Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth)

by Matthew Medina

  Enaz cleared his throat, impatiently, and Uriel turned on him with a lethal glare, causing the olive-skinned man to pale. Enaz was the prissy type, even for a high ranking eunuch of the priory, and he wore colorful robes of lavender and saffron; again a privilege only afforded the highest ranking eunuchs of the priory, and his perfumed head glistened with a sheen of sweat. His face was painted, like a whore, Uriel thought, and for a moment he was tempted to grab the top of Enaz’ pale, shiny head and smash the eunuch’s face into the nearest hard surface.

  “Your Grace, we must discuss the recent reports that we have been hearing about another uprising,” Enaz said matter-offactly.

  Uriel winced. He had ruled this nation as Emperor for over fifty sojourns, with almost no strong efforts of resistance save those which transpired immediately following the coup in which he had killed his father and usurped his throne. Now, over the past three cycles, talk of uprisings were being whispered in a number of corners throughout the Seat.

  Uriel felt a stab of something malevolent rising within him, but he quickly squashed that urge and resolved to appear nonplussed for the time being. After all, he could hardly blame those so far below him from being able to see his grand design, the majesty of his imminent transformation.

  But that did not mean that he could allow such ignorance to rule the day. He could not tolerate such rebellion if he was to be remembered as he knew he would be.

  Uriel knew that there was but one way to control this spark before it grew into a larger flame and spread. It was time for a reminder. Time for another example.

  “From where is this latest report, my dear Enaz?” Uriel demanded, the threat made clear in his voice.

  As he spoke, his hand dropped unconsciously to the handle of the crook which hung from his belt, and he ran his fingers over the embossed figures carved directly into the metal handle. The feel of them reassured him of his righteousness, his mercy in what he was about to do, and what he was to become.

  “This report comes from the mercantile district in Belkyn, your Grace” Enaz replied snidely. “It seems as though the market vendors are less than pleased by the lack of protection they are provided, in spite of the increases in compensation they are asked to pay toward such protecti-.”

  Uriel turned and strode the distance to where Enaz stood in half a breath, raised both hands and snatched Enaz around the throat.

  “And I will remind you, for the last time, to keep that lilt of amusement from your voice, worm.”

  He squeezed the slender man’s throat with all of his strength, the strength of a man half his age, and watched the dark eyes of the head Prior bulge as Enaz struggled for a breath that would not come. Enaz, unlike most of the common people who he had to deal with on a daily basis, seemed to think himself on a level with Uriel at times.

  Uriel made sure to remind Enaz of his place in the grand order of things now and then.

  When Enaz’ lips turned blue, Uriel released the man and he slumped to his knees, gasping for air and choking back a sob.

  Uriel strode away toward his longtime friend, Ortis, who had stood passively by, watching his every move. From behind him, he heard Enaz trying to recover his breath and his senses. Uriel put his hand on Ortis’ shoulder, staring into the deep red eyes, eyes that had once never failed to cause Uriel to become lost in.

  Now, those same eyes looked back at him, dull and rheumy with age, and bearing the wrinkles of time around the edges of the lids.

  Uriel wished so badly that in a future sojourn, when he had finally achieved his place as an immortal god of this world, he would someday have enough will to share the gift he himself had and return his dearest love to the prime of his youth, but he knew such idle fantasies were pointless.

  He wondered if it would just be better for the both of them if he were to lead Ortis to the edge of the room right here and pitch him through the glass, sending him to his death in the gutters of the city he had helped build.

  Uriel squeezed Ortis’ shoulder, fully prepared to end his friend and lover now, rather than see him continue to be lost to the slow, ravaging decay of time. But, like an old dog who he had once loved, he could not find it within himself to put that dog down to his final rest. Not yet.

  “Would you take care of this for me, dear Ortis?” he asked, the tenderness of his voice hearkening back to those earlier times.

  Ortis showed Uriel the barest hint of a smile, then snapped his fist to his heart and deftly bowed before making his way soundlessly from the room.

  Even at his advanced age, Uriel was still impressed by the man’s speed and agility, honed from his many sojourns as a soldier. Ortis was likely as deadly today as he was in his youth and Uriel would wager that his old friend, despite his cold and indifferent eyes, could kill a dozen men a third of his age in the time it would take the Emperor to piss. Uriel briefly entertained the notion of setting up just such a demonstration when Ortis returned from Belkyn.

  Yes, that could be just the thing, he thought to himself.

  Uriel smirked, and turned and strode once more to the window and looked down to the streets below. He could see every person within three hundred paces of the tower where he watched.

  He stood that way for quite a while, observing the insects that called themselves his subjects as they moved here and there, moving in their ordinary way, and then he smiled when he saw the column of three thousand of his deadliest soldiers, Ortis at their head, as they passed out of the bailey and under the northwestern gate towards Belkyn.

  Uriel’s face and body flushed with electricity and arousal at the thought that the people of Belkyn would soon, very soon, experience a piece of his destiny, and pay a heavy price for their disloyalty to his magnificence.

  When Catelyn woke, she heard the soft cooing of doves from outside, in the eaves above her roost. She stretched her body like a cat, fingers and toes reaching out above and below her, and she sighed in satisfaction.

  She stood and walked to the privy to make water, and then climbed downstairs where she washed her hands and face, and broke her fast on a heel of stale bread which she had pilfered from a market stall days before, with a helping of some fruit she had dried from last season. It was not nearly enough to fill her stomach, but it took some of the edge off of her hunger. She was used to not eating very much, although she didn’t like how her ribs stood out and she ran a hand over them self-consciously.

  Although she made a point of keeping herself to one or two excursions per cycle to minimize her risks and her exposure, she knew that she was needing more food the older she got. Soon she would be a woman grown, and that would necessitate more sustenance, which would in turn mean more risk, but not if she starved to death before that.

  With most of her immediate needs taken care of, she climbed back up the trap door and stepped over to where she had lay the case after her examination of the weapon the night before. She opened the case and picked it up once more, and knelt down to conduct another thorough look with her fingers and hands.

  After further study of the weapon, she was no closer to understanding it than she had been the night before. She’d hoped maybe after a good rest, she could perceive something that she had missed on her first inspection, but this second look had turned out to be just as fruitless as the first. It was clearly an exquisitely crafted weapon, that much was obvious, but aside from that fact nothing stood out to her senses. Although she could understand how it had captivated Dane Eyrris’ attention and sparked his greed, she had to admit that it was beginning to seem hardly worth risking one’s life over, despite the level of craftsmanship it represented. But then, Catelyn had very different ideas from most people in the Seat about the value of human life.

  And so, she set the weapon back down in its case, and began formulating potential plans for how she would go about getting rid of it. She ran different scenarios over in her mind as she disrobed and threw on a clean pair of clothes. She put on a sleeveless shirt and loose, tattered trousers; the latter she
had been quite fortunate to have found abandoned in an alley. They had smelled of something rank when she’d found them, but after boiling them twice, they finally stopped reeking and were one of the most comfortable items she owned.

  Once mostly dressed, she came to the conclusion that she just didn’t know enough about the sale of antiquities to sell something so old, and of such value. But she had encountered one or two dealers in the merchant district who might know more. The merchant district was much larger than the market plaza near her block, and she had been there a few times to acquire things she couldn’t find through her local merchants. She decided that it would be a worthwhile place to start.

  At the very least, she could surreptitiously start making inquiries. She was in no hurry to sell the item. In fact, she began to suspect that it might be better to sit on it for a while, as she was fairly certain that Dane Eyrris would be checking every merchant in the Seat for his merchandise to show up suddenly, and she was sure that if he managed to find her buyer, he could be persuasive enough to trace the item back to her, somehow.

  She reached up and ran her fingers through her tangled hair, working out the mats she found and pulling it back so that she could tie it back into a ponytail. She realized that she would need to wash it again soon. With her hair pulled tight, she threw on a beige kerchief and tucked up as many stray strands of hair as she could, hiding all evidence of her dirty red hair.

  Catelyn normally relished her hair, precisely because even just having it was one of the crimes she committed every day. Her parents had, when they were alive, obeyed the Imperial decree forbidding residents of the Seat from growing their hair beyond a certain length. But once they had been killed, Catelyn decided that she would never again submit herself to those laws, and she searched, bartered and begged for any coverings that she could use to flout that particular law. She had found, stolen and purchased a number of kerchiefs and other head coverings throughout the sojourns that allowed her to grow her hair out in secret.

  When she went out on her nightly excursions, she knew that she risked her life regardless, so she typically went with her head uncovered. But on days like this when she needed to go into the Seat during the daylight prayers, and into the heart of the merchant district at that, it wouldn’t do her any good to so boldly antagonize the Imperials with her defiance.

  As always she wore nothing on her feet. She had grown up never needing shoes, and she had not since found a compelling reason to find a pair. Of course, she had her lucky ring, loosely worn around the middle toe on her right foot. It was not extravagant or decorative; it was a simple band of metal she had found in the rubble one day but she wore it to remind her that she had survived. That through everything she’d been through, she had been strong enough to make it.

  She donned a cloak as well, wrapped her blindfold around her head and pulled the strip of cloth down over her eyes, then flipped the hood of the cloak back to lay against her shoulders. If needed, it would be ready to pull up at a moment’s notice if anything happened and she needed to hide. She imagined what she must look like, and chuckled to herself at the ludicrousness of her appearance, but it would serve as an effective disguise for what she needed to do.

  As Catelyn climbed up and out of her roost, sliding the hidden panel back into place, completely obscuring the fact that anyone lived within, she hummed a tune to herself and realized that she was actually rather happy. Then her stomach growled, and she smirked. It was time to find a buyer for her new merchandise.

  Chapter 4

  Silena shooed a pair of urchins away from her stall, watching until they were out of sight as the two grubby children glared angrily back at her. Chosen they might be, but that didn’t give them any more right to loiter and drive away her paying customers. She had been watching them eye her wares for several whispers nearby, where they had been sneaking looks at one of her more valuable treasures: a silver-lined teapot from the Before.

  Silena sometimes wondered why she even bothered selling such items here to the residents of the Seat. Even though this was the merchant’s district, the people who lived here were still poorer than dirt, and none of them had any use for such wares, and most of the ignorant rabble regarded them as curiosities, nothing more.

  They certainly had no eye for the true value of such relics from their own history. The honest truth though, was that despite their failure at generating revenue for her modest business, such antiquities did a fair job of attracting lookie-loos interested in peeking at a piece of the past. And that had it’s benefits too, as it resulted in people lingering, which gave her the chance to talk them into looking at something more practical that they would spend money on. And Silena was particularly talented at matching items with buyers.

  But the best reason for her to continue to put such items out on display was that it made her stall seem more important and highly trafficked, which helped her reputation as a business. So she supposed it was an acceptable trade-off.

  Still, it’s not like how it was in the older days, she thought to herself with regret.

  Back when the Walls had gone up for good, Silena had become one of the more successful black marketeers in the Seat initially. She had a ruthless side that served her well in the cutthroat world of the Empire. But over time, as the Seat grew more and more isolated, her favor had fallen. The Imperial “tax collectors” demanded more and more marks from her every sojourn, and when she complained about their unfairness, even going so far as to suggest organizing a protest, they responded by going after her family in the north end of the city.

  She had watched as nine members of her kin had been killed that day, until finally Silena, wailing and pleading, convinced them that she would comply with whatever they demanded. She had no choice. No one did. She lived with the consequences of her defiance from that day onward. She would never forget what the Empire had done to her, and she would never forgive but she saw the futility in resistance and never again raised her voice against the Empire.

  But one need not forgive to conduct trade, and despite her personal feelings, she was a realist about her situation and where much of her continued fortune came from. The Imperials did need her at times, and they were the only buyers for some of her wares, especially some of the rarer relics from the Before.

  Every span, a representative from the trade bureau of the Empire would stop by her stall with a list of items they were seeking, and they would take from her a number of curiosities and knick knacks, seemingly at random. She was never one to ask questions, but sometimes the Empire’s requests were downright unusual.

  At least they pay for them, she thought to herself.

  Many times, she wondered why they didn’t simply take them, as after the incident she was sure that they knew how completely they had broken her, but she wasn’t in a position to argue nor would she care to. “Never turn away a paying customer” was her motto.

  Although she was willing to take money from them, she still saw them as brutes who had killed her family. She was also aware that most of them had probably been put into the position of acting on their orders or their own families would have suffered the same consequences of her family.

  Not that she believed it excused what they had done, but she could at least look at the deeper picture and see that, if placed in a similar situation, she might have made the same choice as those men. At least, that thought helped her to sleep at night without slitting her wrists in utter despair, even if she knew it to be a sickening twisting of the world that once had been.

  Her feelings about the two men who had brought all of this to bear, Uriel the Third of His Name and the Most Holy Emperor, and his commander, the man who carried out such horrors, were quite different. She considered the Emperor to be nothing less than a villain of the highest order. Silena had never met the man or even seen him before, but she devoutly swore to the Divines that if he ever stood here in front of her, she would do whatever she could to make an end of him, even if it cost her own life. And Ortis,
the one they called the Butcher, she regarded as simply, wholly evil. An unthinking, unfeeling savage.

  She imagined the Empire as a serpent, a poisonous adder treading the world. She had no choice but to deal with the body, but she imagined a day when the head might be severed, and then the world would see a real change.

  Silena had no illusions about the world that existed within the walls of the Empire, within the heart of the Seat. She had seen twenty sojourns when she had been relocated by the Imperial decree, and she had watched as the Empire corrupted everything that was good and stamped out every trace of opposition. Along with thousands of her fellow countrymen and women, Silena found herself witness to the butchering of a once great nation at the hands of a madman with a god complex.

  She idly wondered that Uriel so believed his own divinity that he might be tickled to believe that he was contributing to even petty crimes such as the disreputable goods she traded in.

  Ah, but enough of your foolish fancies, old woman. Get back to work! she chided herself.

  Silena went back to arranging one of the shelves full of miscellaneous items, mostly several types of devices that people in the Before used for food preparation, none of which actually worked now, when she caught an unwelcome sight from the corner of her eye.

  The strange girl was back again.

  Inwardly Silena cringed, then perked up, alert as a hawk watching a mouse flitting across a field. The girl was an infrequent visitor to the marketplace, but when she did appear she made everyone nervous. Though the girl had never caused trouble, she just had an odd way about her that unsettled every vendor in the area. What made things worse, at least for Silena, was that she was most certainly not a paying customer.

  I can always spot them, she thought smugly.

  The girl had first appeared three spans ago, wearing a ridiculous looking getup; baggy cloak covering her shoulders, a scarf wrapped around her head and a strip of cloth wound around her face. She wore a shoddy shirt and trousers and no shoes. Even through the clothing, Silena could see that the girl was stick-thin and pathetic and she immediately wondered what had brought the girl to this side of the Seat at all. Persons as poor as she clearly was never came to the merchant’s district for goods, as they wouldn’t have the marks to buy even the scraps from the least expensive merchants.