by Della Roth
I hear movement, and I sense him before I can see him. Roland is covered head to toe in a dark brown, masculine-shaped fabriskin robe. Plain. Unadorned. Ordinary. No one will question him, especially with the hood over most of his face. Most of the city’s citizens are similarly garbed, regardless of the weather or the season.
“You’ll need this.” He gives me a similar, smaller robe. It is also plain, deep brown, but slightly embellished with inexpensive-looking turquoise gems and stones at the hem and cuffs. I layer the fabriskin over my trousers and button-down shirt, and it fits perfectly. I pull the hood over my head to match him.
“I swear, is this Palace full of clothes and robes that will fit me, should I spontaneously decide to try them all on?”
“You are the same size as my late sister, Lisbeth.”
“Oh,” I say. His answer is unexpected, and my attempt at a stupid joke turns into a jab aimed right into Roland’s heart. “My condolences. I apologize if I sounded like a—” I swallow hard.
“Jerk?”
“Precisely.”
“All is forgiven. Let us speak no more of it, then. What is this place you must patronize?”
“It doesn’t have a name. If one doesn’t know about it, one doesn’t need to know about it. What’s a name got to do with anything?”
“A most interesting concept. And you know the way?”
“If you show me how to get out of the Palace Skyscraper, I’ll lead the way once we are outside.”
Hopefully Dorni is back, I think.
We walk out of his apartments, the door locks for him, and Roland takes me out through the back servant entrance.
SIXTEEN
WE HIT THE COBBLED STREETS OUTSIDE. With the city empty, a few vendors stand around listlessly. We are immediately beseeched with offers of food, sun vitamins, new and used hydration patches, and, of course, sexual favors.
Declining and stepping around two competing vendors, we’re barely around a corner when I can hear the two men fighting over territory.
It’s about noontime, the sky is dim—not too dark—and thin rays of yellow-gray sunlight trickle down. Remembering my apprehension last night as I walked through a deserted city, we now pass under the same arch, out of the inner city, and I ask Roland why Skyscraper City is empty.
“Black water plague,” he answers with unease. He doesn’t sound confident in his answer, and my suspicions are raised. “I evacuated the city weeks ago. But some are coming back.”
“Did the royals leave?” I ask, looking over to a lower part of the mountain just outside of the city limits. A dozen mansions peek through dark treetops.
Roland follows my gaze.
“No,” he says and leaves it at that.
“Are you nervous for some reason?”
“That the prototype won’t work?” he asks, deliberately, in my mind, misunderstanding the question. He knows full well what I meant.
I grin at him, but he’s no longer looking at me. Roland’s head is bent low, and he gives a perfect impression of a downtrodden individual, oppressed, depressed, and easily frightened. I doubt we’ll attract any notice—the city is empty, after all—but at least he’s acting the part. He isn’t a young buck, prancing and dancing in their sheer fabriskin robes, singing songs of hopeless, tragic love.
As if on cue, just as we round another corner and pass a large, dilapidated warehouse, a fairly young man, maybe twenty, begins to serenade us. I grin when Roland realizes the singing man is singing to him.
“Dearest Goddess has sent me a love… she hears my song of woe… with a heart as pure as a dove… oh,” he now sings to our backsides as we move away, “he delivers me a fatal blow.”
“That wasn’t funny,” Roland growls. I can’t see his face, but I suspect he’s red with embarrassment.
“It was to me,” I say with light laughter. After a several moments of silence, we reach the entrance.
It’s a small, hidden alley. We walk through a beaded curtain made of finger bones that click and clack lazily. We pass through a crooked pathway that weaves between shanty businesses and homes and other buildings whose purpose are best left unknown and unquestioned.
“What is this place?” Roland asks.
“Like I said, it doesn’t have a name.”
The mediocre and moldy smells of the inner city fade away and in its place, a newer, spicier aroma permeates the air. It mixes with smoked herbs, intense incense, fruity cigarettes, women’s perfume, and the heavy scent of charcoal chicken kabobs. Widow’s Lane was empty last night, but today, it is bursting with life.
“Everything smells so good,” Roland exclaims. “I don’t know where my nose begins and my stomach ends.”
I laugh softly. “Be careful what you say around here; folks will take you seriously, serve you, and then expect you to pay. And, if I’m being honest, avoid the fruity cigarettes and don’t follow the women’s perfume. It generally never leads to an actual woman. At least not one you’d pick out of a crowd. The results aren’t pretty. But, on the way out, we’ll get a chicken kabob. I know a good place.”
“Don’t worry. I’m already following the woman I want.”
“You keep talking all romantic like that and I might swoon.”
I stop in front of a nondescript, unlabeled rusty building—though in certain spots, the original red paint pops through. I pull aside a leaning door, step inside, but then I quickly step back outside, place a hand on Roland’s chest and say, “Stay here. I won’t be but a moment.”
“I’m not staying out here alone.”
I smirk. “Scared?”
“Absolutely. What if another woman or, Goddess forbid, fruity cigarettes lure me away?”
“I’d say my opinion of you wouldn’t be altered.”
“That’s low.”
“Come in if you want, but I must warn you, if you value your life, don’t—”
A woman’s wrinkled face appears behind the half-opened, half-broken door.
“Rahda, is that ye? Thought I heard ye voice.”
“Don’t do what?” Roland asks with an edge to his voice.
“Dorni, my love.” I hug her. I steal a glance at Roland. He’s staring at the old woman with an odd expression. I get the sense he knows her, but that can’t be right. If anything, he wants to know why I know a woman who lives in a shanty village with no name. And what might Dorni sell to me. “Don’t touch anything,” I tell him.
***
“Come’n, come’n,” my friend urges us, “‘fore Gryan walks by. He’s been grumpy lately.” Dorni turns to Roland. “He try ta git ye ta buy his wife fer an hour. So… wot can I git ye? Who’s ye friend? I haven’t seen ye in months now. Da Grandfather is in good health. Says that if I see ye ta tell ye that he be waitin’ to hear from ye.”
The old woman pulls us inside her tiny shoppe. Bijou it is not, but I still marvel at her ability to collect things; even the most innocuous items, such as fallen-off toad warts—good for curing hiccups—never miss her smart eye. Her small shoppe is but one wall only. The shelves are filled top to bottom with vials, jars, and boxes of ingredients and artifacts not found elsewhere. Some safe. Most not so safe. The three of us barely fit, Roland can’t even stand up straight, and Goddess forbid, if we added a fourth person, the shanty walls would fall out.
What I’m looking for today won’t be in one of these vials. Dorni must make it for me.
“That’s very kind of the Grandfather. Tell him I’ll message him soon. This is my friend, Ron. I tried to keep him outside, but you know how Gryan’s wife can get, money or no money, so I felt it best to bring him inside.”
“True, Rahda. Gryan’s third wife wicked. Can’t tell wot yer feller be lookin’ like with hood, but she’d want’em fer sure. Wot can I git ye? Wot ye be needin’?”
I press the silver ten bedallion into her hand. I notice that Roland’s eyes round as I do so.
I lower my voice. “I sort of need you to make a charm.”
Dorni nods
quickly. Her eyes tell me she knew this already.
“Fer ye or him?” she bobs her head at Roland.
“Him,” I tell her.
“Wait, what’s this about a charm?” Roland asks.
“Hold out yer arm, feller,” Dorni croaks, but she needn’t have said so. Her hand darts out like a striking snake and Roland’s arm is instantly seized in a firm grip.
I watch Roland as he watches Dorni pull out a sharp blade. If he wants a working prototype, then the charm must be conjured. My old friend, with fingers as skilled as a surgeon, cuts into Roland’s forearm before he can react, and collects his blood and a flap of skin in a small pot.
“I be needin’ a few minutes,” Dorni says, sprinkling black powder over Roland’s arm, then shuffling into the corner to make the charm.
***
She hands me a blue jar, but I notice she keeps a second jar to herself.
“Ye be knowin’ wot ta do with it, but I got somethin’ else ta be givin’ ye,” she informs me urgently, her tone higher, excited. She all but pushes Roland outside. “Stand outside fer a minute, feller.”
“I won’t be but a moment,” I tell him. “You’ll be fine.” His eyes say You owe me one as he steps outside.
“Don’t be followin’ da green-tongued woman,” Dorni shouts out playfully.
Dorni immediately drops her ancient frame to all fours. She rummages under her sleeping cot, pulls up a hefty board first and then an ivory carved box, and sets it in front of her. Her precious box of priceless things.
As far as stories goes, many, many years ago, Dorni, as a small girl, prolonged the old king’s life—Roland’s grandfather—for an extra day, long enough for him to get home to impart important information to his heir.
As payment, he presented her with the only valuable object in his possession at the time—a carved, ivory box. Apparently, the old king died exactly twenty-four hours later. Only a few individuals know of this story or the box’s existence. I remember how, years ago, Dorni made a point of telling me this story.
Her frail hands dramatically open the box and I spot its contents: a single vial of three pearly-white stones. I go stock still.
It can’t be…
Reaching for it, she snaps: “Careful,” she warns. “Be careful, m’luv.”
“Is this what I think it is?”
Blessed stones known as The Pale Waters. It is a myth it even existed.
“Rarest element on da continent. Da Feeble Princess’s Pale Waters. Me mind tells me ye be needin’ it soon.”
What else does your mind tell you, Dorni? When I look in her eyes, it feels like I’m looking back at myself.
“How did you come across three of them?” And how many dead bodies did you pry them from?
My friend shrugs. She can be stubborn.
“These things have a way of workin’ out, is’all.”
A burst of shouting outside the shoppe interrupts our conversation. I shove the vial into a deep pocket inside of the fabriskin robe, kiss Dorni on the cheek, and tell her to keep the rest of the money as a shoppe credit for me in the future.
“Also, tell the Grandfather that all is on track and to get a message to me if anything has changed. Goodbye, Dorni.”
“Yes,” she mutters absently as she takes a peek outside. “Everything is on track.”
Without warning, she grabs my hands tightly and asks, “If yer feller be needin’ help, if he be dying, will ye be givin’ me permission ta assist?” Her wisdom scares me sometimes. She has that look about her right now, like she’s not looking at me, but some future scene.
Something hits her shoppe then, a rock maybe. The loud metallic ring echoes in my ears.
“Of course,” I answer her quickly.
Dorni kisses my cheek, clucks her tongue like a mother hen, and pushes me through her metal door.
And she literally pushes me into the middle of a scuffle.
A bear-sized man, equally as furry but uglier, wearing nothing but a loin skirt and laced-up black boots, holds a long metal rod the same size as a thick tree branch. He’s swinging it at Roland.
It is Gryan, a ruthless son of a bitch and one of the Grandfather’s guards. When I met him years ago, we took an instant dislike to each other, and generally I try to avoid him if I can.
But not today. Surprisingly, Gryan isn’t alone. A pretty young woman, small and petite, with long, braided blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and an attractively embellished, though semi-sheer, fabriskin robe stands on the opposite side of the scene, near Gryan, and watches the situation with interest. It’s Galeni the Pretty, Gryan’s third wife, though how he managed to convince her to marry him is still a mystery.
The moment Galeni spots me, she crosses her arms across her chest and raises an eyebrow disdainfully, her expression one of complete contempt for me. But her look for Roland is another story. It’s no wonder why Gryan suddenly looks ready to destroy my would-be lover.
Naturally, I step in.
SEVENTEEN
AN AUDIENCE FORMS. EVERYONE LOVES FREE entertainment, especially a bloody sport, and soon, dozens of disheveled inhabitants—from the elderly to the toddlers sitting on their mother’s hips to the half-humans—step outside into the alley. The smell of fruity cigarettes fill the air.
“How dare you speak to my wife without my permission, you filthy mutt,” Gryan yells.
“Kill’em!” Galeni’s pretty voice urges.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Galeni?” I ask her over the crowd. She doesn’t respond to me.
“What?” Roland asks incredulously as he steals a quick glance at me. He backs up and nearly trips on loose stones. “You know her?” he asks. The hood still covers most of his scarred face. It wouldn’t matter if they all knew who he was or not. They’ll gladly destroy him, royal or not, and brag about it for a full year.
Gryan swings the metal rod again just as I step in. Roland dodges it easily, as do I, but the force of its movement ripples my robe. I can hear the air shift, the sound of a low, thundering whoosh. Galeni continues to stare at me with a sick sense of satisfaction. I crouch down and pick up a large, craggy rock, its weight solid in my hand. It will do.
“I can assure you that there has been some sort of misunderstanding,” Roland explains. His arms are outstretched in what could be considered a peace-offering motion. So far, Roland has been able to avoid Gryan’s weapon. But I don’t know for how long. The bear-sized man has never been known to fight fair, and Galeni has always been known to enjoy causing a scene.
“You can assure me?” Gryan spits on the ground. “Your assurances are worthless around here, stranger.”
I take another step toward them and, with a sinking stomach, instantly notice that the top half of the metal rod is studded with tiny spikes, rusty hooks, and other flesh-tearing barbs. I could be wrong, but I think I see dried blood all over it. I haven’t seen Gryan in a few months, but his savage behavior seems worse. More barbaric. I wonder what has caused the change around here.
“Careful, m’luv,” a soft voice says from behind me. Dorni. I didn’t even hear her come out of the shanty. In a moment of distraction, a tentacle-like barb from the spike sinks into my fabriskin robe. It barely misses my flesh as it grabs the fabric like a roaring, horned beast, drags me down to the rocky ground, and tears a large chunk of the robe off completely.
The crowd goes wild. They don’t care who gets hurt, or even killed. They want carnage.
Roland is on me in a flash.
“What the hell are you doing, Rahda?” he yells at me, his green eyes filled with worry. He feels around my legs, searching for an injury, and yanks the fabriskin robe off me as if it were about to come alive and strangle me. Dorni, like a skittish dog, quickly snatches it up. She knows that I put The Pale Waters and the Charm in one of its pockets.
“Rahda?” Gryan roars feverishly. “I autta kill you right now, you bitch!”
“Da Grandfather won’t be likin’ dat,” Dorni announces, her voice c
lear.
Gryan snorts. “Last I heard, the Grandfather disowned her.”
I suck in my breath and notice Galeni smile maliciously. The woman is poison through and through.
Gryan lifts the weapon, poised to strike both of us, when, just as the metal rod is directly behind its master in mid-swing, I remember the rock. I push Roland off me, flick the heavy stone from my hand, and it crashes into Gryan’s face. It’s a beautiful image as his head snaps backward, the large metal rod tilts sideways, and his bear-sized body slumps. His young wife yelps and quickly runs in the opposite direction into one of the larger shoppes. I hear several of the children clap.
The crowd titters excitedly as the bully falls. His loin skirt flaps up, he is naked underneath, and I finally understand how Gryan was able to convince three women to marry him.
The metal rod slips from his grip, clatters to the ground haphazardly, bounces sporadically with life, and it unexpectedly strikes Roland’s calf. Several spikes embed themselves into his flesh.
Unknowingly, I had pushed him into the path of the weapon.
EIGHTEEN
I DON’T KNOW HOW ROLAND MANAGES it, but nary a sound escapes his lips after he says, “I knew you were trying to kill me.”
I hear a quick intake of air through his gorgeous lips, a long, low hiss, and then silence. If I had thought at all in that moment, I should have realized that Roland was joking, that he is used to pain; probably lives with it everyday, and that he would be fine.
But guilt has a way of finding those with secrets.
Regret wraps me like an infested blanket. Dark. Dirty. Shame. All of this will get back to my mentor, the Grandfather. How I behaved. What I did. Any show of emotion. I can’t act too concerned for Roland’s safety.
A few yards away from us, young children kick Gryan’s unconscious form. Most everyone else has left, their wanton appetites satisfied for the moment. As I stare at the fallen guard, I know that the man, when he wakes, will do everything in his power to make my life hell.
As I return my attention to Roland, in a low voice I say, “I’m not trying to kill you. When I do, you won’t see it coming.”
