“Who? The unconscious, possibly dead guy who it looks like you’re about to stab? That doesn’t really seem very sporting, by the way. Unless he is dead, in which case I guess it doesn’t really matter. Oh! I think I know where Keithus is, by the way. Those mercenaries mentioned..”
“Yes yes the Aglaecas,” Marcus said quickly. “Sorry, I have some more pressing issues at this time. Could you.. stand back, Kendra?”
“Oh, you heard the same!” she said happily, apparently discarding the latter half of his comment in her excitement. “That means it’s ...hmm.. at least twice as likely to be true!”
“Enough of this,” Death said, and clicked the fingers of his free hand. In Marcus’s eyes, nothing changed, but a particular difference in the patrons of the bar – namely the way in which anyone who happened to be looking in Death’s direction choked in alarm, stood and ran for the door – suggested that the Reaper had made himself generally visible. Anyone else foolish enough to look for whatever was causing everyone else to run away was soon running away themselves, with the notable exception of Kendra, who, upon seeing Death for the first time, let out a squeal of delight.
“Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh..” she took a deep breath. “Death! The Grim Reaper! Look, Marcus! Oh man this is so exciting! Wait, am I going to die?”
“Quite possibly, if you don’t stay out of the way,” Marcus said, moving slowly away from the bar and into the newly vacated space, stepping around tables that had been upturned in the brief but significant panic that had emptied the inn. Death followed him, step for step, passing with a glance the inert form of Mud, who was the only other person left in the room.
“You do me an injustice, Marcus,” the Reaper hissed. “I’m not the one who has been using a tool of death to wantonly murder people. Your name is not yet in my book, madam, so you have nothing to fear from me. Please, stand aside.”
“You’re painting me as the bad guy?” Marcus asked incredulously, as they began to circle each other. “You’re a seven foot walking skeleton who takes people’s lives and you’re trying to make me the bad guy in this situation?”
“Technically Death doesn’t kill people, Marcus..” Kendra chimed in as she retreated.
“Yes, yes I know,” Marcus grumbled, waving vaguely in her direction.
“So what’s the deal, here?” she asked, hopping up onto a bar stool next to Mud. “Some sort of grudge match, clearly. Oh! I know!” She smiled, swinging back and forth on her perch. “Marcus – tell me honestly. You stole that scythe from him, didn’t you?”
“No,” Marcus said, at the same time as Death said ”yes” with equal vehemence. “Wait, I never used the blade near you, how did you know it was a scythe?”
“I didn’t,” Kendra said cheerfully, “that was a total guess. But it made sense! This also explains why you’re so attached to the thing. And also why you never let me hold it.”
“Kendra,” Marcus said bleakly, “please stop talking.” And she did, for it was at that moment that Death lunged, his lack of expertise with the sword making it all the more terrifying a sight as it came swinging towards Marcus’s throat with aplomb. He urgently twisted at the staff’s knob, and with a boing the blade of the scythe shot out from its hiding place to meet and deflect the Reaper’s blade. Staggering from the impact, Marcus stepped back as Death spun around, coming in low for another attempt. Panicking, he span the scythe upside down, jumping as the blade passed under him and hit Death’s, this time knocking the Reaper back with the sheer momentum of the hit. Marcus found himself dragged around in a full turn to bring the scythe back upright, and made it out of the spin just in time to block another swing from Death, this time with the wood of the staff.
They stood back, eyeing each other. The lights in Death’s eyes flared brighter than ever before as Marcus stood panting from the exertion, but the room was still dark. A solitary lamp still burned on the bar, casting flickering shadows over its few remaining occupants. Kendra sat by it, applauding.
“That’s really not helping,” Marcus called to her.
“Shut up,” she said, “that was awesome. Keep spinning! I mean, even if I were the Grim Reaper, I’d still be a little scared of a madman swinging a blade on a stick about randomly!”
Death glanced at her, his expression unreadable. Seeing an opportunity, Marcus swung the scythe overarm, aiming for the skeletal ribs, but the Reaper slid aside like a snake, and Marcus had to drop to the floor and roll away to dodge the thrusting blow that came in, aimed at his side. Stumbling to his feet, he realised that the scythe was no longer in his hands, and felt the aura of dark menace that he had become so accustomed to leave him as Death’s focus retargeted on the weapon, lying between the two of them on the floor. Their eyes met as they both paused, surveying the distance; it was nearer to Marcus, but Death had already demonstrated a capacity for impossibly fast movement.
Still, it was do or die, in the most literal sense. They both dived for the weapon at the same time, and both missed; their questing hands found the hand of the other, and the two connected properly for the first time. Marcus felt the sheer essence of Death, a stronger form of what he’d always felt emanating from the staff, creeping down his arm, and jerked back in surprise and horror, only dimly noting as he did that Death had pulled back in disgust as well. Stumbling backwards, Marcus grabbed the scythe before the Reaper could come back around, and swung it; his aim was true, and the tip of the blade was on course for the skull as those eyes caught his own again... and smiled.
The blade went right through Death as if he wasn’t even there, and Marcus almost tripped, surprised to still be in possession of all of his momentum. He staggered sideways as the blade swung around, crashed into a table and promptly fell over again. Cackling wildly, Death recovered his posture and advanced on Marcus, sword held out depressingly point-first.
“What did you honestly expect, Marcus? To defeat me with my own tools? To kill Death? Idiot. You might be able to hold me off for a while, but I’m inevitable. It’s part of the job description.”
“And what about me?” asked another voice, both new and old, into the silence. Both Marcus and Death followed its tune back towards the bar, which remained lit in the flickering lamplight. Kendra was still sat next to Mud, but she too was looking past the man’s prone form at the figure that now sat on his opposite side. Young, clean-shaven, well-dressed and faintly recognisable, this man smiled peacefully at both Marcus and Death as their attentions settled on him, and both realised with a jolt that this new apparition was connected to Mud’s body by a familiar long grey cord.
“Mud?” Marcus asked.
“Yes,” the spectre said, “although I believe I preferred to be known as Malcolm when I looked like this.” It brushed some ghostly lint from its ghostly suit. “Ah, the good old days.”
Marcus, Death and Kendra all continued to stare at him.
“Well, anyway,” the ghost said, straightening its bow tie, “I can’t stick around here all night. Isn’t anyone going to give me the old chop chop? Since there seems to be two of you and all, surely one of you can spare me a few moments?”
Marcus didn’t move. Death looked from his adversary to this new apparition, then back again, and growled his terrible growl. He angrily wrenched the sword back from where it had been hovering, dangerously close to Marcus’s neck, and stalked away towards the ghost, eyes flaring. Sensing the opportunity within this sudden deliverance, Marcus staggered to his feet and signalled furiously to Kendra, who gave him a Look, but slipped off her stool and followed him as he made for the door.
“Duty,” Death said, to no-one in particular, “duty is the most important thing. I will deal with you, Malcolm, because though it means my quarry will surely escape me once more, it remains the thing that should be done. I do this because this is my job, and the continuation of the order of things is something I have the greatest respect for. It is not something that should be cocked about with.”
Marcus
flinched, stood at the foot of the staircase that led back to the street, as the last part of that was clearly aimed at him. He wanted to retort, somehow, to say that he hadn’t asked for any of this, that he was only doing the best that he could.. but he didn’t. From the perspective of Death, who was a much higher authority on things like the general shape of the universe and what should and should not be things that happened, the best thing that Marcus could do was to give up and die, and his selfish sense of self-preservation was, apparently, having none of that. So he kept walking.
“Hey,” the ghost of Mud said, over Death’s shoulder, as the Reaper poised to swing his sword. “If you see my brother, please, give him my apologies.” He gave a sad salute.
Marcus returned it, then grabbed Kendra and fled back to the daylight.
22
“That was awesome,” Kendra yelled gleefully as they fled though Tiski’s streets, putting as much distance between themselves and The Griever’s Shoe as possible. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this before! A duel to the death, with Death! Oh man I need to write this down..”
“Please,” Marcus said, as they rounded a corner, “do we have to talk about this now?”
“And when would you like to talk about it?” Kendra called back, ducking as two men holding a pane of glass appeared from an alleyway in front of them. Marcus slashed it with his scythe and left the two men looking bemused as he carried on through the tumbling shards without a pause.
“I’m content with never,” he said decisively.
“No chance,” Kendra said. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Anywhere that’s not that inn!”
“Well, I think we’ve already accomplished that, so what’s the next stop?”
Marcus made a sound of woe before deciding “back to our ride, we have to leave town!”
“Well, hello,” the Assassin said, as they staggered up to where the coach was parked. “You two are back early. More mischief? Anything I can kill for money?” He was sat on the roof of the coach, legs dangling over the side, once more smoking idly and looking for all the world as if he was having the time of his life. Marcus waved at him absently, dived into the coach, shoved Fervesce’s sleeping self aside and stuffed the scythe as far down amongst their collective luggage as he could manage. The weapon’s aura of menace had strengthened significantly following the encounter with Death, so Marcus dug and dug until he could feel it no more, only then allowing himself to relax a tiny bit.
“Where are the others?” he asked, poking his head out of the window and scanning the crowds, which currently appeared to contain a net total of zero skeletons.
The Assassin glanced at Kendra, who was still grinning widely. “Well, I imagine our dear leader is still out doing his thing. For my part, it didn’t take long to get supplies for the horses, as the stable master was very kind to me after I pointed out the huge favour I was doing him by not killing him on sight. The nasty little man is presumably still out turning our money into more money. So what have you two been up to?”
“Battling the Grim Reaper,” Kendra said, as Marcus said “nothing, why?”
The Assassin rolled his eyes, before flipping his legs up onto the roof and lying down. “Fine, don’t tell me. I know I asked, but I don’t really care.”
“Are you just going to hide in there, now?” Kendra asked, leaning in through the window as Marcus attempted and failed to make himself comfortable amongst the jagged piles of luggage.
“Yes,” he said. “Until we leave town.”
“But wouldn’t leaving town be the first thing Death would expect you to do?”
There was silence for a moment. “Yes,” Marcus said slowly, “I’m banking on him anticipating that I will anticipate him anticipating that, and therefore not expect me to leave straight away, meaning he’ll waste some time looking around the city, giving us time to actually leave.”
Kendra looked impressed. “That’s brilliant! Wait, did you just make that up because you hadn’t thought of that yet?”
“No,” Marcus lied. “It’s all in hand. Could you come inside please? He saw you too, yes?”
“Ehh I don’t think he was really concentrating on me. Ooh – another thing – how can you be sure he can’t do something spooky like follow the scent of the scythe, and track you anyway?”
“I don’t think he can,” Marcus said, truthfully this time. “Or he would have already.”
“Already? How long has this been going on for?”
“If I tell you, will you please come inside?”
“Sold. Tell me all of the things.”
And so Marcus found himself, as Kendra made herself comfortable sitting on Fervesce, relaying for the first time the full story of exactly what had happened on the night he’d been dragged into the Mirrorworld; almost dying, accidentally acquiring Death’s staff, and then their later meeting where he’d discovered exactly how much trouble he was in. Kendra absorbed all of this information with a suspiciously blank expression, although for his part Marcus felt much better having shared it. When he finished, however, her solemn poise split into the biggest grin he’d ever seen.
“Oh Marcus,” she said, springing forward and giving him a hug, “this is fantastic!”
“That.. is not the reaction I expected,” he said, awkwardly extracting himself.
“But it’s wonderful!” she said, bathing him in the light of her smile. “Y’see, what you just told me completely disproves a faint little niggity worry that I’ve had all this time, that maybe the only reason you were going along with all this was in pursuit of a certain death.” She ran a hand through her hair sheepishly. “I was even getting a little concerned that I might have pushed you to it, yakking on about picking a reason for what you were doing, especially when you were telling Fervesce stories and I could see how unhappy you were with everything that’s happened. But no!” she almost yelled, cheerful again, “then this happens, and it turns out the opposite is true and that you’ve been literally and figuratively running away from death this whole time. That’s great news!”
“I don’t know that I would go so far as to call it great,” Marcus said, “but..” he paused, scratching absently at the back of his head as memories of his own actions, of things Death had said and of the things Kendra was now intimating, scuffled for prominence at the forefront of his brain, and proved her right. “You’re right,” he said, slowly. “Kendra, I barely lived through a whole bunch of wasted years. I watched money, friends, relationships and all that other ‘good’ stuff come and go, and I felt no more or less bitter and disinterested when I had them than when I didn’t. That would have been the legacy of my life, but for an exploding jukebox. On my last night on Earth I would probably have thrown up my hands and gone with Death, no complaints. But now, it’s all different, and even though I could go, and it’s more urgently available and pressing than ever..” he looked into Kendra’s dark eyes, saw the sunshine at the heart of her ever-widening smile, and felt his spirits lift very slightly as part of the mental puzzle slipped into place. “Now, I don’t want to. I kind of lost the thought about having faith in the future, but either way, it’s still my future, and I’d like to see it. That’s good, right? Aah,” he added, as Kendra dived forward and hugged him again.
“Marcus, you numpty,” she said, leaning back, and to his surprise, wiping tears from her eyes. “All that stuff you had and lost, that’s all it is – stuff. It doesn’t make a life. Even people don’t. I mean, we totally act like material possessions and good people are all that we need, but really all we need is a bit of purpose, a thing that we’re enthusiastic about, something to tell us it’s all worth the time. And sometimes we might not know what it is until someone tries to take it from us.” She grinned.” Keeping your life your own, that can be your thing! I mean,” she added, suddenly going serious, “that’s not everything, because, y’know, I’m pretty sure you could aim a bit higher than ‘try not to die’, and we�
��re definitely gonna have more words on the whole way you keep trying to push aside your past, because I don’t think that’s a good idea either, but yeah, on the whole..”
“Ssh,” Marcus said. “Stop ruining my moment.”
“’Kay,” she said, giggling.
“Right,” he said, shifting to a more comfortable position as the more trepidatious, day-to-day concerns of surviving being hunted by the incarnate force of death appropriated the goodwill centre of his brain for their own purposes, reminding him as they did of the closeness of the preceding encounter and how he was most likely still in really quite serious danger. “Whatever else may be, I’m not getting out of the coach until we leave town. Since it appears that I’m quite attached to my existence, I’m going to behave in the appropriate manner and hide myself the hell away. Okay?”
“Okay!” Kendra said, and Marcus got the feeling she’d have agreed with him no matter what he’d said at that point. He couldn’t help but feel slightly anxious about the buoyant mood he seemed to have put her in, especially considering that her very next action was to vault out of the coach chaotically and started skipping off down the street. “Hey!” he called, “where-“
“I’m going to go find Musk and Lucin, and hustle them back so we can leave,” she yelled back. “Don’t go anywhere!”
“But Death..” Marcus called feebly, as she gave him a wave and vanished around a corner.
“I’m glad I’m getting well compensated for all this,” the Assassin murmured from above, “because this shit is bonkers.”
Over the course of the next two hours, which Marcus spent lurking in the coach, peeking out, his nervousness did not abate in the slightest. Death did not appear, but with every passing minute there seemed to be more guards lurking around the gate area, just across the way from where the coach was parked. Groups of less officially dressed but no less well-armed people were also circling the small plaza, before breaking off down the adjacent streets and looping back around, exchanging upon their return grim shakes of the head with those who remained. There was a distinct aura of hunters searching for their prey, in a manner reminiscent of the tricksters in Plumm – the only difference was that these hunters appeared much less nervous; presumably, they were hunting smaller game.
Mirrorworld Page 28
