The City Stained Red

by Sam Sykes

  “And his schemes were as endless as his hatreds. He despised his rivals, wealthy men who traded knowledge for precious metals. He loathed the interlopers, those who heaped sacrifices upon Gods not his own. He craved control and yet felt it slipping through his grasp, watching his city fall into ruin, rent by blades and claimed by infidels.

  “And I?” It crossed its hands over its withered chest. “I watched. I saw his world collapse around him and how he struggled to prop it up. He sought to be the shield his people craved. He called men to his side; he gave his fortunes to arms and his destiny to metal, to seize back the fate of his people from reaching hands.”

  She narrowed her eyes. Inside her, Amoch-Tethr chuckled.

  How interesting, he said. Ghoukha’s army was not for the Khovura, nor even for Ghoukha, but for Cier’Djaal. His first selfless act and it earned him this.

  “You were watching,” Asper said, “waiting to strike. And you killed… all these people.”

  Well, technically, it didn’t, Amoch-Tethr chimed in. Not all of them, anyway.

  She tried to ignore him.

  “And the wealthy fell,” the Disciple said. “And the powerful fell. And the unlearned, no matter how much silk they wrapped themselves in, no matter how much gold they sat upon, discovered that they, too, were tiny under the eyes of heaven.”

  “This was all to send a message, then? Not for gold or blood? Just… to make a statement?”

  “It is the weakness of mortality to confuse word for thought, action for meaning,” the Disciple said. “It is the burden of the learned to make them harmonious. The people of this city, with all its prisoners, choke themselves on gold, deafen themselves with prayer, cloud their minds with greed and hope and claw at the walls as the water rises over their heads. We can bring truth. We can establish order.”

  At this, she dared to sneer. “Tell me something,” she said. “Why is it that everyone in this city is so damned afraid to admit they’re killers? Why is killing people a game? Why is it all for Gods or order or knowledge? If it’s such a burden, who asks you to take it? Humanity can handle itself.”

  “Does it?”

  It swept its scribble-black eyes across the houn. It looked from the pillars, their golden faces molten to grotesque masks, to the bodies, ashen piles upon the floor. Embers drifted down from silk webs ablaze overhead to settle upon its shoulders like snowflakes.

  “Can it?” It slithered closer still. “When a man kills, is the blood on his hands? Or is it on the Gods’? Did he kill on his own behalf or did a rich man make him? Was the knife in his hand or was it in hers and she put it to her own throat when she rejected him? When he faces judgment, does he claim that he did it for himself or for a God who did not stop him?”

  It canted its head at her.

  “When you gaze upon the hapless dead, whom do you blame?”

  She had no answer for that. None that she could admit to herself or the demon.

  “This is why it is our burden.” It extended its arms in a sign of benediction. “This is what Khoth-Kapira taught. There will be more blood. Many will die. The world shall be cleaner for it.”

  There was no conviction in its voice.

  No fervent desperation to be right, no fanatic thought fueling maddened speech, no prayer, no boast, no insanity.

  It spoke with the voice of a cold, dark night, as certain as the sun setting and the moon rising. It spoke without enthusiasm, without love, without bloodlust. It spoke, and thus it would be so.

  Many would die.

  Because it said they would.

  And Asper felt herself go cold.

  It lurched toward her.

  “Come, Amoch-Tethr. Let me be the one to show you.”

  She began to backpedal, feeling her knees giving out beneath her. Its stare was upon her now, on her weak flesh, on her trembling eyes. It looked at her the way it would look at a lid on a jar. Or a box. Or a coat. Or anything that was trivial and in its way.

  She staggered. Inside her, she felt Amoch-Tethr speak.

  Do you want to live?

  She nodded yes.

  Do you want to stop this? All of it?

  “Yes.”

  Do you trust me?

  At this, she hesitated. At this, she did not answer. At this, she stood still, feet upon an ashen floor, and stared up into the eyes of the demon.

  Then let it take you.

  Was it fear she felt, she wondered, as the Disciple’s tail coiled about her ankles, her legs, her waist? Was it a prayer that escaped in that last breath as the demon brought her up to stare into its withered face? Was it resignation that made her arm limp as a pale white fish in the demon’s grasp, its black nails rapping upon her skin?

  And when her eyes closed that she might be spared the horror, she wondered if it was her or Amoch-Tethr who did that.

  It didn’t help. Even if she couldn’t see it with her eyes, the hellish red light flashed bright in her mind. She could feel the skin of her arm peeling back, the red light burning too brightly to ignore. She could smell the stench of burning, stronger than even the fire had been.

  She felt her left hand clamp down over the demon’s hand.

  And she heard its scream as the single long toll of a church bell in autumn.

  “Master.” The certainty in its voice now quaked, cracking at the edges. “I do not understand. I only wished to share with you the glory of the design.”

  Apologies, my dear friend. Amoch-Tethr spoke no longer in thought. Now, his voice was her flesh. His prayer was her fire. His laughter was her agony. I’ve become attached to this body. It’s cold out there, you know. It sounds as though you intend to make it much colder than I like.

  She could hear him clearly. Over the sound of the demon’s bones snapping. Over the sizzle of its flesh burning. Over the black sigh of flesh and sinew disintegrating and vanishing into red light, she could hear him. And it.

  “Khoth-Kapira would have wanted you to be there when it happened,” the demon rasped. “He will not be pleased.”

  I suspect I’ll deal with that if He ever comes back.

  A loud snap.

  “When He comes back.”

  A long, black sigh.

  And Amoch-Tethr’s dark chuckle.

  She felt the demon’s limb turn to nothing in her hand. When she opened her eyes, it was but a gray and twisted husk, shrinking around her, lowering her to the ground. Soon, it lay at her feet, as ashen and indiscernible as any of the corpses standing around her.

  She felt no stronger. She looked down at her right arm, saw its flesh dead white. All her blood, everything inside her, burned within a bright red left. She felt bloodless legs give out beneath her, send her to the floor. She felt her head swaying, vision swimming, breath running short.

  Amoch-Tethr had eaten more than his fill.

  She looked up to the ceiling, as though she could see past it and into heaven, but she hadn’t breath to pray. Her gaze drifted to the fire and smoke belching from the upper floor. There, painted black against the flames, she could see a figure.

  She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know his face. But she knew his eyes, those vast, swallowing orbs too big to be drowned out in shadow. He had asked her if Talanas would hear her down here.

  She had an answer for him now.

  He didn’t wait to hear it. Without so much as flinching, he turned around and walked into the flames.

  And she collapsed, her world disappearing into soot, carried into darkness on the sound of Amoch-Tethr’s glutted sigh.

  She heard their anger before she heard their words, though the latter came quickly enough.

  “It wasn’t easy,” a female voice said, silk wrapped around a blade. “The Karnerians and the Sainites were already there, searching in every corner. And she was just lying there, taking a nice nap in the middle of it all. You want to tell me how she was the only one who survived?”

  “I don’t want to, no.” Another voice, familiarly warm. Denaos’s. “And in
return, I don’t want you to tell me why the Jackals arrived too late to stop anything. I told you something was up at Ghoukha’s house. I expected some backup.”

  “The word came late. We weren’t sure which heads were being sent until it happened. I thought it was Yerk; Yerk thought it was me. Rezca smells a rat.”

  “I said I didn’t want to know.”

  “You don’t get to make that decision anymore, Ramaniel.” Blade cut through silk; her words turned harsh. “This wasn’t a favor I did for you. This is a loan. You’re going to have to repay it.”

  “Later.”

  “Tomorrow. Rezca’s calling a new game. He wants you to be there.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are. Whether you want to or not. New rules, Ramaniel.” A pause, cold. “Who is she, anyway?”

  “My sister.”

  “Horseshit.”

  “Obviously. The only way I’m ever going to tell you is if one of us has a knife in our throats. I think she’s coming to, anyway. Take off.”

  “Remember, tom—”

  “Yeah.”

  Asper’s eyes finally caught up with her ears, fluttering open. A dark face framed by dark hair was looming over her, a woman whose features were too hard to be hidden by the soft cheeks and gentle smile.

  “Ah, so she is. Up we rise, darling.” She reached down, took Asper by the arm, and hoisted her up. She felt herself drawn against the woman’s slim body, bare skin brushing against her leathers. Her whisper was a needle in Asper’s ear. “You’ve got a good friend looking out for you, girl. Take care of him.”

  And she was gone, trotting off into the night. Asper watched her step lightly down a hill, vanishing behind a hedge. In the distance, black against the moonlight, the house of Ghoukha stood, a charred and bitter husk of what it once was, its last breaths sighing into the sky on clouds of smoke. She could see figures moving amidst the darkness, hear them screaming at each other, hurling accusations instead of the spears in their hands.

  “They survived.”

  She turned and saw Denaos standing behind her. Farther up the hill, Lenk and Kataria and Gariath sat. There was no sign of Dreadaeleon.

  “Once the Khovura showed up, the Karnerians and Sainites got the Ancaaran priest and a few fashas out,” Denaos said, pointing out to the ruined manor. “Trying to curry favor, I guess. Gariath and I had to fight our way out. We thought you had run. If we had known—”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Did anyone else make it?”

  “I didn’t see anyone else.” He laid a hand on her left shoulder. His touch felt painful, as though he grazed new skin. “What happened in there?”

  “A lot.” She shrugged his hand off. “Did they find Miron?”

  “Lenk said—”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish. She was already moving. Up the hill, she found them sitting, applying charbalm to fire-kissed skin and wrapping up scrapes and cuts. She stood over Lenk. He looked up.

  “That’s everyone, I guess,” he said with a sigh. “You good?”

  “Better than the people in there,” Asper replied. “Lots better. What did you find?”

  “Nothing.”

  Her eyes widened. “Denaos said—”

  “What? That I saw Miron long enough to know that he was walking with the Khovura? That he looked at me as I was about to die and smiled?” He snorted. “Yeah, I found that. Whoever he is, he’s with them.”

  “He could have died in there with them, the guards and everyone,” Kataria offered. “There were so many dying…”

  “If he was coming in with the Khovura, he knew what they were doing,” Lenk said. “And if he knew what they were doing, he probably had a way out for himself.” He rubbed his temple, touching a wound there and flinching. “How did they get in?”

  “They used him to talk their way in,” Kataria said. Her ears twitched. “Maybe.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We lost him again.” Lenk sighed and rose to his feet. “At least we know that the Khovura and Ghoukha aren’t together, anyway.”

  “At least?” Asper’s outrage carried across the night. “How many people died in there? How much blood was spilled? And you’re trying to pass it off like it was worth it?”

  “I’m making the best out of a bad situation.”

  “People are dead. This isn’t a ‘bad situation,’ Lenk, it’s—”

  “Justice.”

  Gariath spoke softly. But even a whisper from a dragonman was a rumble of the earth, something born deep. He crouched on his haunches nearby, staring down at the ground.

  “Whatever died in there, it wasn’t people. The humans in there don’t deserve the name. All that gold, all that wealth… while their ‘people’ starve and drown in their city?” He snorted derisively. “What died in there was hungry animals carrying a disease. The world is cleaner for having them gone.”

  “They weren’t all wealthy,” she countered. “Some were servants, slaves.”

  “Daaru was right.”

  “Who the hell is—”

  “This whole city has the disease. They all chase the same scent, all crave the same meat. The animals that died in there get the biggest pieces and everyone else slavers and spits for the scraps.” His anger came out in a low growl. “You weep for their lives. They died begging for meat. They weren’t people.”

  Asper turned around. For to look at him—that inhuman, monstrous piece of filth—for one moment longer would make her want to hurt him. And to try to hurt him was pointless.

  What could get through a skull that thick?

  “You said everyone made it out? All of us?”

  “Not without issue,” Lenk said, “but yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Perhaps he could hear the acid in her voice. And because of that, he didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. With a sigh, he pointed down the other side of the hill.

  And she was off.

  She found Dreadaeleon sitting halfway down, his knees drawn tight against his body, his head held between them, fingers knotted in his hair as he clutched his skull. With every step she took toward him, she thought of a new way to kill him, to make him suffer for everyone he had slain.

  By the time she was within three paces of him, she had decided a quick blow to the back of the head would be the kindest option.

  By the time she was within two, she wasn’t sure if she wanted that.

  And by the time she was close enough to strangle him, he spoke.

  “I wanted to be the hero.”

  His voice quavered. And she stopped.

  “I thought… I thought I’d make everything better,” he continued. “It was so easy in my head. The fire would scatter the Khovura, send them fleeing and give me more room. Then I could just use lightning or something to take them out individually. I didn’t account for… I couldn’t…”

  His voice trembled at the edges, weak.

  “And then I went and ruined everything.”

  Her mind, at that point, was in staunch disagreement with her body. She could hear the tears in his eyes, the tightness in his throat. She knew he was remorseful, in agony over the lives he had taken.

  But he had still taken them, her body reminded her. He had still acted like an idiot and killed everyone, her trembling fists objected. What good were good intentions, her clenched jaw asked her, if they still killed everyone? How many times did someone get to say they were sorry, the fever burning behind her eyes asked as it tinged her vision, before the words didn’t mean as much as the deed?

  She closed her eyes and tried to release the rage through a long breath. She tried that many, many times before she felt she could speak without bludgeoning him.

  “I understand,” she said.

  “You don’t,” he said. “That’s why I ran. I couldn’t face you. I couldn’t let you know that—”

  “But I did.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezed it, resisted the urge to do more than that. “I sa
w. It happened. We can only move forward and try to make this right.”

  “We can?”

  “Yours wasn’t the only sin committed this night. Someone has to answer for… all of this. You can try to make things right by helping with that.”

  “I can.” No question this time. Hope crept into his voice. “I can do that. Next time, it will go flawlessly.”

  “Next time?” She quirked a brow.

  “Right. We’ll call it a learning experience, won’t we? My lack of foresight was… disappointing, but explainable, considering previous circumstances. I’ll have a better handle of things next time. Casualties will be minimized.”

  “Minimized? What are you—”

  She lost her voice as he looked up. There was something on his face, but it wasn’t despair. There were no tears, no sorrow, no remorse etched into his wrinkles. Only worry, only stress, fleeting emotions that vanished under a broadening smile.

  “Naturally, I made a few mistakes and there were consequences. But all the same? Better to overreach and fail than remain…”

  She couldn’t hear him anymore. He was speaking a language that no longer made sense, and his face was a mask she didn’t recognize. He looked too hopeful, too contented with himself. His eyes were already bright with childlike wonder, his hands already gesturing the grand schemes he had laid out; his smile was already full.

  Of her fist.

  With the first blow, he staggered backward and looked at her as though she had made a mistake, like she had just spontaneously lost control of a limb. The second left no doubt, knocking him flat on his back.

  She wasn’t angry.

  Not as she straddled him. Not as she struck him, her fist moving back and forth with mechanical fervor. And certainly not as her knuckles grew red with his blood.

  She didn’t feel angry. She felt dutiful. This was something that had to be done. These were words that had to be said.

  “You don’t even care about them,” she said. “You don’t care about who you killed; you only care that it didn’t go your way. You don’t give a shit about those people you burned alive. You only care that they’re not here to call you a hero.”

  He was crying out, begging for her to stop. Now she saw the tears. Now she saw them running down his cheeks, cutting glistening scars through the blood painting his face. But she didn’t stop.