by Adam Vine
A panoply of colors filled my vision as I beheld Ink’s bare arms. They were covered by full-sleeve tattoos so bright and strange they seemed not of this world, dancing and swaying in the dim light of the bar like a thousand tiny previews of a thousand silent films. There were nude women, golden cities, holy mountains, and alien gods.
I thought I was hallucinating, but for a split second as Ink closed the distance between the tables and chucked the knife up into the air, I thought I saw a ring of golden light flash inside his eye.
Not a ring, I thought. A spiral.
The knife rose one or two feet above his head, then began to fall. Ink’s face was calm. A second knife appeared in his left hand, and he started to juggle. A third knife came out of a hidden pocket in his jeans as the first knife returned to the hand that had thrown it. Ink caught it, threw the third, caught the second, threw the first, and threw the second, all while staring his opponents dead in the eye, a well-trained circus monkey juggling three killer apples.
Ink juggled his knives, and our enemies ran.
THE CITY
WE GOT HAMMERED. The night fractured into a kaleidoscope of vodka shots, bar-hopping, and a slew of offensive jokes that would have had us thrown out with an ass-kicking anywhere back in the U.S. At one point, Big Ben wrestled both me and Ink under his arms and knuckled our hair like we were his little brothers.
After we left Drinks Bar we made the rounds to at least five other bars and music clubs, unsure if we’d get jumped as soon as we stepped out into the six-degree Celsius night. But every bar was empty except for pockets of other foreigners and the occasional Countryish soccer thugs.
Most of the other foreign guys I saw had dark complexions; brown Mediterranean skin and eyes, like Ink’s, rather than the light brown or blonde that was more common in Country. Ink told me they were probably Turkish or Greek if they were older than thirty, because they came here to work, or Spanish if they looked younger, because they came over here on student exchange to study on the cheap and chase girls.
“Countryish girls love guys who look Latino,” Ink said.
“Why?” I said. Big Ben snorted with disapproval.
“Because they’re exotic. Anywhere you go where you stand out from the average, you boost your attractiveness by at least two points,” Ink explained.
“Points?” I said. “I didn’t realize anyone was keeping score.”
“Simmer down. It’s just how we talk, mate,” Big Ben said. “Makes bird behavior a bit easier to understand.”
“When was the last time you got laid?” Ink asked me. “Truthfully.”
I had to think about it. “I guess it’s been about two years.”
“Two years? Jesus fookin Christ,” Big Ben muttered.
“Exactly,” Ink said. “Take me, for example. I don’t look Caucasian. In Greece or Turkey, that wouldn’t help me with the women, because I look like every other horny guy who tries to talk to them. But thanks to my dark hair and eyes, I have a Mediterranean look that the girls here like, because all the other guys are grimy potatoes. No offense.”
“True, that. These Countryish lads don’t know how to dress or be polite. They think the game is telling a bird she has a nice ass on the dance floor at two-thirty in the morning,” Big Ben said.
“Hey, if it works, it works. Sexual strategy, buddy. You do what you gotta do.” Ink said.
As repulsed as I was, I found myself intrigued. I hadn’t been doing much of anything since the accident. I certainly hadn’t met anyone new. “Is that why you learned to juggle knives? Sexual strategy?” I said.
A small smile curled up the corner of Ink’s cheek. “I’m a street magician. It’s one of my sources of income.” Ink pulled the knives out of his sleeves and handed one to me. “These are show knives. Blunted. Couldn’t cut your grandma’s meatloaf.”
“I’ll be honest. I didn’t know it was possible to throw a spoon,” I said, handing the knife back.
Ink combed his hair with his fingers. “You can throw any balanced piece of metal with enough practice.”
“How long did it take you to learn?”
“Long enough,” Ink said.
Big Ben sighed. “Oi. We woulda been right fooked if those piddly-winkin mum-jammers called your bluff.”
I didn’t know what a piddly-winking mum-jammer was, but I kept that to myself.
“We’re lucky they didn’t,” Ink said.
“Ah, we coulda taken ‘em. Countryish buggers donno how to throw a good poonch.”
“Benny, I’ve boxed you, and I know you could’ve taken any one, or two of those guys. But five-to-two? Would you put money on those odds?”
Big Ben pursed his lips and muttered.
“Five to three,” I said.
They both looked at me strange.
“If either of them had actually put a hand on you, I’d have picked up a bar stool and bashed their brains out,” I said.
Big Ben hooted. “Listen to Jack and the Beanstalk over here, talkin’ about how he wants to make Country fear the Reaper. Those chairs in Drinks Bar are pretty heavy, mate. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
“While I appreciate your enthusiasm, violence only leads to one thing – the pussy leaving, as you saw tonight,” Ink said. “But, y’know, Frisco? You’re okay. I had my doubts, but you’re all right.”
“Th-thanks,” I said.
We took another round of shots at a bar I don’t remember the name of, then wandered the shivering streets until we were the only souls in sight save for the strip club promoters who loitered around the Main Square trying to lure drunk men to overpriced beers and lap dances. The promoters swarmed us as we made our way through the Square, a horde of mostly cute, bored college girls carrying pink umbrellas who asked us:
“Hello, where are you going?”
“Maybe some strip club?”
“Strip club for you?”
“Want to go to party?”
“Hello, thirty beautiful naked girls…”
Eventually Ink had us take a side street so they’d stop approaching us. “Most of them are nice village girls just trying to make a little money,” Ink said. “But some are actually semi-pros out looking for sponsors.”
“What’s a sponsor?” I said.
“Sponsors are rich older men, who pay a pretty young girls’ school or living expenses in exchange for sex,” Ink said.
“How is that any different than prostitution?”
“Well, it’s not.”
“Have you ever… y’know… paid one?”
Ink narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t pay to play.” That was the last we said on the subject.
It was past three in the morning when we stopped to get a kebab from a dingy stand on St. Mary’s Street, the main tourist drag that bisected the Old Town from the Basilica on the Main Square to the medieval fortification known as the King’s Gate. The guy who made our food was a cornrowed Greek in his late fifties, who saw my American passport (where I kept my cash) and said in broken English, “You are from America? You get nice bitch here. Too many bitch for you, here.”
We ate our kebabs at a bench on a nearby street corner. I was halfway through mine when two drunk girls stumbled around the corner onto St. Mary’s from the Square. They were holding each-other up and tottering perilously on the cobblestones in their ten-centimeter high heels, spider-slim legs spilling out of black dresses so short I could almost see the tops of their dark winter tights.
Ink got up, tossing the unfinished half of his kebab in the trash, and went over to them.
I got up to go with him, but Big Ben held me back with a hand on my arm. “Don’t,” he said. “Ink opened the set. He gets to pick the girl he wants. If we all go over there together, we might scare ‘em off. A good wingman never hurts his friend’s chances of stickin’ his sword in the stone. Understand?”
I nodded.
Ink returned two minutes later. The girls stayed where they were. “After-party at their place,” he said
to Big Ben. “I told you. That’s the opener to use for street approaches this late. Works like a bullet.”
“And?”
“I’d invite you guys to come, but they said their place is too small. I’m going to try to pull the threesome, but I think black hair is more down for it than she of the flaxen.”
“Good luck, mate.”
“You too, buddy.”
“Frisco.” Ink extended his hand. I shook it. His skin was cold and his grip too strong. The handshake lasted a few seconds longer than I was comfortable with. Then Ink and the drunk girls disappeared under the colossal shadow of the cathedral.
When they were gone, Big Ben and I finished our kebabs in silence, until he said, “So, do you think he asked them if they were French?”
I chuckled and picked at the pita bread at the bottom of my paper cup, dabbing up the last smears of sauce. “Man, that guy.”
“Aye. He knows what he wants, our Ink.”
“How does he do it?” I said.
Big Ben blew a raucous burp at the moon and shrugged. “After watchin’ Ink in action for many years, I can tell you 100%, the keys to his success are: practice, persistence, and not givin a fook if he fails.”
Failure. My greatest fear, my oldest friend. #41’s shinai crashed toward me in my mind’s eye. The crowd roared, but my ears heard only silence. I should have given Evan the keys.
Big Ben sensed something was wrong and tapped my shoulder with the side of his finger. “So, you used to do, what was it, karate?”
“Kendo. Japanese fencing. Think two dudes dressed in black robes and full-face mesh masks trying to hit each other with samurai swords. Except we used wrapped-up bundles of sticks, not real katanas,” I said.
“Oh, I’ve seen that on YouTube. Big masks and black capes, is it?”
“Yep.”
“Were you any good?”
“I was state champion six years in a row. But that’s not saying much. There were only about five other guys in my state who were any good. My girlfriend… I mean, my ex-girlfriend, she was the really talented one.”
“What happened? She cheat on you, or somethin’?” Big Ben said.
“Nope.”
“Well, what was it, then?”
“She died.” It was the first time I had said those words out loud.
Big Ben slapped me on the shoulder. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, mate.”
“It’s all right. It was two years ago.”
“Damn. Two years. I understand why you’ve been celibate. But still, mate. You’ve gotta get back out there. You can’t let your whole life pass you by bein’ sad.”
“I guess not,” I said.
“Oi, bruv. How ‘bout we get another drink, then? One more, then let’s call it a night?”
“Sure. One more,” I said.
We were walking back across the Square when a slender, homely blonde girl with braces approached us. “Hello, maybe some strip club for you tonight? Great party. Beautiful naked girls.”
“Will you give us free beer?” Big Ben said, putting his arm around her. She didn’t flinch, but I could tell her smile was only to be polite.
“Yes, of course. You get free beer with entrance.”
“How much?”
“Twenty crowns.”
I ran the math through the clogged pipes in my head. Eighteen crowns was about five dollars. Before I could say anything, Big Ben gave the promoter a kiss on the cheek and said, “All right, luv. That’s grand. We’ll go to your club. Show us the way.”
The club was in a crooked alley a few blocks off the square, through a spiked metal door under a flickering neon sign. My heart hammered as we navigated down a maze of brick cellar stairs and narrow hallways lined with dimly-lit VIP rooms, stained couches and floor-to-ceiling mirrors peeking from behind their half-open velvet curtains.
All I could think about was Carly. My mirror images all sliding by in seemingly endless repetition looked like haggard, beckoning imps who told me to take what little money I had and spend it on a few short minutes of forgetting. But could I forget, even with another girl’s hair and flesh under my fingers, another’s scent in my nose? Could I ever outrun this beautiful ghost? If not, could I at least fake it for the duration of one bad techno song?
Big Ben and I drank and watched the girls buck and writhe onstage until we both ran out of stories to tell each other. Daylight and the office I had to be at in a few short hours became a hand slowly tugging me back to reality. But I didn’t want to go home yet. I needed human contact, needed to get laid, needed something, anything that was warmer than being alone.
“Was all of that true, what you said about you and Ink in Afghanistan? Were you two actually in the army together?” I asked Big Ben.
Big Ben drained his beer in one gulp and smiled. “No.”
A minute or so later two mean-looking strippers approached us and sat down at our table. Each made a pitch about going with them for a private dance. I asked my girl if she was French. She handed me a menu. The waitress came over to ask if I wanted to buy the stripper a “girl drink.” The cheapest one was fifty U.S. dollars. I said no.
The stripper called me a selfish bastard and left.
BENEATH THE MASK
HE WAS BORN on a distant world now lost to the turning of the Great Spiral. His mother named him Hyro. His friends called him the Black Ward, for the midnight temper of his skin. He always hated that name. The color of his skin didn't make him faster or stronger when they sparred, nor did it make him weaker. It was his colors inside that won battles, both real and in the practice yard, and it was those that would eventually reveal and define him, not the other way around.
These memories were vague, fragments of dreams of dreams, but when did he not dream? The Blot had taken his ability to wake.
The girl under his arm moaned and stirred restlessly. She would live to meet his master. The other, the old man, wouldn't without certain operations. Both were broken, the girl less so than her old, brittle counterpart. The slithering bastard had nearly nicked his mask with that flashing, sanguine spear, but Hyro had learned early in life never to underestimate a crippled man, for it was often the most broken men who fought hardest and purest of all.
Where had he learned that? From which teacher? He couldn't recall. He only knew it was many centuries, perhaps millennia, before his enemies began calling him Ratkeeper.
And the book, yes. He needed a place to hide it, where it could be safe, where his Little Lord Master and his shell-troops and mutated, Surface-scouring crustaceans would never find it.
He would need to stop at Ganhiem to fix the old man's spine, as well as the girl's shattered legs, both crushed by different falling sections of the Cathedral... another secret he must keep from his master. There could be other books there. Other books, other secrets, and he wanted to plumb them all, someday he would go back and plumb them all... when he had time...
But when do slaves ever have time?
He found Ganhiem empty, save a few scattered patrols leaning against the cold on their bows above the walls of the courtyard. His hideous little children. The gets of his experiments. The closest thing to sons this Black Ward would ever have, their skin as pale and scar-mottled as carved up old bone.
A vision came to him as he was crossing that cracked, frosted common, the frigid wind tearing at the edges of his fuliginous cloak like hungry fingers. The memory was nothing more than a jagged-edged shard bubbling up through the deepest oils of the Blot, like all the others, but this one was special, and made him pause momentarily before stepping through the great amber door of the main hall.
It was from a time when this place was still a school, in his old life as Hyro, long before the Last Day of Sun. There were no prison barracks or high, spiked walls, no flat and frozen ground where his Snowmen patrolled bored and high as sin on their own stupidity; only rolling, open fields of tawny grass speckled with red patches of wildflowers baking in the midday sun, all framed under the blue-white
arrowhead of Mount Bagra. The laughter of children drifted on warm air – gods, had it been warm. Somewhere else, the whistle of the junior cadets drilling sliced through the afternoon calm. There were Yesaedan flags crackling in the breeze. A birdsong sounded, unafraid-
The memory faded. The facility, and the world, grew cold once more.
He found the main tower abandoned, as well. Once the halls of a glorious old academy, the crown jewel of the Yesaedan Peacekeeping Force, now a sepulcher of gray dust and black ruin. He made his way to the lowest basement floor, where the water drip-dripped through the hidden cracks, to his laboratory, and set the girl and the old man down on the operating tables. The docile prisoners would remain there until he willed otherwise. That was the power of the lamp, and of the mask. His power, and his bondage.
It was better to be a king in Hell than a slave in Heaven. Hadn't someone told him that, once?
It was his Little Lord Master who had told him that. Before the binding. Before the Long Fall into Darkness. Before this world saw its Last Day of Sun.
But which was Hyro? The king, or the slave? Was it possible you could be both simultaneously?
That he could even have such doubts of his master's authority at all was a sign the mask was weakening.
He had felt it when the girl gazed into his lamp. She had almost looked away. Almost. Part of him wanted her to, to wake and give him his freedom at last. But he wasn't strong enough to tempt her out of her burning, blissful vision. She wouldn't be the one to kill him and set him free to travel up the Spiral unbound. That was the role of another. It was the Spiral's will. He could feel it pulsing through the Blot, like ripples through black water breaking on shores unseen. As his connection to that intangible power grew, so did the power of the mask wane, and his master's grip on him wither.
Perhaps that was the way it had always been. Perhaps this, too, was only the Spiral's turning.
He made his way to the Archives, deep in the caves under Mount Bagra, to the darkest corner of the Vault, where he removed the Glass Book from his tunic and carefully weighed the object in his hands. It was splendid to behold. A book wrought from stained glass and vellum paper, like the ancient books he used to read back on Home, ages ago in the half-forgotten shards of his past. It held a curious ache, a psychic begging as his fingers traveled over the ridges of its cover, yearning for him to open it and read, to learn his master's secrets.