Black Halo

Twenty-Three

‘If he asks for water, don’t give him any,’ the young man posing as a guard said, waving his key ring like a symbol of authority. ‘And I wouldn’t look at him directly, if I were you.’ He sneered. ‘It’s a mess.’

Bralston nodded briefly as the young man cracked open the reinforced door to the converted warehouse room that served as a prison. It opened into shadow, which Bralston stepped into.

The door swung shut behind him, the cramped quarters swallowing the echo. He turned on his heel and walked deeper, taking a moment to scratch the corner of his eye as he removed his hat. The room had likely been storage for the least important objects, possibly the least important members of society, if the smell was any suggestion. The walls were as tall and wide as two men, the only source of light a dim beam seeping in from a grated hole above. Dust swirled within it, flakes clawing over each other in a futile bid to escape.

Against the pervasive despair, the figure huddled pitifully against the wall was scarcely noticeable.

Bralston said nothing, at first, content only to observe. Taking the man in — at least, he had been told it was a man — was difficult, for the sheer commitment with which he pressed himself against the wall.

The Librarian could make out his features: scraggly beard that had once been kempt, a broad frame used to standing tall now railing against its owner’s determination to hunch, a single, gleaming eye cast down at the floor, heavy-lidded, unblinking.

‘I am here to speak with you,’ Bralston said, his voice painful in the silence.

The man said nothing in reply.

‘Your assistance is required.’

Bralston felt his ire rise at the man’s continued quiet.

‘Cooperation,’ he said, clenching his hand, ‘is compulsory.’

‘How long, sir, have you been seeking my company?’

The man spoke without flinching, without looking up. The voice had once been booming, he could tell. Something had hollowed it out with sharp fingers and left only a smothered whisper.

‘Approximately one week.’

A chuckle, black and once used to herald merry terrors. ‘I lament my lack of surprise. But would it surprise you that I was once a man whose presence was fleeting as gentle zephyrs?’ He leaned back, resting a hand on a massive knee. ‘I once was, despite the shrouded sorrow before you.’ He drummed curiously short, stubby fingers. ‘I once was.’

A closer glance revealed both the fact that the man’s fingers were, in fact, fleshy stumps, and that the hairy backs of his hands were twisted with tattoos. Consequently, any sympathy or desire to know what had happened to the man passed quickly.

Cragsman.

Whatever cruelties had been visited upon this man by whomever was undoubtedly kindness compared to the blood he had shed, the lives he had defiled. Bralston felt his left eyelid twitch at the fate of the last Cragsman he had known.

‘Your … days of zephyr, as it were, are the object of concern,’ Bralston said curtly.

‘No gentleman would accuse another of lying,’ the Cragsman replied smoothly, ‘and whilst I am possessed of the most gracious inclination to benefit you the title of man most gentle, I can quite distinctly detect the odiferous reek of a lie dribbling out of your craw. Were I bold enough to declare, I would that you did not come all this way to discuss the seas I’ve plied and the women I’ve loved.’

That last word sent Bralston’s spine rigid, his fist tight.

‘I am concerned with the past month of your life,’ he said, ‘nothing more.’

‘Ah, now that bears the sweet, tangy foulness of truth to it,’ the man replied, chuckling. ‘I would still hesitate to commit fully my conscience to your claim, sir, for any man interested in the latest chapter of the script of a man named Rashodd would likely be here with the express intent of doing things more visceral than polite conversation and pleasant queries.’

His great head swung up, grey hair hanging limply at a thick jaw. His eye fixed itself upon the Librarian. Through the gloom, the yellow of his smile came out in golden crescents.

‘So I ask the man who has displayed tact towards my innards by not ripping them out through my most fortunate nose,’ Rashodd said. ‘Who sent you?’

Bralston considered carefully answering. Somehow, the words he spoke seemed tainted by the man’s presence the moment they left his mouth.

‘The Venarium.’

‘Sought by a circle of heathens, I am reduced to? From being pursued by the greatest navies of the seas? Perhaps such a degradation is fitting, having been laid low by that most meanest and crudest of callings.’

Adventurer, Bralston recognised the universal description. He did have contact with them, then.

‘I digress, though,’ Rashodd continued. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

‘I am on an extended search,’ Bralston replied. ‘The location of one party will lead to the other, I am certain.’

‘The ultimate goal being?’

Bralston studied him carefully, wary to divulge the answer. ‘Purple-skinned longfaces.’

‘Ah.’ Rashodd smiled. ‘Them.’

‘Your tone suggests knowledge.’

‘You may safely conclude imprisonment has done little to tarnish my talents and predilections towards the coy. My knowledge of the netherlings is from the second hand of a second hand.’

‘Nether … lings?’

‘Your tone suggests our initial comprehension of their title to be mutual. The nomenclature would lend itself to the conclusion that they are descended from nether; that is, from nothing at all. I could not assure you that they do not live up to the name, sir, for I have never seen one, knowing they exist only through their anger towards my former allies.’

Bralston nodded. ‘Continue.’

‘On which subject? My allies or their violet foes? Of the latter, I know little but what I have heard: rumours of relentlessness, viciousness and faithlessness blended into one.’ Rashodd raised a brow at the Librarian. ‘Something akin to yourself, except with less fire and more yelling, I’m told.’

‘The Venarium has charged them with heresy.’

‘The practice of a heathenry that differs from yours,’ Rashodd said, nodding. ‘Ironic, is it not, that the faithless should steal a term used by the faithful to condemn those of a different faith … or is it just obnoxious? Regardless, I know as much of the netherlings as I knew of my allies, and you would do well to avoid both, lest you, too, find yourself embroiled in their deceits and find us with more in common’ — he held up his hand and wiggled his stumps — ‘than you would like.’

‘What I find is that my incredible patience is gradually, but wholly, stretched thin with your delusions of eloquence.’ Bralston allowed ire to sow his voice, fire to spark behind his stare. ‘My mission, my order, my duty has no concern for your need to waste my time with pretence. My questions are swift and to the point. You will answer them in kind.’

‘It is a sad day I live every day that the language of poet-kings is considered delusional,’ Rashodd replied with a sneer. ‘But I will answer your questions with as much open eagerness and hidden loathing as I can manage.’

That was enough, Bralston reasoned, to avoid resorting to anything fiery. ‘I have been informed, roughly, as to the nature of your “allies”. I do not hold the opinion that they are entirely factual.’

‘Factual, sir? One would assume that if you had been granted even the loosest of information regarding my former persons of association, you would recant.’ He canted his massive head. ‘Have you, sir?’

‘Thirty-six sailors of the Riptide have attested to the encounter.’

‘And you cannot consider the account of thirty-six good and honourable men trustworthy?’

‘There have been mass hallucinations before, often much grander in scale.’

Rashodd’s laugh gained a horrible enthusiasm. ‘Of course. The Venarium’s unwavering stance of discrediting the Gods and strangling decent men and women with their smugness is not unknown to me. Spare me the rhetoric, sir. I am well informed on the subject, and I humbly disagree with your theory.’

‘Well informed enough to infer our stance on the idea of demons?’ Bralston asked sternly. ‘Even if we were to ignore the idea that they are stories made up by priests to cow people into coercion, we cannot, and do not, accept the idea of an incarnation of evil, as we do not accept the idea of “evil” or “good”. We acknowledge human nature.’

‘I see … and what do you believe, sir?’

Men would feel anger at the Cragsman’s words, men would let their composures crack. Librarians were not men, Bralston reminded himself. Librarians answered to higher authorities. Librarians might possess the power to compel forthrightness through any manner of burning, freezing, crushing or electrocuting, but such would be a flagrant, wasteful demonstration of superiority that should, ostensibly, require no establishing.

Still, it would be satisfying …

Far more satisfying than uttering coldly, ‘There is no belief. Only knowledge.’

‘And you know your knowledge to be superior over that of thirty-six people? You know that demons do not exist?’

‘I accept that there are unknowns typically explained by frivolous imaginations by branding them “demons”. But, as stated, I didn’t come to exchange arguments.’

‘Of course not, sir,’ Rashodd replied. ‘You came seeking purple-skinned longfaces, foes inveterate of demons theoretical. The former pursues the latter for reasons unknown whilst, for reasons incomprehensible, the demons evade them. You hope to find the former by locating the latter. To find the latter, you seek a seeker.

‘And to have come this far, being a man of decencies and honorifics as befits his education, you undoubtedly know who you seek. Six members, of a band most foul, which I would conclude to be the second object of your search, would fulfil such a purpose. And, most importantly, the location of their precious cargo would put you in a fine position to locate all parties desirable, regardless of skin colour.’

Rashodd’s smile was filled with piercing congeniality.

‘But of course, you already knew that.’

Bralston took a deep breath, the first phase of a common meditative technique, taught to apprentices and used by Librarians. He raised a hand, the second phase, to hone the flow of Venarie and tune the senses.

The spark of crimson, the arcane word, the sound of a heavy body crunching against the wall that followed were part of no meditation. Yet, Bralston couldn’t deny that the sight of the man crushed between the force and stone was decidedly therapeutic.

‘Where the Venarium is concerned,’ he said, ‘there is no definition of the word “request”. You are not free to refuse what we require. You are not free to wallow in the safety of a cell when you possess what we require.’ His fingers twitched; he could feel a fleshy throat across the room tighten in his hand. ‘Not with both lungs, anyway. Gurgle if you will comply.’

The sound that boiled out of the man’s lips was particularly thick and moist.

‘Good enough,’ the Librarian said, relaxing his magical grip only slightly. ‘Speak quickly and curtly. What cargo do the adventurers carry?’

‘A tome,’ Rashodd gasped. ‘The tome. I overheard on the Riptide. A book to establish contact between earth and heaven … or hell. The demons want it for the latter … I assume.’

‘Pointless. Neither place exists.’

‘I saw the beast. I’ve seen the demon. It could come from no other place.’

‘The priest mentioned no tome.’

‘Sent the adventurers after it. Needs it back.’

‘And these … demons pursue it?’

‘Also need it. It’s the key.’

‘To the door to take them back to hell?’

‘No, sir,’ Rashodd gasped. ‘To let their brethren in.’

Bralston narrowed his eyes. ‘And the longfaces chase the demons …’

‘Demons chase the tome. Adventurers seek the tome. If they found it, you’ll find the longfaces and demons with them.’

‘How long ago did they set out?’

‘Two weeks, roughly. Not much supplies for the Reaching Isles. Probably dead now, or mostly.’ Rashodd found the strength to sneer through the strangulation. ‘Chase their trail to Ktamgi, north. Find whatever hell you deserve.’

Bralston pursed his lips, eased his fingers. The air ceased to ripple. The Cragsman collapsed to the floor, expelling great hacking coughs.

Bralston offered no particular apology for the treatment; the only error he had committed was, perhaps, a small expenditure of power wasted where a little patience would have been prudent. No reason for guilt, though. His course was clear.

The Reaching Isles at the edge of Toha’s empire were, as far as the atlases and charts suggested, uninhabited, the Tohana Navy outposts having long since been rendered economically unviable. Locating a rabble of desperate, half-dead vagrants should prove no great challenge; if they were completely dead, the task would be only slightly more difficult.

‘Describe the adventurers,’ he said, replacing his hat.

‘Six,’ Rashodd replied. ‘Three men, one woman, two … things. One, a shict. The other …’ He grimaced. ‘But they aren’t important. It’s the men, one in particular. There are two runty little things, but the other, a tall and evil-’

‘The woman.’

‘What?’ Rashodd shook his head. ‘No, it’s the tall man, the Sainite you’re interested in, he-’

‘What of the woman?’ Bralston pressed. ‘Was she in good health? Did you harm her?’

‘Ah, that’s it, is it? I am certain it is no uncertain blasphemy that you should lust after a woman of the Healer, sir, but I must wonder whose faith, or lack thereof, it offends more.’ At the Librarian’s scowl, he chuckled. ‘Rest assured, she was well, no matter what happened.’

Bralston kept the man’s single-eyed stare for a moment. A moment was all it took for him to breathe in, raise a hand, mutter an incomprehensible word, and swiftly lower his hand.

Rashodd’s face followed its arc, an invisible force sending him to kiss the stone floor with a resounding crack. He lay there, unmoving but for the faint breath that sent his body, broad and unwashed, shivering.

Not dead, then, Bralston thought. Pity.

But it was no longer his concern. Restraint, wisdom, prudence were the watchwords of the Venarium; bravado, haste, fury, its anathema. He had spent enough energy on the Cragsman, wasted enough words. He sneered at Rashodd; there wasn’t even a splatter of blood to suggest his nose was broken. He would live until he was delivered to whomever would lower the axe on his head. That pleasure was not to be his.

Lesser men had pleasures. Librarians had duties.

He had just turned away from the Cragsman when he heard the chuckle. He turned, hardly astonished to see the man rising. Bralston was prepared for that, prepared to put him back down if need be, and more likely prepared to let him retreat and subsequently rot in the shadows.

Bralston, however, was not prepared for the sight of him in the yellow, pitiless light.

‘Is your aim to inflict suffering, sir?’ A pair of hands, three fingers between them, splayed their fleshy stumps, hoisting up a great, tattooed bulk. ‘I lament your lateness, my friend. Lament it.’ He levelled a single eye at Bralston as the other one, a colourless mass surrounded by tiny lines of scar tissue, stared off into nothingness. ‘You see, kind sir …’

His smile was all the broader for the flesh that had been neatly sliced from the left side of his lip, baring dry, grey gum beneath a mass of scab. His grey hair was matted all the more from the dried crimson where his left ear had once been. His face all the more akin to a slab of flesh and sinew for the two gaping punctures where he had once bore a nose.

‘I’ve nothing left to feel it with.’

Bralston’s veneer of indifference cracked; he did not notice, did not care that the shock was plain on his face, the horror clear in his eyes. Rashodd’s black humour dropped, as though he were suddenly aware of the great joke and no longer found it funny. He shuffled backwards, back into the gloom, but Bralston’s mouth remained agape, his voice remained a whisper.

‘You …’ he said softly. ‘Someone … spited you?’

‘You’ve seen this before,’ Rashodd replied, gesturing to his face. ‘I somehow thought you might. You are … a Djaalman, yes?’

‘That’s … yes …’ Bralston said, struggling in vain to find his composure again. ‘During the riots, the Jackals … they spited people, spited everyone they could. There were …’ His eyes widened. ‘When did you meet a Jackal? Are they active outside of Cier’Djaal?’

‘Enough questions from your end, sir,’ Rashodd said, and Bralston did not challenge him. ‘You are an observant Djaalman, yes? Touched your eye in reverence for the Houndmistress. Lady most admirable, she was … culled the Jackals, restored the common man’s faith in the city.’

‘Until she was murdered,’ Bralston said. ‘Her husband and child likely dead, too.’

‘Likely?’

‘They disappeared.’

‘Disappeared, sir? Or fled?’

‘What do you mean?’ Bralston’s eyes flared to crimson light. ‘What do you know?’ He stepped forward brashly at Rashodd’s silence, scowl burning without care. ‘Her murder started the riots, killed over a thousand people. What do you know?’

‘Only what I’ve read, sir,’ Rashodd said, ‘only what I’ve seen, sir.’ His vigour left him with every whispered word. ‘I have heard rumours, descriptions … her husband …’

‘A Sainite,’ Bralston replied. ‘I met him, when the Houndmistress formalised relations with the Karnerians. Tall man, red hair, dark eyes.’ He stared intently at the Cragsman. ‘You … have you seen him?’

‘Seen him …’ Rashodd repeated. ‘Yes. I saw him …’

He ran a ruined hand over a ruined face.

‘And I didn’t scream.’

Before the Librarian had even set foot upon the docks, Argaol could sense the man’s presence. An invisible tremor swept across the modest harbour of Port Yonder, sending tiny ripples across the water, dock cats fleeing and the various sailors and fishermen cringing as though struck.

They parted before the wizard like a tide of tanned flesh, none eager to get in his way as he moved toward the captain with rigid, deliberate movements and locked a cold, relentless gaze upon him.

‘What happened?’ Argaol asked, questioning the wisdom of such an action.

‘Many things,’ Bralston replied. ‘Ktamgi. How far is it?’

‘What?’

‘I am unfamiliar with the lay of this area. Enlighten me.’

‘You’re looking for the adventurers?’ Argaol shook his head. ‘They went that way, but if they survived, they’d be at Teji by now.’

‘And how far from Ktamgi is that?’

‘A day’s travel by ship,’ Argaol said. ‘My crew is already in the city, but I can have the Riptide up and ready to go by then if you need-’

‘I do,’ Bralston said. He purposefully shoved the man aside as he strode to the end of the docks. ‘But I don’t have that long.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Leaving.’

‘What? Why? What happened?’

‘That information is the concern of the Venarium alone.’

‘And what am I supposed to tell the Lord Emissary?’ Argaol demanded hotly. ‘He instructed me to help you!’

‘And you have. Whatever you do next is the concern of anyone but the Venarium.’ He adjusted his broad-brimmed hat upon his head, pulled his cloak a little tighter about his body. He glanced at Argaol briefly. ‘Captain.’

Before Argaol could even ask, the wizard’s coat twitched, the air ripped apart as its leather twisted in the blink of an eye. A pair of great, birdlike wings spread out behind Bralston, sending Argaol tumbling to the dock, and he left with as little fanfare as a man with a winged coat could manage, leaping off the edge and taking flight, soaring high over the harbour before any sailor or fisherman could even think to curse.

Something was happening outside, Rashodd could tell. People were excited, shouting, pointing at the sky. He could not see beyond the thick walls of his cell. He could not hear above the nearby roar of the ocean slamming against the cliffs below. But he knew all the same, because he knew the wizard would act.

‘Just as you said he would …’ he whispered to the darkness.

‘Those without faith are convinced of their righteousness,’ a pair of voices whispered back from a place far below. ‘Faith is purpose. To admit a lack of purpose is to admit that they possess no place in this world. Understand this and the faithless become beasts to be trained and commanded.’

‘It is with a fond lamentation that I make audible that which stirs in my mind,’ Rashodd sighed, ‘but speaking as a man with only time and darkness to his name, I cannot help but wonder if you’re capable of making a point without a religious speech to accompany.’

‘The point lay in the speech,’ the voices replied. ‘You are no beast, Rashodd. Not a beast, but a prisoner, and not much longer.’

‘So you say,’ Rashodd growled. ‘Of course, and it is with no undue distaste that I point this out, I am only a prisoner because you failed to live up to your end of our prior bargain.’

‘Lamentable,’ the voices said. ‘But your presence here serves our purpose further. You shall be free.’

‘The door is scarcely more than sticks bound with twine,’ Rashodd replied. ‘I can be free as soon as I wish to strangle the boy outside. I remain only on your promises.’ His voice became a throaty snarl. ‘In days of darkness, though, I must confess I find them less than illuminating.’

‘And yet, your faith compels you to stay.’

‘For a time longer.’

‘We find our own faith in the Mouth falters. The praises we heap upon him are no longer enough to compel his service. He wavers. He wanes.’

‘And you wish my service,’ Rashodd whispered. ‘You wish me to free this … Daga-Mer.’

‘For Mother Deep to find her way, the Father must also find his.’

‘And if I do …’

‘We grant you what you wish.’

Rashodd’s thick fingers, what remained of them, ran across his face. No matter how many times he did it, no matter how many times he knew they wouldn’t be there, he continued to anticipate pieces of himself still in their proper place: a nose, an eye, part of his lip. And no matter how many times his fingers caressed jagged rents where those parts were missing, his rage continued to grow.

‘My face …’ he whispered.

‘We can return it.’

‘My fingers …’

‘We can bring them back.’

He stared down at his hand. He could still feel the kiss of steel, the dagger’s tongue that had taken his digits. He could still see the hand that had held it. He could hear the voice that had told him not to scream. He could remember the tall man, the felon clad in black with the tears in his eyes.

‘My revenge …’ he whispered hoarsely.

With a melodic laughter, the Deepshriek replied.

‘It will be yours.’