Once Were Men

by Marin Landis

  "Who would approach? There is only Her of the Wheel..." Tiriel spoke and as if on cue there were screams, not of pain but or surprise and shock.

  A path carved through the crowd at the entrance to the hall. It was Bhav and she looked angry as she strode slowly, awkwardly, in their direction. Melvekior sought to catch her eye, but it was not her. He could see that as plain as the day is long. Her facial expressions were unusual and she almost looked in pain.

  He had never seen his mother whilst possessed by the soul of a Goddess and it was horrid, repulsive and he felt sick. He had physical injuries maybe worse than he'd ever experienced, but still the sight of her worsened his woes. The eyes were the worst. Dead and pulsing with a dull glow. They did not move like a person's eyes but slower, as if she were a simpleton. Her frightful orbs slid across him like he was merely part of the furniture but then turned back to him and rested there. She was moving but her eyes were on him, studying.

  None spoke, such was the reverence or the hatred for her. Melvekior realized that he belonged to the latter camp. Though he wasn't as close to his mother as he would wish, this being, Sehar, offered her harm. For most of his youth Sehar had been the wise and loving maiden who assisted Mithras in delivering light and warmth to all the world. Now he saw her in the flesh, so to speak, he understood what she was and what she represented. She was an uncaring megalomaniac, unconcerned about Bhav and Melvekior. While the cares of Gods may be far removed from those of men, it gave no excuse for separating a little boy from his mother.

  That rage started to bubble to the surface as he watched Her approach and She in turn, watched him. The oddness of Her gaze combined with Her strange gait was comical verging on the grotesque. None laughed.

  "Hail Miklos, I recognize your sovereignty." There was a slight bow of the head. Her voice was artificial sounding. Like a child reading a script. "The Skeyn Arbarakha gives you an authority beyond your standing. Nevertheless I understand why Tiriel has acceded to your demands. I will not. You must step away from the abomination.”

  Mikael raised his sword once more. Melvekior fancied he could see small lights dancing around the blade.

  Bhav’s eyes widened and her mouth worked, trying to speak but not finding the words. Seconds passed before thoughts could be vocalized. “You dare?”

  “I dare. You know I dare. You have forgotten yourself, Shaer. And you have forgotten me.” He waved his arm at the other two Anaurim to his side. “You have forgotten them. We are not the immortal beings you would have His worshipers believe. I remember, even if you will not, our origins and our original purpose. Hiding away on a mountain was not one of them.” He gripped his sword with both hands and spread his legs a little, planting himself by the looks of it. Mikael was an incredible warrior, undefeated in fact, but surely he could not stand against a Goddess.

  He looked like he was about to try.

  Sjarcu and Runild had been watching the palace for a day, looking for some sign that Melvekior was here. Then they would look for an opening and seek a private audience. Neither had any illusions about being able to get to see him on their own merits. Neither Dark Elf nor scruffy librarians working for the Death Goddess held any sway whatsoever and there were people everywhere. Guards, priests, merchants, officious looking men and women, stuffy nobles. It was a hodgepodge of the rich and their servants. Once they found out that they had stumbled upon a coronation their hearts fell. Getting to see Melvekior would be doubly difficult. Neither of them had got to where they were by being put off by a single obstacle however, so it was merely another situation to handle.

  Luckily for them there was a park near the palace with enough tree cover to allow them a place to rest and watch. The odd person who came through the park paid them no heed, if indeed they had noticed. These Mareshians were entirely ignorant and uncaring of others Sjarcu had decided within minutes of entering the town. He imagined he would have to keep his head down for the whole time but that wasn’t necessary. Such was the vanity of many people in this affluent city that many had dyed hair and unusually colored eyes. More than that, there seemed to be a trend amongst women that involved painting their faces two tones in various fashions. Most of them ran to slightly overweight, to his mind anyway, so not only did he find them unattractive but off-putting too. All of that aside, he was almost permanently distracted by Runild. While not as wiry as Surakoita, the first woman he had ever found attractive, she was muscled with a layer of softness about her. He didn’t broach the issue with her. She must have known anyway; whenever she caught him looking at her she smiled wryly. He forced himself now to keep his eyes elsewhere, his mind though he was happy to allow its fantasies.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked.

  He sniffed in the air. She was probably referring to the stronger than usual smell of farmyard animals. Almost everything had an offensive odor to him, but animals and meat were the worst. In Talvar communities nobody ate flesh and cleanliness was so desirable as to be a cultural norm. In her less charitable moments, Surakoita would refer to the people of the Three Kingdoms as walking pigs. It was pigs he could smell now.

  “I smell swine alongside a host of other disgusting things. You feel there is a need to be concerned?” he asked.

  “Yes, there should be no animals here. Mareshians are very fussy people. Something is wrong.”

  He peered through the trees from where they sat in the thicket. A road and a fence separated them from the palace grounds. There were hundreds of milling people on the grounds, but at the front, the rest of the open space around the building was clear. He didn’t understand how pigs might be a cause for worry.

  “The ritual is probably in full sway now, maybe this is our best chance to enter the palace unobserved. How difficult can it be to then find his rooms and wait for him?” Sjarcu had the optimism of the competent.

  “Very difficult, though you may be right. Most of the guards will be watching Melvekior in the hall. They probably don’t guard too much against burglars and thieves when the poor aren’t allowed in the city but to work.” She sounded bitter to him and he couldn’t quite figure out why. She wasn’t poor. What cared she for those who were?

  “That door, near the rear corner,” he pointed. “Nobody has used it for hours. We can make our ingress there.” He could have made his anywhere, but his dark magic didn’t extend to others.

  “Agreed. If we are spotted, we run, unless it will be simple to silence the alarm.”

  “Aye, but let us not harm anyone. We will not accomplish our goals in that manner.”

  She nodded and then took off running. He followed swiftly after. Two thin figures, dressed in tightly fitting clothing running to the high fence around the palace, both climbing nimbly up and over, attracted no attention on this day. People were too busy trying to see and be seen by their betters and their peers.

  The door was maybe fifty feet from the fence and they made it in seconds. The door was open which was some luck indeed. Sjarcu opened it and entered without hesitation. Behind the door was a hallway of bare stone walls, unoccupied and cold. Doors on the left and right were closed and offered no clue as to the purpose of the corridor. Trusting to a description of the palace given by Runild who had seen an illustration in a book and explained it in great detail. Her memory was nowhere near his own but it was impressive for one who did not know the Eime, the boundless memory space that his people used to memorize vast tracts of knowledge.

  He ran down the corridor on silent feet, she not nearly as quiet but there were none to hear. Past a dozen doors on each side that he surmised were servant’s quarters, a large room with open doors lay at the end. A dining hall, with a kitchen off to the side. Still nobody was in attendance and finally, at the very back off the mess was a door of higher quality than ones they had used thus far. It opened into a warmer passageway, carpeted and lined with drapes. The palace proper.

  Then they hear the noise. It was like a thunderclap that didn’t cease, behind which were screams and squeal
s. They looked at each other in shock and Sjarcu held his hand up. Runild waited. The Talvar closed his eyes and reached out with his mind and immediately drew it back again.

  “Something is here,” he panted, “something of great power. The energy I feel is greater than any I have felt. Understand that I have been in the presence of Divine Messengers and flying sorcerers.”

  She didn’t take him for the dramatic sort. “Is it close? Is it Melvekior, do you think?”

  “No, but it isn’t here for us. Let us get closer, but slowly. I will feel for danger as we go.”

  They sidled forward more warily now and after a dozen feet, voices started wafting down through the corridor. Again he motioned to stop and he listened, extending his aural aptitude with the Tumar.

  “You can’t possibly mean to stick to your original idea! It is madness in there.” The words were shouted.

  “But I can,” said another voice followed by a grunt and then the voice sounded again, strangled this time. “Fucking merchant my arse. Get him!”

  Footsteps approached.

  “Someone is being pursued in our direction. I know not why, but what say we confound the lot of them? They are not guards unless my understanding of a guard’s duties is faulty.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice, besides if they are coming this way, I don’t want them to raise any alarm.”

  Sjarcu looked around and after a brief recce decided that standing in the hallway was probably the best idea. He unsheathed his daggers and stood casually, yet highly alert. Runild too had a slim blade, with an odd sort of handle. Almost like a knuckle duster with a blade in between the middle two fingers, he didn’t doubt it could do a proper job of killing someone. He’d almost been a victim of it himself.

  Around a corner the voices and footsteps came and moments later they materialized into a person with more of them some distance behind. Sjarcu took careful note of the man’s appearance so as to find him later, should the need arise. Sandy-brown hair, average height, bland face reddened by exertion and fear no doubt. He caught sight of Sjarcu and Runild and then their weapons, his eyes widened and his pace slowed.

  “We’ll pretend we didn’t see you,” Runild muttered, to which the fleeing man’s response was to increase his pace and dash between them breathlessly.

  They both turned in unison to greet the group chasing this man. It did occur to Sjarcu briefly that quite possibly they had let a very bad man get away, but those doubts vanished when he saw the men pursuing him. Six men and one smaller creature. On second glance, it was a man too, but a small one, almost gnomish. He, despite his physical stature, seemed to be the leader of this group, judging by their body language as the others stopped a dozen feet away and looked to him for guidance concerning what was probably an unexpected turn.

  “Who are you? Get out of our way right now.” The little one spoke. Surprisingly his accent was refined, but his look was vicious. His face twisted as he opened his mouth to say something and then looking at Runilda, he paused. “Wait,” he held out his arms to his band of men. “No, you look like her, but you’re not her. Kill them lads, although you’re welcome to keep her alive if you like.” His sneer was enough to annoy Sjarcu. This had become personal.

  “Nobody keeps me alive apart from me!” Runild accentuated her final word with a surprise dash forward. She punched her dagger into the throat of a man who moments before had been sniggering and eyeing her up. Without a second’s pause she brought her hand down in a clawing motion at the face of the next man. There was instant chaos as three men ran at Sjarcu and another tried to move round to confront Runild. The hallway wasn’t wide, twenty five feet at a guess, which was good for him and bad for them. He heard screaming as the effects of Runild’s scratch became evident. They hadn’t spoken directly about it but he had suspected that she had several devices about herself that would deter would-be rapists. Poisoned fingernails were a risky if effective method.

  His three opponents were not bothered by their comrades screams or were too professional to show it. He guessed uncaring simply because they moved like street thugs and not trained fighters, not immediately taking advantage of their superior numbers. From the corner of his eye he saw Runild facing up against another man, the shorter boss had somehow vanished and he had more pressing things to worry about. Now that he was confident that Runild was in only minor peril he could take the fight to these cretins shuffling about in front of him.

  The Talvar understood the word ‘ambidexterity’ but there was no equivalent in their language for they favored no hand or foot over another, save in cases of injury. Thus Sjarcu wielded his knives with equal puissance in both hands. A seasoned fighter might try to judge his “off” hand and take advantage to then discover he had none and probably die shortly thereafter. This trio saw a small man whose waist was thinner than their arms and he wielded nothing more than a couple of toy swords. They’d die even sooner. Even as he started his assault he wondered if the killing was necessary. What other choice did he have.

  Those regrets faded in the heat of combat.

  Feinting at the man on the far left; a mean looking ruffian with one eye only, a jagged scar traveling the length of his face, he swiftly spun back and to his right. One eye hopped back, probably emboldened by his dexterity and the attacker in the middle pushed forward. Sjarcu ended his spin by slashing through the jugular of the man on the right who went down in a gurgle of surprise and sprayed blood. Not pausing at all and with the same dagger that had so efficiently ended his friend the thug pushing forward felt another type of pushing, that of Sjarcu’s second blade making its way into his temple. This happened in the space of time it took for the master of evasion on the left to land, regain his balance and fix his focus on the black blur before him. His feeble attempt at swinging his sword at arm’s length, in the same way an old wife may swat at a mouse with her broomstick, was simplicity itself for the Talvar assassin to thwart. He stamped on end of the man’s blade, forcing his hands down and then stabbed at a hand with his dagger. His palm pierced, the thug dropped his weapon and shrieked . Sjarcu wondered what he himself was doing. Why was this man still alive. He didn’t have time to think so he buried his dagger in the base of the man’s throat and then sought out Runild.

  With panic he noticed her on her knees, blood pooling around her legs. There was nobody else in sight.

  She looked over at him, attracted by the noise of dismay he uttered, her face twisted in a rictus of pain and fear. “Sjarcu,” she pleaded and held out her hand towards him, slowly, so slowly falling to lay prone on the gore spattered carpet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Unbound

  “Ye thought I was trainin’ all those men fer nothin’?” - Ushatr, the Silver Bear.

  Whoever the buggery those two were he didn’t know, but they’d regret crossing him. Galtian understood only too well that discretion was the better part of valor and he recognized straight away that whomever they were he didn’t want to spoil his day by crossing swords with them.

  Besides, the female had a look of Finulia about her. Anything to do with that bitch meant trouble so biding his time was his decision. Taking advantage of the general mayhem, as was often his strategy, he hamstringed her and stuck one in her side for good measure and dashed away, one last look at the terrifying damage the slender fellow in black was doing to his men convinced him that he was making the correct decision.

  He’d live to poison, smother or stab in the back another day.

  His mood was foul. How could his plan have failed? Wait for Melvekior to be distracted with all of his religious mumbo-jumbo and stab him in front of everyone. Escape and gloat while planning the death of his next enemy. It wasn’t his fault, he knew that for a fact. His part in the plan was flawlessly executed. In addition to that he had stabbed someone who looked like Finulia and escaped from the mad shadow-man, as well as getting away with trying to murder the Prince of Maresh-Kar. His adrenaline was up and he was feeling good in a ‘take ac
tion’ kind of way. Never mind that his primary goal hadn’t been achieved; Melvekior’s coronation was utterly ruined and there was a huge amount of chaos and mayhem for which he could never be blamed.

  Had he not been so hyper-aware he might not have noticed the light on in the staff kitchen. He stopped his headlong dash, imagining that he wasn’t being followed. Unless the demon in black didn’t care about his comrade. Besides, his curiosity was piqued. Had those two come in here on their way to interrupt him? Or, more likely, had that Gods forsaken merchant, so called, taken refuge in here. Galtian was eager to give him a good shivving.

  It will save me adding yet another to my list, he thought grimly as he made his way quietly into the kitchen. He had been through here before. One of the clean-up boys and three of the maids had been in his employ at one stage or another and while none were happy to see him, they knew the cost of denying him. Membership of an Amaranthan gang was a choice and it was a choice you lived with until the end of your days. There was no getting out unless you ran, which many did. Finding your old gang-leader in your bedroom one night was enough to put the permanent shits up a person.

  Instead of the forgettable pretend-merchant before him when he strolled in, triumphant in his cleverness, it was some old man drinking wine. He sat at the dining table, clay cup before him, wine bottle next to that. It was Korf wine, the cheapest rot-gut you cold get. Whoever this was, he was intending to get blind drunk. By the look on his face he was already halfway there. Galtian approached him, feeling a bit thirsty and certainly a drink would settle his nerves. The old man peered at him belligerently.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Was that a slur? It wouldn’t be surprising. Maybe the old bastard just spoke like that anyway. Galtian wondered what this coffin-dodger’s job could be here. He looked decrepit enough that he’d be useless at nearly any task assigned to him. His hair was a mess, long and stringy and some of it had plainly dipped in his cups, reddish was it at the ends.