The Verse of Sibilant Shadows: A set of tales from the Irrational Worlds

by JM Guillen

  Booker shook his head. “The gentlemen who were below when you came up are not my typical customers. Furthermore, one of them was armed. He had a dagger in his boot and a pair of Sindri knucks that he was fiddling with. I had my eye upon them because they didn’t seem like the usual type to come in here.”

  I glanced at the window. “They might not be here for me.” Even as I said it, I knew that Booker was probably right. Very little escaped the man, and if he said these weren’t his typical customers, I could trust that.

  “They walked outside while we were talking. I sat here and watched them.” His head inclined slightly toward the window. “They met a third man out there and spoke excitedly, all the while pointing at my establishment. Then the three of them came inside.” Booker took off his glasses, cleaning them with a small white cloth. “I hope they are here for you, Judicar. I don’t like the odds of there being three men here for me.”

  “Do you have a side door? Anything that leads up to the alley?”

  Booker shook his head. “Bad for business. Place like this, people would slip out on me all the time. We have one door: one way out.”

  I swore softly to myself. Things were never easy.

  “They don’t know that I saw them talking.” Booker looked at me. “They don’t know that you know that they’re waiting for you.”

  “Three on one isn’t pretty odds, either way.” I glanced at the window. Perhaps I should send my pretty girl. I could put a message on her leg and have her go find Wil or even head back to the Office of the Just. Three to four judicars or even requisitioned guild-men would make a vast difference here.

  I sighed. Extra men would make a big difference, unless these three came upstairs while Scoundrel was gone.

  It was no good. I was going to have to do this myself.

  “Booker, I need to ask you something.” I leaned forward and steepled my hands. “You have just given me justifiable cause to do bodily harm on these men.” I raised a single eyebrow. “Are you certain of your assertion? Are you certain enough that you would testify at the Offices of the Just?”

  Booker furrowed his brow. “I cannot tell you what men will do, Judicar, I can only tell you what I see. I have never seen the two who came in here before. They were armed. They met a man in the street and gestured inside. I can’t see what it is that they want, only that they are men who do not belong here.”

  Of course.

  I stood, unsheathing my stave. “I suppose I have little choice then.” I looked down at Scoundrel, and with a single gesture, my good girl jumped up to my shoulder.

  “Thom, Thom, Thom,” she caroled happily. I tried not to frown at her. She was simply excited to be on our way.

  “Not so fast, pretty girl.” I made another gesture.

  “Is that ‘guard’?” Booker looked up at me thoughtfully. “Or perhaps, ‘take care’?”

  I stopped in my tracks, fighting a smile from my face.

  “Why, Mister Dox…” I gave him a bland look. “I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about, sir.” I smiled.

  He shrugged. “I have often seen judicars use some kind of handspeak for the birds. It is either that, or every judicar I’ve ever met twitches and makes strange motions before his bird takes some kind of action.” He smiled back at me. “Don’t worry, Judicar. I’ll never tell.”

  “Nothing to tell, Mister Dox.”

  Fire and Blackened Sand

  Riddling, Second Bell, Morningtide

  I forcibly relaxed as I walked down the old rickety stairs. I breathed in oak, the smell of the naptha lamp, and the oil that Booker head rubbed into every wooden surface. I let my senses drink in the world around me, making certain all the while that my good girl was on the alert.

  Ward. Get ready. There’s danger. I made the three gestures in rapid succession. My girl shuffled about on my shoulder, obviously off her ease.

  “Bad Thom.” She ruffled her feathers. “Bad. Bad. Bad.”

  I paid her no mind but checked the final two steps to the tap room.

  “Hello, gentlemen.” I stood in the mouth of the stairwell, about three strides from them. “I thought we might have a little talk.”

  Booker had been right. There was a third man who had come in, a large bear of a man with wiry hair on his head, face, and, from what I could see of it, his chest. He was drinking a large, brown ale, which he must have helped himself to since I knew that Booker had not been down here.

  His eyes drifted over to me, but his head did not turn. “We got nothing to say.” He looked back the other two. “Boys, that right, we got nothing to say?”

  The other two men nodded their agreement.

  I stepped one cautious pace into the tap-room, my hand on my stave. My eyes were grim, and my gaze pulled at theirs like it was made of the coldest iron.

  “That’s funny.” My tone was a no way humorous. “My girl here said we need to talk. Why we were just upstairs all chatting about it.” I let my gaze drift between the men. “She’s not usually off, you know. When my girl tells me I need to have a chat with someone, typically she is square on.”

  The large man set his ale down on the wooden table with an audible clunk. “Well, I would hate for your relations with your bloody bird to go all sour just because she is out of her tiny little bird brain.”

  “Birdbrain.” Scoundrel was positively chipper as she threw the insult at the man. “Birdbrain.”

  I looked at her, shaking my head in amused disbelief. Where had she picked that up?

  The man gave her a dark look and wiped the ale from his beard. He turned from his seat and stood. His eyes were murderous.

  “Did the little scut-eater tell you what we needed to discuss, Judicar? Did she tell you some secret she saw with those hateful little eyes?”

  “I think your next conversation should be with your barrister.” I looked from the standing man to his two friends. “I’ve already had men try and talk with me about poking my nose into the affairs of others. I didn’t listen.”

  The man took a step closer. His two friends stood. “We know. We’ve been told we need to help you learn to listen.”

  “It’s a serious problem.” I stepped into the small taproom and drew my stave back. It was a classic position, leading straight into the fifth fighting stance. Scoundrel hopped down from my shoulder. “I simply cannot be reasoned with.”

  “Perhaps there’s no more reasoning to be done.” This was one of the other men, the grey-haired fellow who had been drinking in here when I had walked in.

  I nodded. “Perhaps.”

  Then, the men rushed me.

  Stance five is specifically for situations like this. All of our fighting stances are for different situations, but this one was almost perfectly wrought.

  The room was tight, and I was outnumbered. My back was to the wall. I had both reach and distance on the men.

  Also, I had Scoundrel.

  Every stance had an accompanying verse, a mnemonic that judicars learned while in training. They were rhythmic and helped our limbs hold proper form as we waged against violent offenders. I had always thought this one apt:

  An arrow in flight,

  Swift, dark, ever merciless.

  The unwary fall.

  I swung my stave high, drawing the eye of the men. With my stance wide, I gestured with my other hand. It was a grandiose gesture, one designed to keep their attention.

  It did exactly that. The wide swath of my stave caught and distracted them just for a nonce.

  That nonce was all that Scoundrel needed.

  Our birds trained with us to learn the stances as well as we did. Even as our gestures taught them what we wanted them to do, so too did the stances show them what we needed when in a tight corner.

  While the men looked at me, before they realized the fight had actually started, Scoundrel struck.

  Swift. Dark. Ever merciless.

  The man closest to her, the shortest of the three, screamed as Scoundrel tore into his face. The wick
ed blades attached to her legs sliced at him, again and again, leaving ruinous cuts dripping scarlet all across his face. He frantically tried to beat her away, but my good girl was more than swift.

  She was also smart.

  She swerved and dodged, slicing clean through the man’s left cheek with her hook blade and almost severing his ear from his head.

  Then, I stepped forward.

  That was the whole point of this stance. For a moment, your foes were watching you. As they did, your bird tore into the first one. The moment of shock that this bought you let you step in for your strike.

  It was a graceful stance. I stepped in and swung low, my stave a dark blur in the ale-house’s dim light. The burly man with wiry hair scarcely had time to blink before I had smashed my stave into the side of his leg. It wasn’t the best strike. It should have shattered his kneecap or popped the knee out of joint. Either of those would have put the man on the floor. With one man distracted by Scoundrel’s talons, mine being on the floor would only leave one.

  Unfortunately, that was not what happened.

  The man was quicker than I had imagined. When he realized I was swinging, he stepped forward, a knife flashing in his hand.

  As a result, my stave struck his thigh. He still wailed in pain, but it wasn’t the kind of strike that would put him down.

  “Scut eater! Feckless whore’s son!” he screamed.

  The knife flashed in front of my face once, then again. The man was fast, skilled with the small blade in a way that made me nervous. He slashed back and forth in a way that drove me backward toward the stairs. Behind him, I saw his short friend slip on a pair of Sindri knucks. They were brass and fit snuggly around his fist.

  One good headshot from those would put me down.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t as if it were two men against one. With Scoundrel’s first foe wailing and bleeding, he was out of the fight. That meant it was two men versus a well-trained judicar as well as his brilliant and deadly right hand bird.

  The man with the knife expected me to strike forward. I could see it in the way he held himself, in the way he was trying to keep on the offensive. Instead, I leaned backward on my left leg, almost crouching into the stairwell. I held my stave high over my head to protect myself from a downward slash.

  It was almost the exact same ploy. The man was momentarily taken off guard by my retreat. As he stumbled forward, Scoundrel dove from his side, an onyx blur of feathers and shining steel.

  This time, she missed.

  I cannot say if the man expected her to strike or if he just happened to see her out of the side of his eye. Either way, his bleeding friend on the floor clearly sent a message. No sooner did Scoundrel swoop toward him than he hurled himself backward, almost barreling over his wounded companion.

  “Not that clever are you, Judicar?” He grinned, showing yellow teeth. “Emmit done learned his lesson; I’m not gonna learn one too.”

  “I imagine learning isn’t your strongest suit.” I stepped from the stairwell and took two quick strides until I was on one side of the bar and they were on the other. Below the bar, out of their sight, my left hand grasped a dusty bottle of klêm.

  “Good time to bolt.” I raised one eyebrow and glanced at the door. “I’d never get around the bar in time to catch you.”

  The wiry-headed man nodded at his man with the Sindri knucks. “Get Emmit over to the door. Stay there.” He turned back to me, a wide grin on his lips. “One way or the other, the judicar does not leave this—”

  That’s when I threw the bottle.

  Klêm is a thick sludge of a drink, almost as much bread is it is beer. Its alcohol content is positively catastrophic however. When I made the motion, I saw the man’s eyes widen as he tried to duck, realizing that a bottle was about to sail straight for his head.

  Which, of course, was not my ploy. Instead, I hurled it as hard as I could at the small naptha lamp hanging over the table they’d been sitting at.

  Fire sprayed all across the wall behind them in a sudden roar. The small room was bathed in flickering light.

  I hoped it wouldn’t fill with too much smoke. My lungs wouldn’t be able to handle it for long. It should be a quick burst.

  I hoped.

  “Madri!” That was the man with the knucks, his eyes wide. He’d been dragging Emmit toward the door. When the bottle blossomed into a yellow flower of flame, they both hit the floor. My wire-haired friend with the knife turned away from the bright flame and then turned back toward me in time to catch Scoundrel about a foot from his face. He swerved and then ducked, cursing loudly as I stepped from around the bar.

  He did not duck quickly enough. Scoundrel caught him, and there was a spray of scarlet.

  He bellowed his rage.

  “You are officially detained.” I kept the words as low and menacing as I could, walking toward the man who was trying frantically, but failing, to drive my good girl off with his knife.

  He simply wasn’t fast enough.

  However, hearing his agony was enough for his two friends. The man with the knucks flung the door open and dragged his companion outside with him.

  This time, my swing to the man’s knee was perfect. I felt the telltale snap and crunch as his knee was knocked out of socket.

  He screamed.

  He collapsed in a pile, with Scoundrel making a ruin of his chest and face. Her gaffs tore through him like butcher paper. He rolled, trying to get away from her, but my girl was persistent. She left a knuckle-deep cut across the side of his face.

  “Mercy! Blackbird!” The man was screaming, flailing wildly. Scoundrel took absolutely no notice of his distress.

  “Scoundrel.” She recognized my soft tone, without even having to look. She ceased ripping wet ribbons of flesh off the man and almost casually flapped her way to my shoulder.

  “Thom. Thom. Thom.” She crowed.

  It was macabre how relaxed she was. She looked positively grim on my shoulder with the blood of two men dripping off her blades.

  I stood by the man on the floor. For a moment, I got a hint that he might reach for me, and I gave his ribs my boot. Hard.

  “You can wait a nonce.” I stepped toward the door, through which the other two men had already fled. I had this one, and I knew it. But if I could catch the other two…

  No. I held the door open, looking down the street. Fresh air wafted into the taproom.

  They were gone.

  Behind me, the light from the burning klêm was flickering and dying out. Even with all that alcohol, it hadn’t been good for much more than a flash, which was all I had actually needed. I turned back to the small ale room and shut the door behind me. I threw the bolt.

  “We need to have a discussion.” I crouched next to the man, who was holding his knee in agony. Fury sparkled darkly in his eyes, and blood ran down his face in rivulets.

  “You’ll get nothing from me, blackbird.” The man spat at me but missed. “You don’t even know what you’re asking.”

  “I might, if I shatter your other knee.” My tone was light, conversational. “You’d beg to tell. You’ve attacked a judicar. You’re mine.”

  That odd leer spread across his face again. I did not like it. It was far too certain for a man whose face hung in tatters and might never walk straight again.

  “You’re wrong there, blackbird.” He spat again. I noticed the spit was bloody. “I ’ent yers. I belong to another.”

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  “That’s what I was hoping to discuss with you.” I crouched. “Who’s your gentleman, cully? Are you here on Sebaste’s word?”

  “We know exactly what you’re about, Judicar. There ’ent a thing you can do about it neither. You need cry off.”

  “I can’t. You know that. A man has oaths.”

  “You’ll be dead with yer oaths.” The man’s leer grew wider, almost mad.

  I chuckled. “A judicar’s reach is long, sir. Even if you were right, another would follow. Either way, we
have you. Sooner or later, you’ll tell me more.”

  “No.” His chuckle was meandering and strange. “That’s where you’re wrong, Judicar. You don’t understand. I’ve already given myself to him. You watch. You see.”

  I had nothing to say to that. Usually, our detained men were at least a touch afraid. This one was almost arrogant in a way I did not have a taste for.

  It was the smell that hit me first.

  It was like burning hair, only much more visceral. I noticed the man was trembling, at first only slightly, but soon ever more violently. His leer went from confident to horrified.

  “Oh. What?” He looked around, as if he could see a world that was hidden from me. “Lost gods. No.”

  His eyes were smoking. I stumbled backward, not certain what I was seeing. As I stared in horror, smoke drifted from his ears as well. He crawled backward, as if he could drag himself away from some horror only he could see.

  That was when the man began to scream in earnest.

  Yes, he had cried out when I popped his knee, but nothing like this. This was a scream of pure terror and agony. His arms collapsed, and he fell in a fit on the floor. The room filled with the stench of burning flesh.

  “Judicar!” His horrified cry was pain given voice.

  He was burning. The man was burning alive from the inside.

  My mind reached, stunned, trying to find anything, anything that I could do. The only liquid at hand was liquor, and that wouldn’t help any. The man twitched violently, and I watched as his eyes melted from his head, as his skin began to glow from the heat.

  There was nothing to be done.

  “Thom?” Booker’s voice was stricken. He had come downstairs, and stood transfixed. Horrified.

  I had nothing to say. The flame ate the man from within, burning him and liquefying his organs, providing more fuel for itself.

  It was fast and incredibly hot. I stumbled backward, shielding my face from it. The remnants of the man twisted and thrashed, and soon he could no longer scream. The room filled with the stench of him, and I retched, doubling over as the smell washed over me.