Tales of Magic and Misery: A Collection of Short Stories by Tim Marquitz

by Tim Marquitz

  It was an old legend and entirely inaccurate, but wonderful to exploit when given the opportunity.

  "Smart man," I said sarcastically, but apparently he was even more dim-witted than I gathered, his chest seemed to puff up and he stood a little more relaxed at the compliment.

  I fought to roll my eyes and turned my attention back to the man hiring me.

  "Draknal Mortun, his shop is disguised as a rundown delivery service. He'll most likely be on the top floor, in his quarters. There will be a large book with a leather binding, dyed blue. Bring it to me."

  "That's more information than I tend to get. If you know this, why not remove him yourself?"

  "I'd assumed part of your fee covered not asking unnecessary questions and for my anonymity?"

  I gave the slightest nod I could manage.

  "Good. Time frame I can expect?"

  "When it is done, I will return. There is…research that will be needed."

  "I'm not paying you for—" I didn't so much as interrupt him as step towards the window I entered through. I stepped up to its edge and lifted myself up.

  "Two moon rises," I said and took my leave.

  #

  I had entered the old man's shop under a disguise that day. He was a slow moving man; his eyes were sealed shut from years of the world weighing on him. A permanent furrow was pressed into his forehead that made him seem grumpier than he really was.

  It's true that part of my trade is to not investigate, but I had to wonder why they would hire me to kill this old man. If they were patient he couldn't have more than a year left in him. He finished wrapping up the parcel I asked him to deliver.

  "It will arrive tomorrow," he assured me, his age showing in his speech as well as his face.

  "Thank you," I said, about to take my leave. A young boy walked into the room and looked up at me just then.

  "Can I help you?" he asked.

  "Well you're well-spoken for a child your age. What's your name?"

  "Draknul Nortun," he said. Same first name as his grandfather’s, a common sign of respect in Yartim culture. I hated when a child was involved. It wouldn't change anything for me, but it didn't make me any more eager to finish this job and move on.

  "Good name that, Draknul."

  "It's his too!" The child, obviously excited to speak to somebody who wasn't ordering him to move this to there or bring that to here, pointed to the old man behind the counter. He humbly waved and a grin forced its way across his face. For all the good it did, you'd think he had moved mountains to get the lines of his sealed on frown out of the way.

  "Are you done for the day, younger Draknul? So soon?" the old man said.

  "One of the kids spilled a barrel of apples when he tripped. The masters had us watch as they beat him and said we could leave to eat since he wouldn't be feeding us today."

  "Then let's get you some food." The old man shuffled to the other side of the counter and pulled out a meagre loaf of bread, and cut odd patterns in it to avoid the mold. Forgive me sir, our loaf is light or..." His words trailed off and I held up a hand to assure him it was fine. I hated when they were good, honest men.

  "Older Draknul," the child said softly. "Would, you ... tell me a story? Of him."

  This was the first time I had seen the old man move with any haste. He dropped his bread knife and clasped his hand over the child’s mouth and spoke in a rushed, hushed whisper I couldn't hear.

  The whispers stopped after a moment and they both turned towards me.

  "You'll have to forgive Young Draknul, valued customer. He is young and fascinated by rumors that are an insult to our people. Our owners allow us to live and service, we are most grateful.”

  Yartim were always cautious of anything that could possibly be reported, a child asking for a story about one of the many forbidden topics was certainly more than enough reason for a public execution.

  I was curious to hear one of the old man’s stories. If he was willing to risk his life to spread the stories of The Liberator then maybe he had a story worth hearing. One that would deliver such information to a slaver would be well rewarded, often with a warm meal or, on rare occasions, a day to rest without work.

  I pulled back the tattered sleeve of my coat, careful to hide the dagger within the sleeve, to show them both a long scar across my arm. It was from a whip a slaver used to beat me as a young man because I dared to mention The Liberator’s name, even if it was to tell another child his beliefs in being saved were foolish.

  “I … um … I am sure you’ve heard them all before. Really there is no need,” he mumbled. Whether it was to assure himself it was safe to speak in front of me or to talk me out of listening I wasn’t sure.

  “I’m actually not from this region, I hadn’t heard the whispers until very recently,” I lied. “I’d be interested to hear them.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Not far, Jorik, only a few miles north.”

  “So close and the tails haven’t spread there?” He lowered his voice, muttering to himself, “A shame, what a shame.” He gestured for me to step closer and I did.

  “The Liberator, as he has been named, is a legend told since I was a child. Not many will confirm it, but, then again, not many live to my age and I can tell it true. He is real.

  He possesses powers we can barely imagine. He can take away our fears and give power to those brave enough to listen to his words. You’ll hear the whispers of his greatness from those he has saved throughout your life and, if you are very lucky, you may see him someday yourself.”

  “Were you ever lucky, Old Draknul?” the child asked, his eyes wide with curiosity.

  “Oh yes, child. I have been luckier than most. When I was very young I became terribly ill, I was unable to work the grounds which I normally kept. My parents covered for me, sneaking out to work my area when they were supposed to be asleep. They covered it up for almost four entire days before the masters caught on. They came for all of us that night. Just when I thought we would be killed before the night was over, they dragged us away. I remember my parents screaming but my body was so weak from my illness that I couldn’t resist at all. I could barely speak in protest.

  “Just when I was pulled into my lord’s manor, I somehow found my voice and my strength. I could move. I could resist. I dug my feet very deep into the ground and found, to my surprise, that two fully grown men could not lift me. I looked around the room for some kind of answer, where this power had come from, when I saw him—a man in a deep blue robe, not much different from the one I wear now. He pressed a finger to his lips to silence me, then a clever smile dance across his lips as he opened his eyes and showed me the single black eye of the Kromti and the deepest blue I had ever seen. He is the only half breed to ever survive; he saved my parents that night. We escaped to this city where my father opened up this shop.”

  The boy smiled and fiddled with the various parchments on the desk in front of him.

  “That’s an inspiring story,” I said, causing the Draknuls to look at me in surprise. It’s almost as if they forgot I was in the room. “I hope to hear more of it one day.”

  “It would be a great honor,” Old Draknul said with a frail smile on his face. It was a shame I’d have to kill him tonight. I tried to focus on the meals I’d have afterwards, it always helps in situations like this.

  #

  I spent the rest of my day thinking over Old Draknul’s words. The Liberator had saved his life and that of his family; it made sense that he’d now dedicate his life to paper smithing His words in secret. Not many had the power of a paper smith within them. I heard it described once as ‘finding your voice’, they were only able to find this ability at a time when they desperately needed to get a message out. It makes sense that nearly all paper smiths are

  Yartim, the Kronta are rarely desperate for much.

  “Here we go,” I said, hoping my voice would mask my bitterness of this job that my mind wouldn’t flush out. It didn’t.
>
  The rough and jagged edges of the building made it simple to climb. Someone must have attacked it long ago and left gaping holes on the side, which my hands and feet scaled quickly. I perched myself beneath the window, listening for signs of anybody in the room. The sound of paper being turned at a rapid page told me it was my Old Drak—target, my target.

  I lifted myself further to risk a peek inside, to confirm he was alone; I couldn’t risk another person around if I was going to take the time to steal too, I’d need to—

  “Who’s out there?”

  I froze, my muscles tensed on instinct. How could he sense me? I looked around as steadily as I dared when my heart dropped as I looked at my knee. It was pressed firmly to the pouch containing the coins I had been paid.

  “I heard the sound of coins. Not many in this region, particularly at this time of night, are so wealthy as to make that sound so loudly while casually walking by. So unless you are a very rich bird, I suggest you show yourself.”

  I breathed a grunt and let my knee fall back into place, the coins sent another simple chime out, completing their motion. I lifted myself into the window expecting that the moment I did he’d have some plan to dispose of me. An assassin knows how dangerous it is when you get the drop on someone, better than most.

  “You are the young man from my shop this morning,” he said, upon my landing in his room. Maybe the hood serves better than I give it credit for. I’ll have to use it more and figure out how to build better disguises.

  “Your eyesight isn’t nearly as poor as you led me to believe, neither is your hearing for that matter.”

  “Young man, did I somehow indicate they were anything less than perfect?”

  A deathly pause hung in the air. He likely waited for me to strike, and I waited for him to reveal some sort of plan or weapon. Nobody who noticed a noise like that outside would answer and invite a man hanging on their window in without a plan to thoroughly and utterly make sure he would never hang from another building again.

  “Say what we will about the Kromta, their eyesight is relentless.” He opened his eye to show the familiar pale blue I had seen when he spoke to his child. Then, to my surprise, I realized his right eye was not burned shut, he had some sort of substance on his eye to make it seem this way. He opened it to reveal the sight that Yartim spend their life fearing; that we spend our lives taking beatings, betraying our values for and praying to one day escape. The gaze of a Kromta.

  “You ... are a half breed.”

  “I am.”

  “The Liberator.” My breath was taken away, this is why he grabbed no weapon, he would not need one. I was staring into the duel colored iris’ of my own demise. Damn my foolish greed, so eager to gorge on food and safety that I would not spend more time to vet my target. I was going to die by the hand of the only figure that gave my entire race hope.

  “I…” I searched for words to bargain for my life. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to…”

  “You did, but it’s alright.”

  “Have you seen paper smithing before?” he asked; I shook my head in terrified response.

  He placed his hands over a sheet of paper with plain ink on it; I was easily able to make out the drawn image of The Liberator with another inspirational message of hope. This one boldly proclaimed, ‘Your time is near! Stay strong and be patient. Soon, you will hold the whip.’

  The Liberator placed his left hand over the parchment, tracing his fingers along the words and image, tracing their lines like a pair of elegant dancers too nervous to make much physical contact. He pressed his right hand firmly onto the blank stack of parchment near him.

  “The words ... become you, in a sense,” he explained, a faint blue glow like the one seen by reading the paper trickled from his fingertips.

  The faint pulsing light twined itself together with the paper, slowly searing itself into place.

  “What has passed through you can never be forgotten. It is a sad truth that many of us are slain after penning a message that the Kromta dub too valuable to exist elsewhere. Given their ... self-importance, it is no wonder that they do this often.” The smallest smile tugged on the end of his lips, pleased with himself that, even as he stood facing the man who would slay him, he could still speak against the Kromta.

  “I do not hate you. You do this, I assume, to survive. This is your work. If you do derive some kind of pleasure from this, I beg you spare me that detail. I’d much rather know I leave here as another man’s meal ticket than their twisted whim.”

  Why was I still alive? Why had he not disposed of me? The legends spoke of his strength to dispatch enemies without hesitation, without needing to touch them.

  “I take no pleasure in this.”

  “Good, that’s good.” The blue glow was all but extinguished.

  “I would take it as a favor that my child remains unharmed.”

  “My lord, I—”

  “—Oh, no. No ‘my lord’ here. I may be a half breed, but I am not whom you think—though I may be closest to him.”

  “The Liberator is your family then? The boy? Is he eternal? That’s why you asked me to leave him be?”

  “Slow yourself, he is but a child,” he said, patting the large, tanned blue, leather bound book I was sent to steal. “The Liberator is everything I never was.” There was a heavy pause. I didn’t know what to do; I was so lost in amazement and wonder that I had trouble focusing on him.

  “You must allow me a final task.”

  "I can't possibly kill you; you’re what gives us hope. When children are put to bed it is your name that is whispered to them so they can think that maybe tomorrow may be different." My words didn't change his demeanor at all. He still stood there, a proud old man with no hint of the power that echoed throughout our lives.

  "You must allow me a final task."

  "We can leave, we can—"

  "—They would only send another," he said before repeating, "you must allow me a final task."

  "I … I will." My hand trembled slightly as I reached for my blade.

  "If I were to run, they would find me. I have lived a life telling the stories I wish I had lived. This book must be destroyed, I'm sure they paid you extra for it everything in here. I beg you to let me destroy this one before I am gone."

  "What is it?"

  "It is my journal, the ramblings of a young man turned old as he did everything he could to save the race of his people."

  "But you've done so much, you can just—"

  "—I have done nothing, except tell stories. I was not saved by the Liberator, or my parents. As I watched my parents beaten before me, I wept. I told myself that, among those hooded beings grinning as my parents were slain, that surely one of them must have done so because he knew what no one else did—that he was there to slay them all, and free us. Soon after it was found I could paper smith and I was sent here, still a slave and a slave I remain, though I am so old now my lord no longer checks on me." He sat himself back on his desk and picked up his pen.

  "I have always been sickly and weak, I have never been able to stand for myself, this—" he patted the binding of his life’s work "—this is all I could do. It is so little." He removed his hand from the book; it stopped its trembling, realizing its work was completed.

  "No one can know The Liberator was a fabrication. He is my life’s work to stand for our people. I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

  "You have done more for us than any other. I will make sure it's destroyed."

  "Thank you. No one must know."

  I stepped toward him, my mind flooded with thoughts of all I had learned. My hand trembled to the point where the blade might not strike, so to release him without pain. I poured everything I had into steading the blade.

  Blood dripped from his throat to my hand in that moment and I finally found the clarity that had evaded me the whole time I stood in this room. The Liberator had never existed, and I had killed him.

  Plans are Insulted Destinies

/>   G R Matthews

  Geoff Matthews began reading in the cot. His mother, at her wits end with the constant noise and unceasing activity, would plop him down on the soft mattress with an encyclopaedia full of pictures then quietly slip from the room. His father, ever the pragmatist, declared, that they should, "throw the noisy bugger out of the window." Happily this event never came to pass (or if it did Geoff bounced well).

  Growing up, he spent Sunday afternoons on the sofa watching westerns and Bond movies with the self-same parent who had once wished to defenestrate him. When not watching the six-gun heroes or spies being out-acted by their own eyebrows he devoured books like a hungry wolf in the dead of winter. Beginning with Patrick Moore and Arthur C Clarke he soon moved on to Isaac Asimov.

  However, one wet afternoon in a book shop in his home town, not far from the standing stones of Avebury, he came across a book by David Eddings - and soon Sci-Fi gave way to Fantasy. Many years later, Geoff finally realised a dream and published his own fantasy novel, The Stone Road, in the hopes that other hungry wolves out there would find a hearty meal. You can follow him on twitter @G_R_Matthews or visit his website at www.grmatthews.com

  “What went wrong?”

  Blood soaked the front of the man’s silk robe. The hilt of a dagger jutted from the dying man’s chest and his voice was hoarse and whispered.

  “Everything.” Jing Ke looked over his shoulder, down the corridor. It was empty, for now. “In here.”

  He pushed open the door, dragged the wounded man inside and, using his heel, closed it behind him. Jing Ke, careful to avoid the dagger’s hilt, lifted the man on to the large bed that took up one corner of the room. The bleeding man groaned as Jing Ke laid him down.

  “Jing Ke,” the injured man whispered, “it hurts.”

  “I know. Save your strength,” Jing Ke said.

  Jing Ke returned to the door and, pressing his ear against it, listened. The only sounds were the wet, sucking, wheezes of the man dying on the bed. He turned from the door and looked around the room letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. The bed upon which the man rested was dark polished timber and next to it a tall cabinet. In the far wall, a window with its shutters closed. Another cabinet, lower this time, rested beneath the window and there was a decorated rug on the floor. A few screens of painted and lacquered bamboo leant against the wall. One stood upright and blocked the view from the bed to the changing area. The only door, the one they had come through.