A Prayer of Dusk and Fury

by D Elias Jenkins

  The huge beastman raised a brow and his fierce eyes flashed.

  “Do I?”

  Deena grasped the bars of her enclosure.

  “You’re like me Cyrus. Hunted and alone. You have the Magus Heart inside your body just like I do. The Sorrow will drain the magic from you as quick as they will anyone else. Then the last Karkaren will be gone too. Just another story for peasants to frighten their children with. You can’t keep running forever, hiding at sea. You should join me. Come to Ironghast, the last refuge in the world for people like us.”

  Blackweather popped a cherry in his mouth and regarded her in silence for a long moment.

  “People like us. Are we the same, little ginger Scorchling?”

  Deena could not tell if he was mocking her or if he felt affinity. Her mind flashed with the memory of the mutated creature that had birthed in the lowest hold of the ship and begun to feast upon Blackweather’s crew. Blackweather had slaughtered it with her help and sent it back to the underworld. She had never seen a warrior like him. She lowered her voice and pleaded with him.

  “I saw the way you fought that Sorrowbeast. Things like that murdered almost everyone in my town. All the men bearing arms, the young the strong and the capable. Not a single one stood a chance against those things. But you could fight back! You could tear it apart. Do you have any idea what I would give to be the size and strength of you? To fight like you can? So I don’t just have to stand by and watch everything I love killed? If were like you, I would not stand by and let the world be destroyed by this filth. But I am not like you. I feel like I have always been in a cage.”

  Blackweather sighed with a rumble and a thick red tongue licked his fangs clean of cherry juice. He looked to the floor and his eyes misted.

  "You know, Scorchling, the same thing happened to my people that happens to every other Old Race in your king's land. Fifty years or so ago, during the Great Purge. First there was the Caldera on the northern plateau, the royal archers took them from the skies and poisoned the eyries. Then the king drove the Manticores back to their nesting grounds in the caves of the east, and slaughtered them there in the dust near Bethamet."

  Deena did not recognize the word.

  "What is a Manticore?"

  A small pitying smile.

  "Oh how people forget. You have not seen a drawing of one in your books? They were vicious things, clever and venomous, proud and perilous. Held grudges for centuries. The old adage was that if you were to kill a Manticore, you must kill his entire family at once, or it will be an endless feud and pursuit of vengeance. The king took that to heart. The last Pridelord was killed in the battle of Bethamet and they were no more. It was the last time the king rode into battle himself, and the Manticores left him with a little reminder of their passing. He took a sting that day that he has felt ever since. He thought himself invulnerable, a living god, but he learned that day that the venom of the Manticore could harm him. It made him even more fearful. It made him wonder what other surprises the Old Races might have in store for him. "

  Deena sat watching, listening to the seagulls. Feeling the cherries worm their way into her gut. She felt a little nauseated, but she knew not from poison, just from lack of familiarity with rich food. She burped a little and her stomach eased.

  "So he came for your people next?"

  Blackweather nodded.

  "We had long since moved to the bluewood forest of Coldmourne. We were the biggest traders of furs and timber with the kingdom. And Lordric Ore, slow iron you call it, from deep in the woods. The king could not get enough of it, and it was easy to acquire for us. We could not fathom what he was using it all for."

  Deena knew of slow iron. Crookstone it was often called where she had grown up. It was the rarest and most valuable ore in the world, but long associated with sorcery. And so all the mines in Vassonia had been filled in. She had been told that her great great grandfather had been a slowiron miner. And all the years underground digging for it had changed him in ways the family never spoke of. She had never seen anything made from it, and despite its rumoured value she had no clear idea of its uses. Her mother said it polluted the family blood for generations. Another reason for Deena to feel different and cursed.

  "What would the king be making with it?

  Blackweather shrugged.

  "No one knows. But the tales were that he was building a contraption of such thaumaturgy the world had never seen. A device that would drain the magic from anything it touched. It was fuelled by the lifeblood of slaves, their Magus Hearts, and its sole purpose was to keep the king on the throne forever."

  Deena wondered if this mighty trickster had once been the victim of the greatest trick of all.

  "And your people helped to build it."

  A small mirthless laugh.

  "Yes, we crafted our own doom. And once the king had everything he needed from us, he burned the forest down around us. As a message to us to know our place. My people were druids and shaman. I was amongst the strongest of our druidic order. We lived in vast forests and worshipped the old deep gods of the wild. It did not save us. When King Oligan came with his forces. They burned the forests to the ground to get to our slowiron. I was burned too, almost killed. I left that smoking ruin and swore never to return. I left my gods in those smouldering ashes too. I follow Livretti now, and I go where the dice tell me. They don’t tell me to help you, or guide you, or by your ally, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

  Deena felt her shoulders slump and she let herself rest back into the confines of her cage.

  “So what do they tell you? Other than to fatten me with cherries ready for market?”

  Blackweather sat up straight and defiant.

  “They tell me that my task is to ensure that you reach the Midnight Fair on the southern coast. There the world’s finest collectors of arcane artefacts will bid for you. And it is my task to ensure that the right person buys you. I don’t question the gods, I just follow the path they offer.”

  Deena leaned forward in her cage and jutted her chin.

  “Well your dice and your trickster god can dive overboard, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Blackweather brought the dice from his pocket and watched as they spun in his hand. Each face was a symbol that faded and was replaced by a new one. They rolled around his huge palm in an impossible way, telling their complex and obscure story.

  “Livretti’s path might seem random or obscure at first glance, Scorchling. But there is a purpose in that madness.”

  Deena pushed the cherry bowl back through the bars.

  “So far the purpose seems to be you lining your pockets from my sale.”

  Blackweather shrugged.

  “Perhaps it is just that. Maybe you are just an annoying red headed signpost for me on a journey to something more important.”

  Deena grabbed the bars again.

  “What could be more important, Captain, than saving the lives of everyone from a force that nearly destroyed us all a thousand years ago? And it’s back! Back to finish the job.”

  Blackweather stood up to his full height, his antlers nearly scraping the ceiling of the cargo hold.

  “The dice have predicted there is an overwhelming probability that your fate lies at the Midnight Fair in Sakhar. You will be sold to the highest bidder. The dice say my fate lies there too for now.”

  Deena glared at him between the bars.

  “I will burn this fair you talk of to the ground. And you with it. I despise you for your unwillingness to help. Your selfishness and arrogance. I hope when the king and the Sorrow come for you, they skin you alive and hang your pelt on the wall.”

  Blackweather broke from his reverie and narrowed his eyes at her.

  "I think if you were to reach adulthood, rather than the short meaningless life of a slave that is in store for you, you would be a forest fire that raged across the land, burning everything in your wake. There would be a flame of rage in you no rain could extinguish. You are the reason I kill a
lmost every thinskin I meet. You are forged and cooling, fashioned to be a crusader. Wherever you are pointed there would be death."

  Deena gave her bars a single half-hearted kick.

  "Then it is good you are doing the public service of ensuring I am never full grown. Perhaps I will burn this precious ship of yours and send us both to the deep? How would that appeal to your god of chance?"

  Blackweather stared at her in wonder, a mad grin across his face.

  "Hah. Little Scorchling. Tiny cinder. Shall we burn together?"

  Deena looked into the monster's face. He seemed filled with glee at the possibilities. She deflated that he was not intimidated by her power.

  "You have no fear. Or care for anything anymore, do you captain?"

  His sunset eyes flashed. He held up the strange mismatched dice. Deena thought he looked almost childlike with excitement.

  "I am chosen of Livretti."

  He held out the dice, rolling them together in his palm in a way that looked impossibly skilful to Deena's eyes. Even in the gloom, she could see that the symbols on each face altered with each roll. As if some invisible hand were erasing and repainting them.

  Blackweather leaned in and whispered.

  "Each day these dice can be charged with the power of chance and chaos. They delight in the improbable, rejoice in the unlikely, and revel in the barely possible. I never know what symbol each face will hold from one day to the next. It could be portent of my death or my fortune. I like surprises."

  They peered at each other through the bars in a tense silence. She loathed him and was drawn to him. Was terrified by him and wanted to kill him. He believed in nothing but had more faith than anyone she had ever met. She sat as he spun his sorcerous dice.

  "And you would risk me burning us all into the sea?"

  Blackweather nodded.

  "It'd be an interesting turn of events, wouldn't it? I for one am looking forward to seeing what's going to happen."

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  "You also have the Magus beneath your black heart. Just like me. I can conjure Angall’s light. How does it manifest for Karkaren?"

  The Captain dismissed her.

  "I have no business with the old shaman ways and the religion of the forest. For those trees I lived in are no more, just blackened stumps. I worship Livretti now, and I follow chance."

  Not for the first time Deena wondered what strange path Angall had put her on. She felt more at the whim of chaos gods like Livretti than the father of all illumination. Her future was dark to her, as dark as the sea night outside the ship.

  "And when the true Sorrow comes to kill us all, king, slave and monster alike? You will roll your dice and hope for the best?"

  Blackweather turned his huge hand this way and that. The dice rolled and flowed all around his fingers in an improbable path. He offered his sharp toothed grin and shrugged.

  "I'll take my chances, Scorchling. As we all do."

  Cyrus Blackweather put his dice back in his coat and turned towards the steps that led to the upper deck. At the bottom of the steps he halted and turned.

  “I appreciate your help with that abomination before. I really do, girl. For the record, I am glad you are not bigger. If you had some weight behind that fiery heart of yours, I think everything in this world would be terrified of you.”

  Deena fixed his gaze with her pale cold eyes.

  “One day I will have strength. Then let all monstrous hearts beware.”

  4

  Alfred could smell incense, and beneath a harsher smell, something antiseptic. His eyes flickered open and he was staring up at an arched stone ceiling with a single skylight. Pale morning washed down on him and the ache in his bones began to waken. He saw that there were hardy medicinal plants next to his bedside and a single candle burned low. He tried to sit up and was as weak as a mouse. A gnarled hand appeared on his shoulder and pressed.

  "Don't try to sit up too quickly, son. You've had a busy day."

  Alfred slumped back down on the straw pillow. As his eyes cleared he peered up at the face of an old but stately man in rough spun robes. Around his neck hung a heavy chain with a polished sun. His face was gaunt but not without kindness. Alfred's voice sounded weak in his own head.

  "Where am I?"

  The old monk sat at the edge of the bed and dabbed a damp cloth on Alfred's feverish brow. It was cool and refreshing.

  "You are in the infirmary of Ironghast Monastery. You must have had quite the wayward path to get here, judging by your state when you fell at our door begging for sanctuary. And sanctuary you have. As does any brother of the faith, acolyte or high priest. Although it is rare to see pilgrims out here in the Bleaks. Welcome."

  Alfred took a deep breath and the tension ran from his muscles. He was alive. Whether he was safe or not, it was safer here than out in the wild.

  "Thank you brother. I thought I would die in the Bleaks. This place is so far from the world."

  The monk gave a smile and shrugged. Alfred noticed he had several pale old scars across his face.

  "Considering the state of the world, that's just the way we like it. We are a place best forgotten. You must rest now; they will be bringing you some soup shortly which I insist you eat. You look like you haven't had a meal for some time."

  Alfred sat upright and checked his surroundings. In a panic he tried to get up but the monk pressed him down again.

  "I was travelling with friends. I am the only one left. Wendigo. We were attacked."

  The monk rang the damp cloth out in a basin and nodded with benign smile.

  "Yes, Alfred of Durn, we know who you are. We’ve received word of your journey. Your master, Phillip of Tyne was known to us. He was a good man. We are very sorry to hear of his loss.”

  Alfred collapsed back on the bed and the tears threatened to rise.

  "I did not think such things as wendigo were real. Not in this age."

  The monk gave a knowing smile.

  “There are many things out here in the Bleaks that the world thought lost. Not all of them benign. The wendigo have been surfacing again these past few years. Raiding the villages on the fringes of the Bleaks. We have been trying to keep people safe, cull their numbers. But they disappear back into the dust storms so easily. Did you know that a thousand years ago, the wendigo were thrall to the Sorrow? They sided with the enemy because they were too foolish to see beyond their own greed and hunger.”

  Alfred’s mind flashed with images of the terrifying creatures and the bloody faces of his companions.

  “It was as if they knew to attack us. Out of more than hunger. It was like they knew I was trying to reach the monastery.”

  The monk gave Alfred a curious look then and poured him a cup of fresh water. He held it to Alfred’s lips and let him take a sip.

  “You do not have to hide your blessing here, Alfred. Our abbot Malkolm Bluheart has been hoping for your arrival for some time. No one here hunts you because of the Magus Heart that glows within your body. We are all freaks and sinners here, of one kind or another.”

  Alfred looked at the old man and wondered if he too had the strange second heart beneath his ribs. He felt so weak still, and his thoughts came slow and heavy. He remembered the other thing he had seen in the wild.

  “There was something else out there. I thought I had dreamed it, but I followed me almost to the gates here. It was a knight. A golden knight all aflame with rage. It saved me. Do you know of this being?”

  The monk did not answer for a moment, instead re-applying the cloth to Alfred's forehead. Alfred was not sure if the old man had heard the question. Finally he spoke.

  "The Bleaks are full of ghosts from another time. It’s a place of very sad memories and terrible wars. There are lots of rare and exotic beings here at Ironghast. But nothing like what you have described.”

  Alfred let his head sink into the pillow. He could not stop thinking about the burning knight. It shone with the light of Angall but it em
anated so much rage. It was like staring into the sun. The old monk smiled again. He stood and picked up the bowl of water. Alfred noticed that his robes were threadbare and patched in many places.

  "You have many cuts and bruises but no serious injury. It will take a day or two for you to recover and then we will take you to meet the abbot. And we will find out the true purpose of your blessing and your visit here. You may have a part to play in the wars to come.”

  The tiredness washed over Alfred again. There was still fear mixed with his relief. He kept seeing flashes of the Wendigo and the burning knight.

  "So I have been told. I have so many questions."

  The monk nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile. He went to leave but stopped at the foot of the bed and turned.

  "And I will give as many answers as I can. But just now you must rest."

  Alfred raised a hand to the old monk.

  "What is your name, brother?"

  The old man gave a tiny bow of his head and touched the sun amulet around his neck.

  "I am Michal of Tithe. I have visited Vassonia in my youth. I became rather addicted to the olives there. Feels like a lifetime ago. Now rest. Old Gumm will watch over you while you recover."

  The monk picked up his robes and hurried out of the infirmary carrying the water bowl.

  Alfred lay on the hard bed, his bones aching. The pillow was coarse and straw-filled but was silk to his tired head. He focused on his breathing and lay still. The arched ceiling was carved with symbols, not all he understood. It looked old. The smells of the place were layered. The incense was spiced apple yet he knew no apple trees grew for a hundred miles. The antiseptic used on his wounds assaulted his nostrils, something herbal and bitter. Beneath that, beneath everything, was an odour that was as heavy as an encroaching storm. It was age. Alfred could smell the dry dust of a thousand years in every shallow lungful he took. He thought the seminary at Vassonia was old. But this place felt like it was carved when the world was still young.

  Alfred heard a few faint coughs around him from other beds. A monk shuffled in sandals between them, giving quiet blessings and offering water. He scanned with his peripheral vision but was too tired to raise his head. It was cold in the Monastery, and Alfred tugged his blanket over his legs. He gingerly steepled his fingers together and spoke in a low whisper.