The Blood of Whisperers

by Devin Madson

  Damp earth clung to the thick wheels of Katashi’s cart. The driver tried to quicken his pace and the wheels sank, churning mud. Throwing aside the canvas cover, a handful of Pikes leapt from the backboard and began to push. Katashi didn’t move, just sat watching me. I hadn’t told him. Even if it was untrue that his father had seen mine into his grave, one only had to look at Katashi to see his obsession bleeding from him like a stench. Takehiko was a threat, but Endymion was no one. Endymion would be forgotten the moment he slipped away into the trees.

  After a mile of heavy ground, we turned away from the brook, following a rocky track that rose steeply into the forest. The Pike cart pulled ahead, jolting violently over loose stones. Avarice slowed the wagon to a crawl, muttering under his breath as the wagon began to vibrate, shaking up my stomach.

  The weight of souls grew heavier. It began as a whisper, mounting until hundreds of hearts called out in the morning sunlight, clogging my Empathy.

  At the crest of the hill we found the camp already growing, tents rising amid the trees. There were carts and animal pens, and the sound of hammering echoed over the hillside. The smell of food made my mouth water. Whatever their crudity, the Pikes were well practised, and, in the presence of their captain, disciplined. They felt his pull. They would follow Katashi to death and beyond.

  The great rebel leader slid from the cart and was immediately surrounded. Avarice drove on, taking the wagon as far as he could before the trees grew too dense. It was every morning’s habit to put as much space as possible between the noisy Pikes and us. The rest of the Vices followed in a desultory line, their black stallions sweating.

  When he could go no further, Avarice halted his team, holding them steady. ‘Spite, chock the wheels.’

  The Vice obeyed while the others rode past to set up camp. Here, we were outside the boundary of Katashi’s camp, beyond the sight of his watchmen.

  My muscles tingled from a night juddering over uneven roads, and I got down from the cart gingerly, smothering a yawn.

  ‘All set,’ Spite said, appearing around the front of the wagon. ‘You can let them go. Hey! Where are you going?’

  ‘Get out of the way.’ Katashi pushed past him, striding to the wagon’s steps. ‘I want to see Malice,’ he said.

  ‘He might not want to see you,’ Avarice returned, thrusting the reins into Hope’s hands as he slid from the box. ‘You want to see the Master? You wait until you’re called.’

  I had never heard him speak so many words, but whatever his eloquence on the subject, he didn’t stay to ensure Malice’s privacy. He had other cares and strode to the horses’ heads, his large hands patting their necks while he crooned in strange, disjointed sentences.

  Katashi waited only until Avarice was thoroughly occupied with this task before mounting the steps of the wagon.

  ‘Wait, you can’t go in!’ Hope said, dropping the reins and rushing to block the doorway.

  ‘And you’re going to stop me?’ The Pike Captain glared down from his great height. ‘What’s your freak ability, Hope? Are you going to lull me into a lethargy? Or make me giggle like a little girl?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Katashi was thoroughly unimpressed and reached over the young man’s head to pound on the door. ‘Malice, call off your dogs!’

  No reply came. Katashi went to push Hope out of the way, but the Vice had wedged himself in the doorway and wouldn’t budge. ‘Woof,’ he said, when the rebel snarled at him. ‘Want to scrap?’

  ‘You’d lose, Chow-Chow.’

  The door opened behind Hope and he stumbled back, falling against Malice. ‘Must you piss all over my wagon, Otako?’ Malice asked, steadying the young Vice.

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘How sweet. Did you bring me a gift?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Katashi shouldered the recovering Hope out of the way and strode in. I followed, leaping up the steps and ducking under Hope’s arm before he could close the door.

  I had never been inside the wagon. From the outside it bore every sign of belonging to a priest, but no priest’s wagon I had ever seen was so full of life’s every luxury. Here, the floor was muted with carpets, and every free space was filled with all those things that were so indispensable to Malice’s comfort: boxes of incense and lantern candles; stacks of books, their worn leather bindings neatly squared; an Errant board, stripped of pieces; and a hanging sheaf of coloured silk sashes.

  Retreating to his divan amid curls of opium smoke, Malice groaned at the sight of me. ‘Do go away, Endymion, yes? I find nothing so tiring as being forced to talk to you.’

  ‘Then he can stay,’ Katashi said, swatting at the fumes as though he thought it might help. ‘Hope, leave that door open.’

  ‘Close it,’ Malice said, reclining onto a pile of silk cushions.

  It slammed closed, and Malice smiled up at Katashi. ‘And now? What can I do for the great Monarch?’

  ‘You promised me a way into Koi, and I need it now,’ Katashi said, standing beneath the golden star painted on the wagon’s ceiling. ‘I cannot wait on your humour any longer. Kin wants to treat and I need to send a reply.’

  Malice lounged at his ease. ‘I think we have a misunderstanding, yes? It was my dearest Hana to whom I promised a way into Koi should she need it.’

  ‘Hana and I were partners.’

  ‘No. You let her play along, but you were never partners. You are a solitary creature, yes?’

  ‘I don’t need your opinion, I just need you to tell me how you planned to get Hana, or anyone else, inside those walls. The place is as much a stronghold as it ever was. There are no old tunnels to weaken its defence. The entrance is so well defended that no intruder has ever reached the second gatehouse still standing–’

  ‘Perhaps you should try to crawl in then, yes?’

  ‘The outer defences,’ Katashi went on, ignoring him, ‘are a maze–’

  ‘Surely not a maze to you,’ Malice interrupted again. ‘Koi was your father’s stronghold, yes? In fact, surely it was outside Koi that his head was removed.’ Malice seemed to be enjoying himself and dragged a long fingernail across his own throat.

  Katashi took a deep breath, his lips whitening. ‘Short of throwing thousands of men at the walls and climbing to the top of the Keep over a pile of corpses,’ he said, ‘how did you plan to get Hana inside?’

  ‘Anything is possible, but you are not Hana, yes?’

  Malice inhaled deeply from his pipe. I looked from Vice to Pike, two strong men determined to have their way. I didn’t trust either of them, but I had my own interests to serve.

  ‘He can come with me,’ I said.

  Both turned, and for a moment they could only stare. Then Malice made a disgusted sound in his throat. ‘Endymion, Endymion,’ he groaned, pressing his free hand to his forehead. ‘You are the bane of my life. Do go away, yes?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘If Lord Otako needs to get into Koi then he can come with me. You and I already have a deal.’

  ‘Come with you?’ Katashi’s black expression did not lift. ‘I am not a common servant, boy.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I said. ‘Only that–’

  ‘Only that Lord Otako could do with some company,’ Malice said. I could hear the laughter in his voice and hoped he would not be made careless by his drug and give me away.

  ‘Are you telling me this boy can get me in?’ Katashi asked, eyeing Malice with disfavour.

  Malice sat up quickly, his eyes suddenly bright. ‘No,’ he said, the word like a snap of his fingers. ‘If you want to get into Koi you make a deal with me. I do not give when nothing is offered in return, yes? I can get you inside the walls, and once you are in, the boy would be invaluable.’

  ‘Why? Is he one of your freaks, too?’

  ‘Endymion is no more a freak tha
n I am, yes?’ Malice said, his voice deceptively cool. ‘He is an Empath. That means he can sense people before you can see them or hear them or smell them. When he closes his eyes he can tell you how many people are standing outside this door.’

  I could feel Katashi’s disbelief, his mounting derision, and closed my eyes. ‘One,’ I said. ‘It’s Hope. He always feels a little forlorn.’ It was a trick I had always been able to play, but the longer I kept my eyes closed the more souls came to me through the darkness, each like a voice calling out in the night. I began to count them and they came to me in dozens, the total leaping to my tongue. ‘But in this camp there is currently nine-hundred and twenty-three men, Pikes and Vices, and eighteen watchmen in the surrounding trees.’

  When I opened my eyes, I found Malice staring at me, his jaw a little slack, his eyes searching. ‘Very good, Endymion,’ he said when he found his voice. ‘I’m sure even Katashi could not corroborate the truth of that.’ His gaze flicked to the Pike leader then back to me, bright and hungry. ‘I see you are not convinced. A further test, yes? Yes, I insist. Hope!’

  The door opened to admit the young Vice, his dark hair tousled. ‘Yes, Master?’

  ‘Bring me a Pike.’

  Katashi’s brows snapped together. ‘What?’

  ‘A Pike,’ Malice repeated. ‘One of your men. We will do a little experiment.’

  ‘Why not do it on your own men? On Hope here. I’m sure he can scream and snivel better than any Pike.’

  Malice nodded to Hope and he left. ‘I’m afraid Hope is rather resistant to such things, yes? All Vices are, by definition of being Vices. But don’t fear, Great Fish, none of your stinking rebels will die.’

  Hope returned a few minutes later with an unfortunate rebel skulking in his wake.

  ‘Captain,’ the Pike said, nodding to Katashi. ‘Do you need something?’

  ‘Sit down, Tori.’ Katashi pointed to the step, those bright blue eyes more than a little curious.

  Fear dripped off the luckless Tori, but he did as he was bid, lowering himself onto the step before Malice’s divan. Although the opium pipe lay discarded, the air was full of smoke. It was making my head buzz.

  ‘Now, Endymion,’ Malice said, patting the edge of his divan. ‘Let’s start simply, yes?’

  I sat beside him, the cushion-covered divan like a scented trap from which one might never rise. ‘If you wish,’ I said.

  ‘What sweet words.’ Malice gripped my face between his hands, turning me to look up at Katashi, the slightly worried form of Hope hovering in the background. ‘Look at your audience, Endymion, this is a performance, yes? Now, can you feel him?’

  I glanced at the Pike sitting in front of me, his head little more than a bowl of short hair criss-crossed with a dozen little scars. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘What do you feel?’

  ‘Fear.’

  ‘Is that so? He is afraid of me, yes?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘No, of course, that is merely a surmise,’ Malice said. ‘One can make such deductions with enough intelligence. It is clear. He does not look at me. He shifts his weight. He twitches and sweats. And now I suspect he is beginning to look at his captain in a way that confesses just how afraid he is of what we can do to his head. Touch him.’

  I touched him, the bare skin of his neck warm and damp. The connection leapt like a spark. The man’s soul burst into flames before my eyes, the blast of light and movement like nothing my waking eyes had ever seen. Every part of him seemed to move and shift and connect, thoughts running like streams though his body, the pulse of his fear like the concerted tick of a hundred tiny golden cogs.

  Then came the whisper. His hands are cold. Weird freaks with their cold blood, worse than snakes. At least snakes don’t walk around and pretend to be normal.

  ‘Endymion?’

  From somewhere beyond the shining complexities of the man’s soul someone was speaking my name. I heard them, yet the whispering would not stop.

  Oh gods, I wish he would let go. Freak. No, he’s not going to hurt me. The Captain wouldn’t let them hurt me. I haven’t done anything wrong. Does he know about the jugs of wine I sold in Sina? No one ever saw me. That was weeks ago.

  ‘–does he know about the jugs of wine I sold in Sina? No one ever saw me. That was weeks ago,’ I said, my lips moving in time to the whisper now. ‘Oh shivatsa, he’s reading my mind. No, I’m not saying that. I’m not thinking that. Shut up, shut up, shut up!’

  The man wrenched away from me and his soul disappeared from view. He stood with his back against the wall, chest heaving, his eyes darting from me to Katashi.

  ‘You stole the wine?’ Katashi asked, anger clear in his eyes.

  ‘I didn’t mean any harm, Captain, honest. I just–’ His explanations died beneath Katashi’s stare.

  ‘Don’t blame him,’ I said. ‘He lost his mother at a young age. He was brought up by a dishonest landlord who sent him out to beg from the mule trains and would beat him if he came back empty-handed.’

  I could feel the weight of Malice’s eyes on me, hot, hungry. I could not remember such clarity before the incident in Shimai.

  ‘Sit, Pike,’ Malice ordered.

  Katashi nodded, and Tori sat back upon the edge of the step.

  ‘Now let’s see just how strong you are, Endymion, yes? Touch him.’

  This time I hesitated, but I wanted to do it. I wanted to know how much I could see, and once more touched his neck. The connection re-ignited, the desperate whisper unstemmed.

  Don’t think about anything. Nothing. There is a floor and there are walls. What is that freak staring at? He looks like his eyes are going to pop out of his little head.

  Malice gripped my other hand, his fingers steely in their strength. The connection was not immediate, but he forced it through and for the first time I could see beneath his skin. A flood of emotion burned into me, anger, jealousy, hurt. It ripped, rending thought from instinct like splintering bone.

  Tori’s dry lips parted. The cry was silent, parched, desperate. The skin at his neck was red raw and hot beneath my hand. The rebel jerked. His heel slammed into the floor. A rattling groan crept up his throat, rising to a scream, a shriek, and I was back in the guardhouse at Shimai. My grip tightened. The stones were cold. Men pinned my arms and my legs, pressing my cheek to the floor. I wanted the screaming to stop.

  I could make it stop.

  Do it. Make them suffer.

  The power was there. It was so easy. I could stop them hurting me. I could bring back the silence.

  They deserve it. Look how they treated you. You’re an Otako. You’re an Empath. You’re a god.

  Anger ran through my fingers like molten metal and my ears rang with their screams.

  You deserve no mercy from me.

  Silence.

  It was sudden, complete, all connection severed. Tori leant against the wall, his eyes bulging. He did not move. He did not breathe. The pulse at his throat was still, his whispering thoughts silent. And I could remember a dozen men laid lifeless on a stone floor.

  I could feel Malice’s eyes on me. He was cradling his hand, crushing his silk sleeve.

  It was Katashi who broke the silence. ‘I thought you said you wouldn’t kill him.’

  Malice didn’t immediately answer, and sick to the pit of my stomach, I knew why. He hadn’t killed the man. He had only given me the means to do so.

  One of Malice’s false smiles spread his lips. ‘Accidents happen. You are a commander of men, you know this, yes? It was not my intention. Let us say I am unused to this particular tool. Hope, throw the body out. Its presence is irritating.’

  ‘Yes, Master.’

  ‘Wait,’ Katashi said, stepping in Hope’s way. ‘We haven’t finished yet. You owe me for this little stunt. Get me into Koi Castle and we’ll call it even.�
��

  Malice laughed. ‘Passage into Kisia’s greatest stronghold for the life of that thief weasel? No. He was nothing and you know it. You would not else have let me play, yes?’

  ‘You know I cannot pay gold, we–’

  ‘I have enough gold.’

  Katashi inclined his head, his handsome features unmarred by grief. ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘A soul.’

  ‘Another? You just killed one of my men.’

  ‘Then he is dead and useless. Hope, I told you to get it out of here, yes? Already it starts to stink.’

  Hope stepped forward, but Katashi held out his arm to block the young man’s way. ‘No, let it stink. Tell me what you want. I need to get inside those walls.’

  ‘You know what I want,’ Malice said. ‘You know how this works. You give me a Vice and I give you what you need. I don’t take peasants and I don’t take scum. They come from proud names. They have honour. They are lords and artisans and scholars, and each is important to the man who sold them. Look at our dear Hope, yes? He was once called Arata Toi. He is the eldest son of Lord Toi, or was until his dear father needed my help.’

  I looked at Hope. His lips were pressed grimly.

  There was a moment of silence while the two great men stared at one another. Then: ‘Who do you want?’

  ‘The only one you won’t part with.’

  Katashi did not answer, and Malice’s lips widened into a smile. ‘Think about it, yes? Take as long as you like, but there is only one way inside those walls.’

  * * *

  That night we did not travel. Well rested and unoccupied, the Pikes soon became rowdy. They laughed and shouted and sang, while the Vices, camped in the lea of Malice’s wagon, ate in silence. Malice had not emerged, which left Avarice the unspoken leader. He sat tearing off pieces of steamed bread and chewing them slowly, all the time staring into the fire.

  The group began to break up as the Vices finished their meals. I had barely touched mine. More and more I found myself disinclined to eat, my thoughts always wandering to the numbers, to the whispers. There were twenty-two Vices, unmistakable in signature, and eighteen watchmen in the trees. The number in the main camp kept changing as whores and Pikes came and went from nearby villages, passing beyond my Sight.