down worn streets with ruts cut into the stones by the wagons slowing through the speed-bumps at the intersections.
Sweat beaded on her face, dripped from her nose, and poured down the back of her neck. She struggled to breathe in an air so thick with moisture that it felt like it was suffocating her.
The citizens of Tuth-yoo seemed not to notice. Half-naked children played in the streets, chasing each other, calling each other vulgar names and laughing as they ran, kicking balls at each other. Ka-bes smiled, remembering playing those same games when she was their age, before the priests knocked on her parents’ door and took her off to Basaliyasta to study and refine her magic like her elder brother before her.
She walked down familiar streets, where it felt like she’d been only yesterday even though it had been fifteen years, streets that had changed little—the same merchant selling kitchenware but now his body twisted with age and disease, the same blacksmith but now his black hair was thin and gray, the same sail-maker but now his son was even bigger than the father.
The sail-maker met her eye. His brow furrowed as though thinking to say something to her, raising his hand toward her.
Ka-bes whirled away and jogged down an alley to get away before he remembered her. She lowered her head once more and clutched her cloak about her, pulling her hood further down over her face. She scurried along, meeting no one’s eyes, into the heart of the town, to the temple.
Magelights bobbed up and down, lighting up the main square almost as bright as day. An architect gestured and moved his hands as he directed an earthmage who lifted a slab of stone from a pile and placed it along the front of a building, binding it as a facade over the old brick and mortar shell.
The earthmage—shaved bald save for a long braid of hair from the top of his head and looped around his neck like a scarf—wore only baggy blue and white pants, and the powerful muscles of his back and shoulders rippled in the magelight, the sheen of sweat on his sun-darkened skin glittering like diamonds. Something about the way he moved seemed familiar and alluring.
Ka-bes turned her eyes from him and darted up the stairs of the temple, bowing her head to the serene image of the Empress over the door as she entered.
A priest stood on the dais at the far end lecturing to a crowd of the penitent who sat before him, listening and learning. His voice boomed as he read a passage from the Empress’s Book of Order and Chaos, explaining the duties of Her citizens, a sermon Ka-bes had heard more times than she could count.
She stopped and reveled in the beautiful sight of the interior of the temple, of the delicate statue of the Empress in the transept behind the dais. Tears welled up in her eyes, a feeling of majestic wonder sweeping over her heart and catching her breath, memories of coming to this temple to pray every day as a child, praying for health, for new fishing lines and for the boat to stay afloat in the next storm, for her first kiss and for her first flowering to be easy.
“May I help you?” a priestess said, a young girl with big eyes, her voice high and sweet.
“No, thank you,” Ka-bes said, smiling and patting the girl on the shoulder. “I know the way.”
“But—”
Ka-bes strode away, down a side aisle, across the transept, to the door to the rector’s office.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the priestess said, her hand grabbing Ka-bes’s forearm and keeping her from entering. She gestured to some men and women, some poor, some rich, sitting in benches along the wall. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”
“Oh, I think—”
“Please,” the girl said, inclining her head to the benches and tugging at Ka-bes’s arm.
“Of course, dear.” Ka-bes inclined her head in subservience, and then walked to the corner of the transept, and stood there, waiting, head bowed, keeping her face in shadow. She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted back and forth from foot to foot, her chest tight not just because of the humidity, but with the fear of being recognized by Shal-yi, the ancient lady seated closest to the door.
Ka-bes whispered some words and summoned a small amount of her magic, invoking her magesight. Magic flowed through the walls of the temple.
Her eyes flitted to the people waiting to speak to the rector, and studied the dark tendrils woven from infernal soul-worms attached to the bases of most of the penitents’ skulls, marking this one as a murderer, this one as a thief, this one needing sedation, all of them living in fantasies where they thought of themselves as special and important.
The door to the rector’s office opened and a man backed out, bowing and thanking the rector. Ka-bes cut her spell off, afraid to be caught and punished for doing something only priests and priestesses were allowed to do.
In a pleasant baritone, the rector said, “Who is next?”
Ka-bes, her hood falling from her face, raised her hand to ask for his attention even as Shal-yi stood up. The man had short black hair, so clean it shined with almost blue highlights in the magelight. His arms were thick and his shoulders broad and his dour face would have been handsome save for an air of condescension and a hint of disgust.
Ka-bes froze.
The rector looked at her, and he blinked. “Ka-bes?”
“Lunan?”
SIFA STRETCHED FORWARD in a pitch black darkness so complete even her keen eyes could not see in it. She leaned forward with her heels against the sweating rock behind her, her weight on the manacles around her wrists pulling the chains connected to the wall taut. She hung there with her eyes open and unseeing, her back soggy and clammy and cold where she had first pressed it against the stone. She began the cleansing ritual Ka-bes made her perform every day when she woke.
Unable to see, she left her eyes opened and listened to her heart, examining that pain so far away. The deep sadness there hurt too much, so she searched through her heart and found Ka-bes far away and getting farther away. Sifa reached out to her with all her fear and love, wishing she’d been able to give Ka-bes a hug and a kiss before she’d left, wishing she’d never left, and in return she felt no answer from Ka-bes, only a mixture of confusion, of anger, and regret.
Blinking away tears, Sifa pulled back, and felt herself alone. No. Not alone. She sensed something, something alive. She heard a sound.
Sifa’s hears pricked up, straining to hear more—the light padding of bare feet on stone. She concentrated, listening for it, finding it. Someone or something was breathing, a delicate breath but deep and long, coming closer.
Around the gag in her mouth, she tried to ask, “Who’s there?” but only a muffled mutter came out.
At her voice’s sound, there was a sharp intake, and then silence. Feet slid on stone from outside in the hallway. Something clicked and creaked. A cool draft of air brushed Sifa’s skin and a hint of jasmine tickled her nose. The breathing drew closer, but lighter.
Sifa tried to ask if there was another prisoner but again the gag stifled her words, choking them down.
The breathing grew louder, too loud, so loud the one breathing had to be in the cell with her, so loud it seemed to be right before her. Sifa pulled herself back upright, easing herself away from that sound, and the now overpowering scent of jasmine in her nose.
She pushed her back against the wall, no longer worried by its dampness. Something hard and pointed like a dagger’s blade brushed up against her forearm, from her wrist to her elbow, following Sifa’s movement as she cringed away, pulling her hands to her chest as best she could with the length of chain available to her.
Something touched her horn, the pressure light and delicate. Something tugged at the gag, and it slid from her face and fell to the ground.
“Who’s there?” Sifa asked, gulping and licking her lips, her eyes wide but unseeing. “Are you a prisoner like me, or a priest?”
“We are all just prisoners to the temptations of our senses,” a throaty female voice said at Sifa’s left ear. “We are all but priests worshiping one lust or another.”
Something soft and wet touched Sifa’s lips, something tasting of wax and honey. Sifa jerked her head back out of instinct. Moving quickly and without thought, she banged her horn on the wall behind her with an audible crack, chipping bits of stone off. Sifa winced, but felt no real pain.
She said, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to discern what manner of being you are, trying to determine your realm of origin,” the voice whispered in Sifa’s ear. “An infernal realm with those horns? No. Maybe summoned from a realm of earth?”
“I am not Summoned.”
Something warm and wet brushed up against Sifa’s neck. A hand reached around and pressed up against the small of her back, pushing her forward, arching her back, and another hand cupped Sifa’s breast, dragging sharp fingernails across it.
“Stop!” Sifa shouted, wriggling against the hands, shoving against the being, kicking at it with her knees. Sifa’s breathing grew ragged, speeding up, her heart pounding.
The creature chuckled and said, “I should set you free just so we can have some real fun. I could teach y
ou things. Show you things your naive mind has never imagined.” She released Sifa but did not move away. Something swished and jingled.
Keys?
Points dug into Sifa’s throat, and the voice said, “Or I could rip your throat out. So answer my question.”
“What was the question?” Sifa clenched her fists and tensed her muscles. An energy suffused the cell, the very air seeming to crackle and hiss. The hair on Sifa’s skin rose.
“What is that magic?” The creature’s hand slipped up from Sifa’s neck to the back of her head, twining its fingers in her hair as its other arm looped around Sifa’s waist. It pulled on Sifa’s hair, bending her backward at the waist.
A bright light, a twisting filament of blue-white energy, stretched from the ceiling to the floor, etching a jagged line in the air, the light blinding, but only bathing the room in light for a fraction of a heartbeat. The light revealed a red-skinned woman-like creature with jet-black hair in a gauzy tunic tied at the waist with a golden rope, a woman with a waist too thin, breasts and buttocks too large and too round. Her eyes glittered black in the burst of light, with horns on her head, but horns very different than the ones on Sifa’s head.
And then the light was gone, the image of it burned into Sifa’s eyes.
The whole room shook, the stones creaking, the force of it knocking the breath from Sifa’s lungs, slamming her against the wall. Dust sifted down from above, filling Sifa’s nose.
The creature spoke then, her voice coming from the floor, trembling. “The bastard priests told me to play nice with you, only get information, but I don’t think so. I think you need to die.”
Sifa opened her mouth to speak, and the creature shoved the gag back in. Sifa bit down on its fingers, and grabbed the creature’s arm with her left hand, tugging at it and dislodging the gag. Sifa pushed against the wall and launched herself forward, lowering her head, striking out with her horns. The crack echoed in the cell. The woman-creature collapsed back into the darkness. The keys landed on the ground with a jingle and clank at Sifa’s feet.
