The Hexslinger Omnibus

by A Book of Tongues; A Rope of Thorns; Tree of Bones; Hexmas; Like a Bowl of Fire; In Scarlet Town (Today) (epub)

  Here Fennig turned to Rook full-on, eyes literally glowing; his smoked lenses, twin glass-sheathed lantern wicks, swum brim-full of bright blue light. “So why ain’t we takin’ more care in the building of it, is what I want to know? Why ain’t we puttin’ all our gifts together now we can—make something that’ll last long after we die, ’stead of dryin’ up and blowin’ away?”

  Rook raised an eyebrow, impressed despite himself. That anyone had finally asked the question at all was occasion enough; that it was this man was genuinely surprising.

  “Bear in mind, Hank, never was a hex born took easy to another tellin’ him what to do—which is why I don’t foresee many folk signing up for latrine duty, sad to say. Still,” he looked around, “city don’t run itself, that’s for certain.”

  “No.” Fennig narrowed his eyes at Ixchel’s ziggurat, as if measuring it. “Seems like she ain’t quite taken that into account.”

  “That’s my lady wife you’re talkin’ about, New York.”

  “Apologies, Reverend; I’d never get ’tween a man and his mutton.” He visibly rummaged for the next few words, fitting ’em carefully together. “And yet—there’s none’a the rest of you comes from a city upwards of two thousand strong, am I right? ’Cept maybe for her, an’ I don’t think she was the one had administration of it, or wanted such. That’s why she’s got you.”

  “Ain’t all that many of us, either.”

  “Not yet,” Fennig shot back. “But more hexes than ever dwelt in one place, more every day—and not hexes alone, either. You know a lot of ’em come in on the very edge of turnin’, and them’s the ones bring along sweethearts, kids. There’ve been others gone out to roust farmers and crafters from any town they can find, bind ’em into service. Hell, who d’you think’s working the crop-plots, out where the Lady’s gussied up the soil? My guess, we got two or three normal folk for every hex—and that’s as like as not to go up, not down.” A deep breath. “Pretty soon, the way we’ve been goin’ on won’t be halfway good enough, any more. And when that day comes . . . well, might be you need to delegate. Might be . . . we can even afford to trust one another.”

  He hesitated, considering Rook’s impassive expression. “For now, at least,” he added.

  Rook thought it over. In silence, they turned down what had become, by default, Hex City’s “Main Street”—a broad laneway run straight east from the open square before the ziggurat, so the knife-wielders at temple’s peak looked direct into the sun each dawn. Its course was kept empty by something between divine decree and curse—any hex who thought to raise up a structure too near the road found himself suddenly struck down, all forgings collapsed to dust and glitter. Whether he lived long enough after to recover was dependent on Ixchel’s mood, once the case was brought before her.

  No matter how ruthlessly she policed her processional, however, the Lady was utterly indifferent to what might spring up just beyond. So instead of epic bas-reliefs and exotic marketplaces, canals to feed the farms beyond or elegant garden-set homes, New Aztectlan resembled some unholy mix of every foreign poor-folks’ quarter Rook’d ever seen, infused with the wrecked, would-be grandeur shared by all too many Confederate towns during the War’s dying days. But better and worse than both, because . . . well, look at who’d built it.

  A transparent cube, walls, floor and ceiling all grown from something Rook thought might be actual diamond, with a twirling ribbon of multicoloured light spinning endlessly inside, was home to a barber-surgeon who used his keen-edged fingers for scissors and scalpel. A popular groggery-saloon boasted a façade as grand and glorious as any Parisian vaudevillery’s—’til you passed at an angle and glimpsed it for what it was: parchment-thin, kept upright by hexation and nothing else, with a clumsy thing of sap-weeping planks hid behind. The domed brown blister kitty-corner ’cross from it was, Rook knew, a brothel run collectively by a half-dozen young women who’d masked their true talents in whoring, safe from priest or lawman alike, ’til the Call brought them here. Now they’d carved themselves a fresh business-domicile right out of the earth, with utter disinterest for stylish considerations; those in search of witch-pussy would just have to eat a peck of dirt, or go wanting.

  And the general store where the fruits of raids and conjurings were offered for purchase seemed at first glance like a longhouse cabin, ’til a closer look showed every bark-clad log fused smoothly with its neighbour, stumps sprouting green leaves and threading knotted roots down into the earth. Scattered among the larger buildings, like warts on a toad’s skin, were huts housing anywhere from one to a dozen citizens: those who’d staked a claim but didn’t have enough power, as yet, to claim more territory.

  It was all so unimaginative, Rook thought, with a spasm of disgust; even the most ostentatious displays were mere peacockery, mundane vanity writ larger, not deeper. As if the only thing these people could think to do, given power and freedom most could only dream of, was to ape the lives they’d left, substituting trade in raw magic for gold or cash.

  “Right mess, ain’t it?” Fennig commented, with disturbing acuity.

  “Old habits, I s’pose,” Rook allowed.

  “Womenfolk like routine.” Fennig glanced sideways at Rook’s raised eyebrow. “Ain’t you noticed, Rev? Near three of every five hex-workers in this town’s of a feminine nature.” He shrugged. “Plain sense, you think about it—power comes to a woman with her first bleeding, but only t’one of us if we’re hurt near to death. Bound t’be more of them than us.”

  Fire blazed in Rook’s memory, silent and searing: a haystack beneath a ladder upon which a poor boy with one square pupil was bound, his skin blackening, mouth open in a wail so soundless even the sparrow-marking God had not answered.

  “Perhaps,” he said quietly. “But that might be why they get caught so easy, too. Not to mention how witches bear witch-children, eventually—and more than half the time, both drink each other dry. We men are spared that bargain, at least.”

  “Except,” Fennig countered, “here, we don’t need t’be.” He looked at the people beginning to gather along both street-sides, watching them pass: a hodgepodge of male and female, old and young, black and brown, red and pale, even a sprinkling of true Chinee-yellow, the sort Miss Songbird’s pig-pale skin would never support. Plus various children, owl-blinking at their parents’ elbows; Fennig nodded their way. “Some of those might be hexes-in-waiting already, but that don’t mean we gotta be fearful. I could raise up a son, here, Reverend . . . you, too.”

  The truth of that shook him, twisting Rook’s gut in a way he could never have expected. With numb dread, he thought: What we do here has changed things already. Won’t stop, either, just ’cause she don’t see it happening.

  “A man wants to change his circumstances might do better to have no kin in tow, though,” Rook observed, voice deceptively even. “One thing I’ve learned in this vocation, Henry . . . trust comes easier, when there’s less to lose.”

  The three-fingered hand danced lightly up, making some mock-casual adjustment—and Rook felt the icy touch of Fennig’s regard fix on him, peering inwards. For answer, he drew on his own mojo, like a lawman clearing his guns; force pressed ’gainst force a moment, as the air seemed to hush. Then Fennig let his breath out, dropping hand to belt, and Rook showed his appreciation for the gesture by returning the favour.

  “Don’t dream too big, son, is all I suggest,” he told Fennig, without rancour. “’Cause Christ knows, this ain’t no democracy, and it ain’t our dreams take pride of place. That’s the kind’a mistake leads a man to the Machine.”

  Fennig’s jaw tightened. “There’s some might be thinkin’ to make that mistake, sure. But I ain’t one of ’em.”

  “Just as well. Those risin’ against me might have some chance. Those risin’ against her? None at all.”

  “Well, laying any talk of ‘rising’ by . . .” Fennig waved his
hand, dismissing all thoughts of conflict. “Don’t see no reason we can’t make some improvements, nonetheless. For all our benefits.”

  “Laudable goal, Henry. Others feel the same, you know of?”

  “Not all of ’em, no. But we don’t need all—some’s bound for that Machine of yours, just like you said, no matter what they do.”

  “And more arriving every day,” Rook agreed, echoing Fennig’s earlier remark. Then, having reached the processional’s penultimate length, “Temple Square” itself, he paused, then asked: “Care to help me welcome some more of ’em, Mister Fennig?”

  “Rev . . . I’d count myself honoured.”

  With no tangible walls to defend, travellers to New Aztectlan could simply make their way in from any compass point over the newly be-greened plain, straight for the city’s heart—but only if they were a hex, or in a hex’s company. Any Call-deaf mundane stranger got within a thousand paces was sent on his way, memory glamour-blotted. And when a hex found his way in at last, he was drawn to the square before the Blood Engine’s ziggurat like iron to a magnet, knowing in his bowels to wait ’til the Rainbow Lady or her consort appeared to administer the Oath.

  Ixchel had first taught Rook the Oath as a long invocation in her native speech, its meaning only made clear through shared hexation; Rook hadn’t stumbled through it more than twice before substituting a shorter, English version, rightly sensing that the words mattered not nearly so much as the fundamental consent they articulated—a permanent locking in of souls.

  Service I pledge to the Suicide Moon,

  Obedience to Her High Priest;

  Fellowship to the City’s children—

  This I swear, on my own power’s pain;

  This I swear, to loss of blood and life,

  That the Engine fail not to bring another World.

  Once voiced, the Oath branded itself scar-black on the brain, unforgettable, yet almost never truly understood. All its adherents knew was that on the Oath’s last word, as they let their blood fall upon the Temple’s soil with whatever was nearest to hand, both the aching pull of the Call itself and that maddening lifelong hunger they’d all carried simply broke, like a fever . . . washed away, its last remnants retreating deep within. And suddenly, they were free.

  But that “freedom’s” truth lay hid in the Oath itself, for those wise enough to parse it proper; the hunger was not gone, just transmogrified. Which left their pledge a hook sunk deep into every heart, key to an ever-leaking sluice gate that could be flung wide at any moment, emptying them of hexation and life both in one bright, fatal flood.

  Might be that was why some balked at the last second, sensing the trap, and fought rather than submit—much good though it did them against Rook, let alone Ixchel. The Oath, once broke, drunk them up altogether, leaving their blank-eyed bodies to be bent backwards over an altar stone.

  In New Aztectlan, blood was the key to every door: those leading in, and out.

  Inside the square, Rook was met by a small crowd of petitioners, all of them murmuring requests while offering up small gewgaws, which straightaway disappeared into the many pockets of Rook’s capacious black coat. He could never give as much help as he might wish, but he always accepted the gifts; taking someone’s tribute meant you took ’em serious, and ofttimes that simple feeling of having been heard, acknowledged, was help enough. Priesthood was priesthood.

  Fennig, meanwhile, was met by his own little knot of followers: three young women—two brunettes, one blonde, and none of them, Rook guessed, past twenty summers—who bestowed looks on him which ranged the full spectrum from worshipful-affectionate to outright exasperated. Shrewd face lit up by their approach, Fennig bussed them all with impartial enthusiasm, then turned back to Rook, beaming.

  “Rev, it’s my right and honest pleasure to introduce you to my ladies.” Fennig spread his three fingers and twitched each in turn toward a girl, a mountebank’s flourish. “Miss Berta Schemerhorne”—the first brunette, tall and willowy in dark green—“Miss Clodagh Killeen”—the blonde, a pert, freckle-faced miss—“and Miss Eulalia . . . Eulie . . . Parr.” The second brunette was dark-complected enough to make Rook suspect some hopped bedsheets lay behind her distinctly English surname. “All of courage uncommon, and toughness unmatched by any dockside bingo-boy you could name.”

  Berta glowed; Eulie coloured yet darker; buxom little Clodagh scowled.

  “Fine words, ye flimmery Nativist fancy-man,” she snapped, “given how little the choice we any of us had in coming here.”

  “Aw, Clo—”

  “Don’t you ‘aw, Clo’ me!”

  He raised his hands, but she slapped them away. And as she did—Rook glimpsed a spark pass between, skin to skin: Blue-white, bending the air, leaving an ozone whiff behind. The other two saw it, cutting eyes at each other; the Schemerhorne gal laid a calming palm on the small of Clo’s back, sending some sort of shimmer pulsing forward to outline the restive heart beneath in light.

  While Eulie, in turn, made a cat’s cradle flicker with both hands, casting threads fine as spider’s silk to pull Clo closer, hug her tight. Saying, as she did: “Can’t take on so at every little thing, sissy, and you know it—now, don’t you? Ain’t good for the baby.”

  Rook straightened slowly, breathing suddenly difficult; those corset-stays of hers were loose-laced, now he looked closer. And set damnable high, to boot.

  “You’re—all hexes,” he said, at last. “And . . .”

  Fennig nodded. “Clo’s caught short, yeah. So’s you can understand my investment in makin’ this place a true home, stead’a just one more room in Herself’s house.”

  Miss Berta turned Rook’s way, dropping a polite curtsey, to add—“We didn’t suspect, not at first. Back in the Points, it was only Henry, and when he said he had to go, well . . . I wasn’t too minded to stay behind, without him; thankfully, the others agreed. Then, on the road, it came to us each one by one: dreams at night, tricks and spells by morning, and then—” She looked down at her feet, which were bare but white, soles soft, as though she’d worn shoes most of the rest of her life. “It was hard to stay together, for a while. But we didn’t want to leave Henry, no matter what Clo might say. None of us.”

  Sound familiar, Reverend? his own mind whispered, mockingly.

  True, it didn’t seem reasonable to think he and Chess had been something wholly unique in the annals of all hexation, but still . . . it hurt, more than Rook would’ve guessed, to see his own story played out again, threefold.

  Three women, each equal-powerful. Three chances to speak plain, be heard and understood, be forgave your trespasses. A three-fold marriage without any of ’em harried by the thought of mutual damnation, or love turned to murder in a nightmare-swift eye-flick.

  In that one instant, he envied Fennig and his pimp’s roster of lovelies so intensely, it made him sick—so much so that were he a far worse man, assuming that was even possible, he would’ve gladly killed ’em all, and walked away whistling.

  Fennig almost seemed to see it, too—the beginnings of it, at any rate. He angled himself subtly to nudge Clo back behind him, just in case Rook saw fit to strike.

  Don’t want it to come to that, if it don’t have to, Rook was surprised to realize. I’d rather by far have this one with me than against me—and his womenfolk, too.

  A moment only—less, perhaps.

  ’Til one second was split headlong from the next by a shout, somewhere by the southernmost intake gate—“Reverend Rook! I need words with you, gringo!”

  And this, too, reminded him of Chess: the glad relief of imminent threat, distraction through destruction. So, shrouding himself in a tarry halo, Rook turned to defend Hex City and his lady’s dubious honour against this latest challenger.

  “Here I am,” he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The gr
oup set dead-centre in front of him stood together, some fourteen strong, and only now did Rook see how their stance differed from the usual supplicants’: shoulder to shoulder, braced and spread-footed, intently focused. Strangely, the clear leader—a leathery man in buckskins whose grey hair still showed streaks of south-of-the-Border black—was the one man Rook didn’t recognize. All others had been Oathed weeks previous; a passel of young male hexes, most of ’em likewise Mex or part-Mex, with glyphs, fresh-smeared in red, shining from their worn serapes and dusty shirts.

  A compact, then: some sort of coup in the making. And since Ixchel wasn’t to hand, it would fall to him to crush it ’fore it got the chance to take root, let alone spread.

  Not that the Mother of Hanged Men ever deigned to do much of her own hunting—even in those first days, when the City comprised no more than a few dozen citizens, she’d more often than not been content to name the offender to Rook, and stand back. But the few times she had taken a hand herself still loomed large. One offender—some white-bearded old English gaffer, strong as Rook and twice as crafty, who’d styled himself a true wizard—was lofted up by invisible talons into the air and boiled away to a cloud of shreds while Ixchel stood rock-still beneath, not even looking at the man as he died; just set her jaw and smiled, as the precious blood fell like sticky rain. Another, some N’Orleans voodooist who claimed to channel spirits more powerful than the Ball-Court’s denizens, was shown her error when every fetish she wore exploded simultaneously, unravelling her from the ankles up.

  Compared to further complicity in that sort of wanton slaughter, Rook was glad to assume the role of judge, jury and (unflinching, yet fairly humane) executioner—but intervene to slap down both challengers if a brawl not designed to oust the Lady broke out, just to make sure they didn’t lose anyone too potentially useful. The best way to tame wolves, Rook had always believed, was to make them your sheepdogs. And though he doubted so soft an option would satisfy this particular shaman’s honour, he probably owed it to the more peaceful New Aztectlanites—like Fennig, and his Missuses—to at least try.