Clara Mandrake's Monster

by Ibrahim S. Amin

  But Allat's hand didn't smash her and the kingdoms with their teeming millions. It hovered instead. Hovered, and pointed. Fahmaia mustered all her piety, all her courage, to meet the One Goddess' eyes. And she understood.

  Her true eyes opened and the vision was gone. For some minutes she couldn't move. The mawlana sat there and shook, as before. But she mustn't succumb to weakness. Not while Allat's message burned within her. The One Goddess was merciful, but only the piety of the Kharjis, Fahmaia's people, could earn that clemency.

  The mawlana wiped cold sweat from her limbs. She went outside, took a few steps towards Barzik Khan's tent, and forced herself to look heavenward. A scattering of stars twinkled in the darkness. The prayer trance had carried day into evening. The Khan would be in the pleasure tent, so she went there instead.

  "Mawlana!" A guardswoman stopped her outside the tent flap. "The Khan's… He's… Let me tell him you wish to see him! Wait!"

  But Fahmaia moved past, and the woman didn't dare block her path.

  Young men and women sprawled throughout the tent. Lounged on rugs and pillows. Lay in tangles of flesh. Some of them cowered when she approached, tried to hide their nakedness. Others sat in clouds of shisha smoke and stared through her.

  Barzik reclined at the far end of the tent, atop a throne of cushions. A woman anointed his masses of beard with oil. Another did the same to his long locks. Brushes scraped and clinked across his hair, scoured away the dust and dirt. The warlord glanced up. He grabbed the nearest concubine and pulled the young man in front of his loins.

  "I've cleaned men's wounds," Fahmaia said. "Your flesh doesn't trouble me."

  The warlord sighed and gestured. The concubine scurried away.

  "If I'd known-" Barzik said.

  "It was too urgent. Allat has spoken."

  Barzik Khan dropped to his knees. One of the girls squealed when his hair tore from her grasp. Specks of blood shone in her palm.

  "What does she say?"

  "A sacrifice." Fahmaia knelt too and took his hands in hers. "A large one, for the sake of the world."

  3

  Rayya Shimud paced across her bedroom a dozen times. When that didn't help, she sat back down at the table and picked up her quill. But the nib paused on its journey from ink bottle to parchment. Rayya tickled her nostrils with the opposite end instead. It was like rubbing her nose against a kitten, and usually relaxed her. But there was a limit to what feathers, or even actual felines, could accomplish this evening.

  She dipped the instrument into the ink bottle again. It rose and fell twice more. Soon there was enough blue on it to write an epic poem. And yet the letter to Sachin lay there unfinished, as it had for the past hour. Rayya forced the nib onto the parchment. She scribbled a couple more words. But how could she write anecdotes about their parents, ask questions about his cat, when…

  Clara's face floated in the middle of her mind. No. Faces. The first a mask of rage. A visage that belonged on the side of a temple, to scare away evil spirits. But the other was no better. The one which'd been there just before Clara ran. The face of a frightened and broken girl.

  Rayya wrote. Words flowed beneath the nib but meant nothing.

  A bang rattled the shutters. She gasped. The candle flame wavered, light and dark wobbled around her. Ink fell onto the parchment. Each droplet bloomed into a wound.

  The knock sounded again, and this time a voice hissed.

  "Rayya!"

  She put the quill down. More ink bled from it and drowned her words, but she barely noticed. Rayya ran to the window and opened the shutters.

  "Clara! You…"

  A gust swept past and leaves tumbled through the air. It froze her face. Clara shivered too. Rayya took her friend's arm and helped her scramble inside, then shut out the cold. The girls rubbed warmth back into their hands.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah…"

  But Clara looked like a sculpture that'd taken a hard blow. Any second now, cracks would creep across her skin and she'd break into a hundred pieces.

  "What did Miss Jazrah say? About Tommy?"

  "He lied. He said he fell out of the tree."

  "Huh?" Brightness flickered in the depths of Clara's eyes. Seeped into her cheeks. She tottered and slumped onto the edge of the bed. "Then…"

  Rayya sat beside her.

  "After school, he told us he wasn't a snitch. But the twins said he just didn't want the adults to know he got beaten up by a girl."

  Clara giggled. The sound meant more to Rayya than all the kittens in the world. It was the old Clara.

  "That's why mum didn't know. I thought… I thought they just hadn't told her yet."

  "We told Jazrah you were feeling sick and went home. She believed it." Rayya bit her lip. She wanted to stop there. Stop while her friend was relieved and smiling and everything was good. But she couldn't. "Clara… What happened?"

  The corner of Clara's mouth quivered.

  "I… I don't know. My head just… hurt. It hurt so bad and he was being such a jerk and I couldn't stop, couldn't stop hitting him."

  Her body shook. She closed her mouth, tried to hold back the sob, and it exploded from her eyes instead. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Rayya couldn't move. Clara's pain transfixed her. But a fresh sob snapped her out of it. She grabbed a handkerchief and pushed it into her friend's hand. Clara sniffed. Her nose dribbled. She wiped it, and smeared wetness across her face.

  "Go home and sleep. You'll feel better after-"

  Clara wailed. Her whole face erupted, eyes and nose and mouth. Rayya turned to the door. She didn't know whether to hope her parents hadn't heard or run to them for help.

  "I can't! I can't go to bed, because of the monster!"

  Rayya's stomach lurched. Or maybe it was the room. Or the whole world. Her friend was crazy. Crazy, like Old Joss' wife.

  "Clara, what… what're you-"

  "I go to sleep and it's there. In my head. In my nightmares. It's coming for me, and I can't get away. Because it's there. It's right there and… and…"

  Oh! Rayya exhaled. Nightmares. She could deal with nightmares.

  "It's just a dream. They seem real sometimes."

  "No. It was there. In my wardrobe and… and…" She blinked. Blew her nose. Deflated. "It felt… It…"

  Rayya couldn't tell if it was epiphany or embarrassment. But the intensity melted from her friend's face, and Rayya jumped into the opening.

  "Trust me. Just get a proper night's sleep and you'll be fine."

  "I can't. Not there. I…" She grasped Rayya's hand. "Can I sleep here tonight?"

  "Okay."

  "Thanks."

  "No problem. But… Your mum."

  "She won't go in my room unless she needs to wake me up in the morning. I can sneak back in early."

  Clara's eyes shone, and Rayya didn't have the heart to raise any more objections. Her friend had to sleep. Just one proper night's rest, and maybe everything would be fine. No more tears. No more crazy talk. No more monsters. No more beating Tommy half to death.

  "I'll get you a nightshirt."

  The girls dressed for bed. Rayya glanced at the ruined letter, sighed, and blew out the candle. She got under the blanket. Clara's heat filled the narrow bed, but it wasn't unpleasant.

  She lay there and listened to the rhythm of her friend's heart.

  ***

  "Get him, Silas!"

  "Jonas! Jonas! Jonas!"

  Figures jostled at the edges of Silas' vision, in the darkness beyond the ring of flaming torches. He tried to ignore them.

  Jonas flailed like a marionette at the end of a drunkard's strings. Punches hammered Silas from every angle. Two battered his guard. One pounded the side of his head.

  "Jonas! Jonas! Jonas!"

  Silas threw a straight right. Jonas darted back out of reach and swung his leg as a parting gift. His shin slashed Silas' thigh. Silas' leg buckled, but he moved with it and stayed upright.

  "Come on, Silas!" Jocasta's voice cu
t through the others.

  Jonas held back. Sweat ran down his sinews, and the leather around his fists was several shades darker now. Silas didn't press forward. He took deep breaths, his belly wobbled. The referee coughed and brandished her birch. She wouldn't let them linger.

  "Finish him, Jonas!" Lucy said.

  "Mess him up, Silas!" Jocasta said.

  The trainees on either side of the circle lent their voices. Friendships and enmities meant nothing. If a fighter beat you, you cheered for them. That was tradition. And if someone else beat them, you cheered for that fighter instead. The final match of a tournament was always boisterous.

  Jonas moved first. Another low kick. Silas raised his leg to block it on the knee, but Jonas' scarecrow limb flicked in and out, lashed Silas on the inside of his other thigh. He staggered. An overhead right bounced off his forehead. Lights burst in his eyes and mingled with the torches.

  He swung back. One of his punches clipped Jonas, and the taller youth backed up again. But Jonas grinned. He could take his time. Pick Silas apart in this contest of fists and feet.

  Silas' lungs heaved. He was the better wrestler. If he could get in close, clinch, muscle Jonas around and wear him down, throw some short, sharp blows to the kidneys… His fingers opened and closed. But the referee shook her head. Silas winced. Grappling and other rule-breaking meant whacks from her birch. He couldn't afford to take any more damage.

  "Mess him up, Silas! Mess him up!" His half of the crowd chanted with one voice now. "Mess him up, Silas! Mess him up!"

  "Jonas, break his face!" The counter-chorus was just as loud. "Jonas, Jonas, break his face!"

  Silas snapped a kick at his belly. Jonas knocked it aside but caught the follow-up punch on his cheek. Silas threw everything he had. A barrage of blows. Most bounced off knees, elbows, and forearms. But a few landed.

  "Silas! Silas! Silas!"

  Jonas backed up, almost into a torch, and had to lunge forward again. His foot thrust at Silas' face. Silas slipped past the side kick. Now! He spotted his target, moved into the punch. Already saw it land in his mind's eye.

  Then Jonas' foot hooked round the opposite side of his head. Silas had time to think, "Bloody scarecrow!" before its heel collided with his jaw.

  The world spun. Trails of fire whirled around the night sky.

  "Jonas! Jonas! Jonas!"

  Darkness carried him away.

  ***

  The monster loomed over her bed and the wardrobe door opened and the monster loomed over her bed. Warm fingers. Claws. On her cheek. Coming out of the closet.

  Clara screamed but it didn't make a sound. She had no voice. No air. A hand pressed over her mouth. Skin. Fur. Fingertips. Claws. They smothered her and she was going to die and-

  "Clara." Rayya's breath stroked her cheek and the memory made her flinch. The hand shifted. "You kicked me and started screaming. You were going to wake my parents up."

  "Oh. I'm… I'm sorry."

  Rayya sighed. Her weight shifted next to Clara as she lay back down.

  "The monster again?"

  "Yeah. It was here and…" But she realised how stupid that was. Because Rayya was here, not the monster. Clara wanted to curl up and die.

  "It's just a nightmare."

  "It felt-"

  "I know. But there's nothing here. And there's nothing in your bedroom either."

  "I'm sorry."

  Clara tried to stifle the sob. Rayya's arms snaked around her and pulled her into a hug.

  "It's okay."

  "But it's so real! And I don't know if I'm dreaming or crazy. When I'm there, I hear it. Feel it. When it comes out of the wardrobe it… it…"

  "Listen… Tomorrow, we'll sleep in your room. Then you'll know for sure. If anything comes out of the wardrobe, I'll see it. If it doesn't, you'll know it's just a dream. Sound good?"

  "Yeah…" She wiped her tears and smiled. "But what if you're crazy too?"

  "Then we'll visit Sachin and he can mix us up a crazy girl cure."

  "Will it turn our hair purple?"

  "Maybe."

  "I'd like that."

  "Me too."

  ***

  Birdsong trilled outside the dormitory windows. Young men shuffled and rolled over under their blankets as the morning music coaxed them from slumber. The door banged open. Feet stamped. Voices drowned out the birds.

  "Wake up, you lazy bastards!"

  "She's here!"

  Silas yawned. An ache throbbed through his mandible and he clamped his mouth shut.

  "Stop touching yourselves and get up!"

  A phalanx of female trainees marauded through the dorm, kicking beds, snatching blankets. Some of the boys yelled. Others grabbed clothes or hurled pillows. Jocasta intercepted a missile and threw it back. Cardew caught it in the side of his bandaged head and tumbled onto the floor.

  Silas swung his legs off the mattress, sat there, and raised a hand to the worst of his bruises before he remembered himself and put it back in his lap.

  "The next one's here." Lucy stopped beside his bed.

  "Can't be." Jonas vaulted over the adjacent cot and landed next to her. "Too soon. It's only been a couple of days."

  "It's true," Jocasta said. "She's in our dorm's guest room. Arrived late last night."

  "Who is it?" Silas stood up. His left thigh blared, but he refused to favour it. "Anyone we know?"

  The girls grinned.

  "Yeah," Lucy said. "Old scarface herself."

  Jonas whistled.

  "Katrina von Talhoffer. Damn."

  A score or more conversations exploded around the dormitory. That name spat from each of them, in such varied tones of awe and admiration, dread and disbelief, it may've belonged to a hundred different women.

  "Did she have an apprentice with her?" Silas said. But he knew. The girls wouldn't have invaded with the cockcrow to bring them the news unless…

  "No," Lucy said. "Didn't you lot hear what happened?"

  "I did." Jonas' chest swelled. He was never short on gossip.

  Lucy and Jonas looked at Silas, and Silas was forced to shrug.

  "Why? What happened?"

  The pair exchanged smirks. For a split-second, Silas saw them as they would've been if they'd never come here. Two kids swapping stories and making mischief behind a village pub, instead of breaking each other's heads.

  "Scarface killed him," Lucy said.

  "Rubbish." The word squeezed through the bones and bruises of Silas' skull. It sounded weak, petulant in his own ears. His face heated. "A mistress wouldn't…"

  "She did," Jonas said. "Or as good as."

  The dormitory door opened once more, behind Lucy and Jonas.

  "Geoffrey's apprentice told us, when they passed through." Lucy made an obscene gesture and winked. "Cardew got it out of him."

  Two figures entered — Master Gunnar and a woman who stood a full head taller. Silas opened his mouth but shut it again. A thousand ideas bounced around his brain. He fixed his gaze on Lucy's face.

  "What'd he say?" Silas kept his voice steady.

  "There was an encounter, and she ran away while her apprentice was fighting."

  "Just left him to die," Jonas said, "to save her own skin."

  "She should've been kicked out."

  "Hanged, if you ask me."

  The silence was a physical thing. It buffeted the dormitory and everyone in it. Colour drained from Lucy and Jonas' cheeks. Silas' heart thudded. His stomach scrunched up into a ball. The two trainees turned, but the faces around the chamber already told them what waited there.

  Katrina von Talhoffer's face bore no expression. Her lips were level, and her single blue eye gazed at nothing in particular. But scars twitched below her eyepatch.

  "Raise your hands."

  Her voice wasn't loud. Or hard. Or fierce. But Silas almost flinched.

  "We… We weren't-" Lucy said.

  "I didn't-" Jonas said.

  "Raise. Your. Hands."

  "I'll take them
outside." Master Gunnar shifted. His eyes darted from Mistress von Talhoffer to the trainees and back again. "Give them six strokes each for impertinence…"

  "No. No flogging." She took a stance and put up her guard. "Raise your hands. Both of you."

  Silas had fought Jonas enough times to see it coming. The trainee's leg lashed out, and Silas admired him beyond measure. He wouldn't have dared. Not even when the fight was inevitable. But Jonas wasn't a coward.

  Katrina von Talhoffer stepped into the kick. Jammed it with her left elbow and jarred Jonas' leg. Her right fist crashed on his jaw. Jonas staggered. He punched. It rebounded off the top of the mistress' head and she hit him twice more. His body twisted, flailed. More like a scarecrow than ever. He bumped into Silas' bed and went down in a tangle of limbs.

  Lucy sprang at von Talhoffer. Her hands snatched, sought purchase, tried to clinch and throw. The mistress headbutted her. Kneed her between the legs. Swept her feet out from under her. Lucy hit the floor and groaned.

  Katrina von Talhoffer's eye fastened on her. Silas held his breath. Master Gunnar's hand rose, fell by his side, and rose again. His body jerked in her direction then stopped. But she stepped back, dropped her fists. Everyone exhaled.

  "So…" Mistress von Talhoffer's gaze scoured the entire room. "Which one's Lucy Pergan?"

  Master Gunnar coughed. It was a few seconds before he pointed. Another moment crawled by.

  "Who's your second best trainee?" Katrina said.

  "Jonas Andrescu." Again he pointed.

  The silence stretched until Silas was sure it would smother him.

  "The third best?"

  His heartbeat quickened.

  "Silas Renshaw."

  The finger jabbed from a few feet away, but Silas' flesh throbbed as though it had punctured him. Katrina von Talhoffer turned. He couldn't meet her eye, focused on her patch instead. Its blackness glared at him. Thoughts plummeted into his guts and festered there for an eternity.

  She eyed his belly and her lip curled. Silas wished by all things holy and profane that he slept in a nightshirt.