A Monk's Tail

by Kyle Spencer

  “Now i-it wasn’t my fault the spirits refused him their blessing. He was-”

  “There are no spirits and there is no blessing!” I bellow as I whirl around on him. “There is just one greedy, pompous, conniving mancer!” Murmurs rise from the crowd, just tiny questions for now. Musings. They don’t fully believe me, but it doesn’t matter. I planted the seed of doubt in their heads, and as long as I can provide the proof that seed will blossom into revelation. I draw close to Gideon and put my mouth close to his ear. “Where is he? What do you do with those that fall through the stage?”

  “See for yourself.” Gideon’s eyes roll back. “Spirits! Come and cleanse this nonbeliever!” There is no hum this time but the scream of a dozen banshees as a squall tears away the flaps of the tent. It rushes through the crowd, knocking people and benches over. I don’t have time to get out of the way before it wraps around me and spins me high into the air. “Begone foul demon! Remove your taint from this holy place!”

  Keeping up appearances till the end, huh?

  A gust of wind kicks open the trapdoor below me, revealing something greenish where a hole should be. It simply looks like a cube of gelatinous...stuff. With bits floating in it. White bits that are - oh they’re bones. This shit is acidic.

  Thrashing against the wind as it tries to bind me I reach for the pistols in my vest. I won’t be able to wait for Gideon to get winded (heh) from his magic. He’ll drop me in that hole before then. But damn is it difficult to get my bearings; I continue to spin and flip faster and faster. I do manage to get the two pistols free; however one of them is torn from my grasp and falls into the corrosive gelatin below.

  Blom! Kssssss…

  Shit.

  The spinning is too fast. Aiming these damn things are hard enough when I can actually see my target. Now I’m just pointing the barrel at a colorful, noisy blur. And getting pretty dizzy while doing so - hurk!...Now I’m pointing the barrel at a colorful, noisy blur while bits of vomit circle around me like gloopy little moons. Admittedly, this isn’t my finest moment.

  The spinning begins to slow as an obviously exhausted Gideon stumbles back a few steps. Keeping my shooting arm stiff, I let my momentum turn me around until he’s within my sights. White eyes gaze past me as blood foams at the corners of his mouth.

  The sudden drop jolts my arm upward and the bullet punches a hole in the thick tent above Gideon’s head. There’s a fresh round of screaming as those that didn’t bolt at the first sign of conflict now run for the exits. I drop the gun and get ready to catch myself, lest I suffer the same fate as poor Elizabeth. The gun plops into the cube with the same sickening sizzle as the first one. I, however, grasp one edge of the hole while my feet slam into the other edge. A massive sledgehammer of pain swings up both legs and I’m pretty sure my feet are broken. But broken feet are preferable over no feet at all.

  With some nifty acrobatics (otherwise known as scrabbling for my life like a drunken hobgoblin) I roll over onto solid floor a few feet away from the pit of acidic doom. Then for good measure I scooch away a couple feet more.

  Gideon is sitting back, having returned to normal. His robes are no longer pearly white but a mishmash of sweaty browns with a trickle of red running down the middle. His right sleeve is smeared with blood from from where he wiped his mouth. He still struggles to breath and his eyes have ten pound bags underneath them. And boy are those eyes shooting daggers at me right now.

  “You uppity...no good...heathen!” The wheezing turns his voice into the shriek of an old crone. His raises his paws once more and the edges of his robes ripple. In response, I dig through my vest until my fingers wrap around the dagger, a tiny blade no longer than my palm and my last remaining weapon. I huck it at the preacher, hoping to hit somewhere - anywhere - before he gains full control of the wind again.

  It silently lodges itself in between his ribs on the right side. A deep crimson rose blooms around the hilt and his chest hitches with a strange sucking sound. He tries again to summon forth a gale but his strength is draining fast. I rise to my incredibly swollen feet and hobble over to where he sits. I grab him back the back of the collar and look out at the mostly empty seats. I count four people still in the tent, most likely frozen in fear or morbid fascination.

  In the front row sits an elderly mole. Tiny spectacles sit atop her nose and she clutches a lovely little coin purse - a blue and red flower design that matches her dress - in her lap. I start to drag Gideon along the wooden stage, hoping there’s a few good splinters waiting for him. I point to the mole. “You.”

  “Me?” She looks around to see if I’m truly addressing her, despite there being no one within fifteen feet of her.

  “Yes, Ma’am. How long have you been coming to these...shows?”

  “Why, since they started.” She blinks a couple of times, confused by the line of questioning.

  “And when did they start?”

  “Ohhhh I’d say a little over a year ago.”

  “Every day?”

  “Every other day.”

  “And how many ‘miracles’ did Brother Gideon perform a day?”

  “Always at least one, usually two.”

  “Can you recall how many people…” I whistle and send my free paw into a nosedive.

  “Oh well I can’t recall such things. More than I can count or remember, that’s for sure.” She gazes at her feet as she finally catches on.

  “A year,” I grunt as I yank Gideon over a loose board, “A year of doing this and for what? Money? Fame? My gods you could’ve done great things.” I stand at the edge of the pit and look down. The cube is still there. The bones are still there, albeit slowly dissolving in a haze of fizzy bubbles. With another grunt I hold Gideon’s upper half over the pit. He’s surprisingly light, but I guess that’s to be expected from an aeromancer.

  Gideon tries to spit in my face but ends up starting a series of feeble coughs. He glares at me and his lips curl into a blood-stained snarl. “I did do great things! Someone like you would never-”

  “Mmm-hmm. Tell that to Jerome.” I let go.

  A Chat with Susi

  “You’ll never be hungover if you don’t stop being drunk.”

  - Slick Ricky, proprietor of The Tipsy Turnip

  A tiny mausy movement pulls me out of my drunken dreams. “That explains a lot.”

  “What? Was I talking in my sleep or something?”

  “Yup.” Seems like it’s just me and her still up. As she approaches I don’t move my gaze from the smoldering fire across the room. The logs are blackened and crumbling, with red hot wyrms snaking their way through them. They’ll be gone within the hour. “Ugh.” Susi groans as she plops down next to me on the sofa. “It feels like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s throwing up.” She smiles as I give a hoarse laugh - the result of my own vomiting a while ago.

  But Impressario sure knows how to party.

  “So are you going to tell me the whole story?” I try to break the awkward silence settling between us.

  “Are you going to freak out again?” She eyes me warily.

  “Look. I really am sorry about that. In my line of work you try to know everything that you can. Not knowing gets people killed and I’m already terrible at my job to begin with.”

  “I’m not one of your bounties.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  She sighs. “I know.” Another pause. “Alright. So where to start? Um, have you heard of the name ‘von Zerfallen’?”

  My heart skips a beat or six and my stomach roils with another bout of disgorging, but I keep my face stoic. “The name rings a bell.”

  Magic is rare. Rare and deadly. Those that don’t die from it try to keep their powers under wraps. If they don’t and people find out they attain an instant celebrity status for better or worse. Mostly worse. There have been stories of mancers hounded to insanity by folk looking for a quick fix to their problems.

  There was one such story a few years ago about some folk in
an outlying town that discovered a pyromancer living among them. Seeing as it was the festival season, they asked the mancer to help (i.e. do it by himself) light all the myriad bonfires and torches for their “festival of lights”. Naturally, he refused as that could literally kill him. Plus, bonfires are easy enough to light through regular means. The townsfolk didn’t truly understand how magic worked and thought the mancer was holding out on them for one selfish reason or another. Long story short, things got out of hand and they ended up adding him to the bonfire that year. The fact that shit like that isn’t uncommon is why most mancers keep a low profile.

  But there are those rare few that relish the fame and all that it can bring. The von Zerfallen are probably the best example of this. A family of necromancers that stretches back into the mists of time, they are said to have their paws in some of the most important events of the last few centuries. Apparently the family has a strict code on marriage and...reproduction so that their necromantic powers are assured to be passed down through the generations. Rumors swirl of centuries of kidnappings and inbreeding to maintain this code.

  Generations ago, the von Zerfallen used to live in the capital of Leefside in a manor that rivaled a king’s palace. People would travel from everywhere and pay small fortune for the family’s magical prowess. But about one hundred years ago the von Zerfallen were implicated in the kidnapping of a lord’s daughter. Nothing was ever proved, but public opinion doesn’t care about evidence. They were driven out of town and went into hiding. But just because they had disappeared doesn’t mean their influence had. Word has it that they continue to pull strings from wherever they settled down and if you tried hard enough - and had the money - you could still find them.

  “Right.” Susi nods. “Of course you’ve heard of them. Well,” She pulls off her glove to reveal the stark white skeleton arm. She extends it to me. “My name is Susi von Zerfallen. Nice to meet you.” She smiles politely but her eyes are cold and evaluating.

  What else am I going to do? I shake her paw. It’s weird. I know I’m holding bone but it feels like any other paw I’ve grasped in my life - fur, muscle, the works.

  “I can’t explain it.” She must’ve seen my face as I tried to make sense of it. “It happened when I was three. My parents told me I was special and had started instructing me about how to use my powers, but one day they were entertaining guests and I was alone with my pet wolpertinger, Keks. All of a sudden he just keels over, dead. No warning or nothing. Just whomp! Gone. Well, I was a three year old child who just saw her beloved pet die, so I scooped him up in my paws and, I dunno, just kinda wished him to be alive again. The next thing I remember was waking up in my bed with my parents looking down at me all worried. I don’t remember seeing them that worried since. Keks was sitting in my lap, alive and purring. And I had these.” She points to her arms. “The next day my mom gave me pink gloves to put over them. And after that my parents got really intense with my education in necromancy.” She blushes a bit and looks off into the smoldering fireplace. “Apparently I’m the most powerful von Zerfallen since, well, ever.”

  “So how did you end up in a cage in a cave in the mountains?”

  “Just bad luck.” She shakes her head. “As I grew older I began to accompany my parents when they traveled around. Usually we visited various lords and aristocrats, well-known merchants and generals, basically anyone who had the coin. Never had an issue because everyone recognized our signet that we wore. One time we were beset upon by large group of bandits. I mean large - there were at least fifty of them. But when their leader realized who we were they were tripping over themselves to get away from us. I’ve never seen my father laugh so hard.

  “Later on I was able to go on my own. Never for magic purposes; my parents strictly forbade me from using magic without their supervision after the Keks episode. But I would go out to conduct trade and business in my parents stead. Never had any issues. In fact it was pretty fun, being on my own away from the manor. And everything seemed to be going pretty well for a while. Then I met my husband.”

  “Wait. What?” I do a double-take. Her face is stern and her eyes shine with a backup of tears.

  “Dieter Lange.” She spits the name out like it is rotten. “Some stupid little rich Arschloch whose parents were close with mine. Apparently we were...are arranged to be married simply because he can raise some bugs from the dead or some Scheiẞe. Anyways, that was sprung on me during one of my trips.”

  “Didn’t go over well, I take it.”

  “Huge fight with my parents over that one. Didn’t talk to them for a few months if I remember correctly.”

  “Didn’t change anything though, did it?”

  Susi shakes her head. “After that I wanted out.”

  “Out of the arranged marriage?”

  “Out of everything. After I found out about the arranged marriage I started to really pay attention to what my family did. The closer I looked the uglier things became. I wanted to leave it all, but how do you walk away from arguably the most powerful people in the land? So I decided to bide my time and try and figure out what to do. But the last trip I was on by myself was through those mountains. In the pass we were ambushed by those leopards. They killed my escort. One of the last things I remember is someone saying that their chieftain wanted me alive. And then I met you.”

  I sniff and stare with Susi into the fireplace. Why would a leopard warlord want to kidnap a necromancer, let alone a von Zerfallen necromancer? A few reasons dance in my head, none of them good and all of them irrelevant. What matters now is escaping the Ko’mori.

  “Well?” The question snaps me out of my stupor. I turn to see Susi looking at me expectantly.

  “Well what?”

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “...Yeah. Yeah I do. Still doesn’t explain why you lied to me in the first place.”

  “Would you have helped me if you knew everything I just told you?”

  “Honestly? No. Probably not.”

  “Thought so. Don’t really blame you, either.”

  “Meh. Makes things interesting. Explains the bats.”

  “So you think they’re after me too, huh?”

  “I know they’re after you.”

  “Think they’ll come after us tonight?”

  “Doubt it if they haven’t already. My guess is they are tracking you by sound or smell. Either way I think staying with Impressario was the right choice, albeit by accident.” I wave my paw softly through the air, wafting around the soothing aroma of oil and perfume that permeate everything in this place.

  “But they’ll be back tomorrow night.” Susi says it more as a statement than a question.

  “Yup. Which means it’s going to be a busy day.”

  “So you were serious about leaving Aquarian?”

  “Oh Hel yes. Only two outcomes if we stay here: the Ko’mori find us and we kill the rest, or the Ko’mori find us and kill us before taking you back to whoever hired them. I’d rather opt for choice number three: get the fuck out of here and hope we cover our tracks well enough that they don’t find us.”

  “You don’t sound too sure about it.”

  “Never said it was a good option. But its probably the best.”

  “And where would we go?”

  “Home.”

  “Home? As in home home? To the Shimmering Isles? That’s like, a three month journey!”

  “Five to six months, actually.”

  “And what would we do when we get there?”

  “That’s a problem for Future Bow and Company.” My smile turns south at her scowl. “I haven’t really thought that far ahead, okay? One problem at a time.”

  “Fine.” She leans back and her eyelids slowly close. “I wonder what this Equuinox is going to be like. I mean, if it’s a favorite place of Impressario…”

  Out like a light.

  “Such a sweetheart.” Talia stands in the doorway. Behind her the rumbling growl of Archy’s snoring shakes the lanter
n on the nightstand. “Ugh! How can anyone sleep with that?”

  “You get used to it.” I chuckle. I don’t ask her how much of the previous conversation she heard. I already know the answer.

  “So you’re serious about going back home?” She plops down cross legged on the carpet in front of me.

  “Unless someone can come up with something better.” I reply. She shrugs.

  “It’s going to be dangerous.”

  “Staying here is dangerous. Besides, the trip shouldn't be too bad as long as we charter a good ship and crew.”

  “I’m not talking about the trip.” She scoots closer and leans in. “How long have you been gone from the Isles?”

  “Few years, at least.”

  Her brow furrows. “We need to talk about some things…”

  Equuinox

  “No no no no! This will not do at all!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There is too much clothing!”

  “But if I take any more off I’ll only be wearing this tie.”

  “Perfect.”

  - Agador de Vena, owner of Equuinox

  “Is Professor Zott going to be okay?” Celeste asks. “It’s taking him quite some time.” As we left Impressario’s this morning Archy veered off to take care of some things back at his shop while the rest of us went straight to Equuinox.

  “Bow?” The sheep taps my shoulder. “Hello?”

  “Huh? What? Oh. Sorry.” Impressario gave us new clothes before we left and the speckled yellow sundress Celeste is wearing now makes her look like anything but a nun. It’s quite the effort to keep my eyes on the road. “Uh, yeah yeah. He’s fine. He gets lost in his own shop sometimes. And he did tell us not wait up for him.” I look over to Talia and shrug. She smiles, which seems brighter with the floral silk dress she’s now wearing.