He could sense the Shadow’s approval. Footsteps approached and stopped, followed by a sharp hiss.
“Blessed Creator,” Nathanael said. “What happened?”
“The Singers.” He didn’t know if it was them, but it sounded right.
The Shadow figure remained silent and Nathanael acted as though he couldn’t see it. Maybe it’s all a mad dream. Hyman gripped the stone knife tighter, dream or not, he would see it to its conclusion.
“I’m so sorry, Hyman.” Nathanael approached, standing beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder. “We will get back at them. You and me, taking on those Nazglum whores.”
“Thank you, Nathanael.” Hyman gripped the boy’s hand, like he needed the comfort. “You were always like a son.”
The boy smiled.
Let him die in joy. I can at least give him that much.
“I know you didn’t harm those men,” Hyman said. “You were loyal to the end. I am proud of all you did.”
He wrapped an arm around the Nathanael’s neck, bringing him in closer for an embrace. Let go. Let him live. No! Climb! Hyman plunged the stone knife into Nathanael’s gut. He twisted it, tearing a wide gap. The boy grunted and pulled away. He looked down at the blood gushing through the hole in his tunic. Then he looked up at Hyman, and let out a horrific scream.
Hyman rose from the ashes and approached Nathanael. The boy tried to back away, doubling over in pain as he clutched his stomach. Hyman looked to the Shadow who gave him a curt nod, then pointed at the ashes. Hyman grabbed the trembling boy by the back of his head.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Nathanael said.
“I know.” Hyman drew the jagged edge of the stone knife across the boy’s throat, holding him his body relaxed and dragged him to the ruins. He left him to bleed out.
“Good,” the Shadow figure said and dropped his hood.
Hyman turned away. He couldn’t witness what came next. The harsh words sounded like nails scraping bone and tearing off meat. The air turned foul and hot. Hyman walked away, sitting on the cold ground and stared at the moon. He wanted both, but would only get one. He tried not to think about it. About being disappointed at whoever returned, because he’d always be missing a piece of himself. Burnt away. Turned to ash.
I will not regret this. I climbed the tallest tree, scaled the largest mountain, and crawled from the deepest pit.
The night went silent. Hyman felt the presence behind him.
“It is done,” the Shadow figure said.
“Daddy.” The voice was small and lacked intonation.
“Yes, my love,” Hyman said, turning and holding out his arms for Hyrain, “daddy is home.”
What stepped into his embrace was not his daughter, though it wore her flesh. A cracked porcelain doll with lifeless eyes. She was his and he was hers. He would love her all the same.
“Daddy is home.”
City of God
By Richard Nell
I read your letter, brother, though to be honest I wish I hadn’t. At first I just drank and stared at it for hours and thought of old killing days I’d rather not remember, back when I had a few more bones and fingers.
Now I’ve waited, and maybe it was already too late to help your girl. I’m sorry, brother, I didn’t know why you’d written. I don’t know anything about near-grown women but if she’s been taken here in this god-forsaken city then I won’t lie and say it’s alright. It might not be. I doubt it is.
And I never was a fuckin’ war hero. I swear to God I’d better not read that again, even from you. The army ain’t given me a thing except pain, a limp and a wooden medal, and I’ll be damned if I’ll hear any praise. But you’re right—the old Fulvi, the man I used to be, he would have tried. You were always a good man, brother, and I’ll help you. But don’t call it honor.
You don’t know what it’s like in this city. Things got worse after the war. You can’t live here now without being corrupted and befouled by it. Better to live in the country and take a family like you did. Better to live clean and away from it all.
To do what needs to be done I’ll have to go places and see people you’d scrape off your boot with a stick, and they might drag me down before I’m done. I may fail. So I’m writing it down for you so at least you’ll know what happened. Nightly reports, sir, as it happened! Just like old times.
Except this time instead of plunder and town-names and all the boys buried or burned, I’ll tell you what I’m up to, where I’ve looked. And if worse comes to worst when you find this at least you’ll know what I tried, and how bad it is. You’ll know Fulvi the turncoat, Fulvi the deserter, and whatever else he is, is still a fuckin’ man of his word, at least when it counts.
Day One: Night report
I’m too old for this shit, brother. My hands are still trembling. My feet ache and my back is killing me and frankly I didn’t walk a quarter as far as a standard march. But since I’m writing this it means I’m not dead, so that’s a start.
First I go to Mogul town. I stroll through the cheapest, sleaziest blocks till I find what I need. It’s cold, dark and dangerous so I wear an old, ratty army cuirass under my rattier wool coat, and I stuff all the spaces with knives.
Street-walking whores tell me to go bugger myself for all the disgusting filth I ask for, but eventually one gives a name.
“I don’t do that, honey,” she says. “You want to talk to Lip down at The Corner. And tell ‘em I sent ya, yeah?”
She wouldn’t ask for the name-drop if she knew my plan.
‘The Corner’ looks as good as an army shit hole, and it smells worse. I breeze past the stupid slips who pass for bouncers in this town, past the twelve year old girls in outfits that’d make my ex-wife blush, past the three old men who paw at the girls’ chests as if there’s anything there. I find ‘Lip’ behind the bar. I say hello.
“Fuck, man. What was that for?”
I knock his filthy ass off his filthier chair to set the tone. To me he looks like a rat that swallowed an orange, and maybe a rotten one judging by his breath. If you ever need to find him—he’s got that squinty-eyed, pug nosed face that begs for a fist. His hair is greasy straw that sticks out and flops down his scalp to make spots on oily skin.
“Tell me where to find a depraved,” I ask him. “I don’t care who.”
‘Depraved’ are what they call the men in this town who cater to sickening appetites. Yes, brother, they have names for men like that here.
The kid gets a look like an army camper stealing supplies—the kind of ‘holy shit’ look that condemns a man quicker than crumbs in his beard.
“I’m just a bartender, I dunno anything.”
I crack his shin.
The old perverts and their pre-teen girls scatter at the sound like roaches in light. The boys acting like men up front come in to earn their pay, but they’re all muscle and no brains. They see an old guy with a limp and dirty clothes and they put their hands on me like I’ll just melt.
But I steal a little time. It’s been years and never much at once since the war, and the magic damn near rips my old joints. But God brother, it still feels good. I break one tough’s jaw, the other’s nose, and let ‘em lie there pretending to be out cold. I scoop ‘Lip’ off the slimy floor and beat the truth out, but I don’t get my answer.
“Please, I dunno shit. I dunno who you are, but you can’t hurt me like they can. They torture kids for fun!”
I work on ‘em a little but Lip eventually cries and pisses himself, and I walk away. Cleaning up this city isn’t my job, and God help the poor bastard whose job it is. There’s other ways, I know, other dark places these ‘depraved’ lurk for victims. And sorry, brother, but that’s what your girl maybe is.
Men and even women here snatch country girls like your Roxxy and sell ‘em to the highest bidder. Sometimes it’s at the auctions and it’s just slavery, or if you’re lucky more like servitude and in a year or so they work their debt off. But it can be worse, brother
, much worse. So I start at the bottom.
Before he breaks down Lip at least tells me if a man pays up with the right people he can grab bums off the street, or even poor folk from their beds. He tells me the usual haunts, the cheapest neighborhoods, though I’d already guessed where. Unless you have protection in this town, your life’s not worth a damn.
I leave ‘The Corner’ and go downhill. In the holy city your trek to hell is almost literal. The lower down you go, the more muck you’ll find, the more misery spreads like disease and festers in deep, sunken places. I ignore the beggars and whores. I flash a knife at the thieves just to let ‘em know ‘Yeah, I see you, kid’, and ‘Yeah, I’ll kill you.’ God knows I’ve done worse.
I smell the rot that stinks up every street, pollutes every nose till otherwise healthy folk tear at their faces to block it out. It’s like being back working for rich nobles who don’t give a shit about life or rules or pity. Except in the city it’s not just mercs and scoundrels doing dirty deeds in shadows. It’s in broad daylight. And it’s not just men like me working, it’s God damn everyone.
You can’t spit in this city without hitting a crook who calls himself a priest or a merchant or a guard. You can’t cross the street without tripping on orphans that’d cut your throat for your shoes and pay up to a gang of kids just as poor. And that’s the good part of town. That’s three districts and a hundred degrees prettier than the hellholes I need to see.
I head down and down till my legs burn from holding my weight. I see a plaque on a burnt out building made from rock so old it’s rounded. It spells ‘Riverside’, not that anyone here can read, and the wall it’s on is the only one left standing, a few half-burnt support pillars resisting the slow rot of time and rain. Everything else is torn apart for the wood and nails. Mostly it all gets burnt for warmth—it gets cold at night here—or maybe to cook the few scraps of meat the locals can steal or catch.
The name’s a joke now. Back before I was born, Old Dusty exploded and choked off the river. Now the poorest live in the old dry bed in shanties, maybe hoping one day the water comes back and the land is worth something. But it won’t.
People just can’t handle change. They’d rather starve and beg and whine than get up and risk a move, and now whole generations of cowards huddle in a dried up trench the world forgot, slowly going extinct. If you ask me, they deserve it.
In Riverside the festering stink and heat of massed up poverty hits me as the road goes flat. There’s no ruts from wheels, not even animal shit. Merchants don’t go in or out and anything with four legs gets eaten. Miserable eyes on miserable faces stare at me, too pitiful to be afraid. I pick my way around them, around the tents and burn-pits and men in circles with nothing but who still find something to gamble with.
I’d tossed my last few copper chits before I came in, and if you’re ever here I suggest you do the same. The sound of jingling can get you mobbed and shanked in the Riverbed—nevermind your limp, nevermind your dirty clothes, or your size.
I look and look but don’t find much action. There’s no shouts or moans or haggling voices. And I figure people are too hungry and sick to fight or fuck in a place like this, but I keep looking. I see all the dirt and misery of God’s city. I crunch it under my boots, feel it on my skin and taste it in my mouth. I wander for hours sometimes forgetting what the hell I’m doing here.
A soldier’s daughter is missing, says the voice. You know the one—the angel that whispers over cannon fire, the Goddess of fortune who for whatever reason speaks to some men when others just stand there, lost and alone, petrified and dead.
So I keep moving, and keep alert. I trudge all night through the misery of others, but I don’t find what I’m looking for. I give up when the night turns so black I’m slipping on garbage. I decide tomorrow maybe I’ll pay for a few names. Maybe I’ll steal a few bigger coins and make myself presentable and try to look like a client instead of a drunk. I’m sorry brother, one night wasted, and every night counts. But I’ll try again tomorrow.
Day Two: Afternoon report
I realized today your girl would stick out like a sore thumb. I went through the city to the North and tried to see if anyone sold her something, or put her up somewhere, or just spotted her. From your letter I’m not sure exactly what the hell she’s doing here, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Stupid kids. They’ve no idea.
Truth is I’ve not been North in a while—I’ve not been anywhere. I stay in my own block with the other drunks and frankly I prefer it that way. Here they look at me as if I’m odd—some dangerous stray to be avoided, to be repelled.
I suppose it’s true. Last time I was here I damn near killed a priest. Back when I found out about my Suzie I tried to pay the Dead Priests for a cure. In the war I’d seen at least a few of ‘em knit men’s flesh like fucking cloth, and here I am with a healthy girl—a girl who just maybe coughs a bit too much with a bit of blood, and this man shakes his shrunken head and says god damn ‘nothing to be done’. So I broke a bone, or maybe two, and I tell the other pricks to heal him. Sorry brother, I digress.
Anyway I guess it’s been five years. Sad truth is the Temple District is the place kids get taken the most. No doubt they come looking for something, looking for help, desperate and distracted, mostly run-aways without a chit.
The place looks welcoming and clean enough. You see all kinds outside the temples. Young or old, pious or profane, all come to make their peace with the gods, one way or another.
I take my moment for the Grey Lady. Like most time thieves I know who butters my bread, but to be honest I never did take to the old spinster. If I’d had my choice I’d have taken the Whore—at least the Coin-Men and Fortunate Boys looked like they had a bit of fun before their luck ran out.
Anyway. We don’t get to choose. We just bear our lot and play our hand. I played mine, and you played yours, and here we are, God damn heroes.
It’s early when I get to the district. Men and women I wouldn’t trust to shine my shoes offer salvation and divine tokens on every corner. And they don’t just sit quiet, neither, they yell out like fishmongers—’Blessings! Get your blessings!’ The bloody arrogance. But in the end I don’t blame them none. If folk are stupid enough to pay then who’s really at fault? If you’re a fool you’ll get robbed, and it might as well be a priest. At least a priest gives back a little hope, a little comfort, and maybe even builds a temple with whatever he doesn’t spend.
Anyway. I check every temple and ask about your girl, then I try the alleys and the shanties and eventually the inns. Everyone acts like I’m crazy—like the idea of a young country girl alone and chitless and in danger is something they’ve never heard of. Damn them all to whichever hell you please. They’re all so worried about the gangs and their own necks they don’t just ignore me, oh no, they have to lie. Some are so wrapped up in it I swear they even believe.
In the end it takes the worst kind of monster to tell me the truth. I wind up in the Rest Stop. It looks cleaner than the rat-holes around it, which no doubt draws the naive like candles in the dark—stupid kids who think beauty’s the same as goodness. I ask about your girl, and the sleazy prick’s kindly-uncle routine slips until he shows his fake teeth.
“You’re a bit late, brother.” Yeah, he’s a god damn ex-soldier, and I nearly kill him just for that. “I sent word to the gangs three odd nights ago when she came in. Already collected.”
I take a long, deep breath, and he reads it wrong.
“Sorry, brother, she was a fine one, too. Nice little chunk of chits.”
He winks, and for a minute I warp my rage into a grin by picturing what I’ll do to him.
“How much?”
“Oh.” He shrugs, and winks again. “You boys are fair, I always say. No complaints.”
“Enjoy spending it?”
He laughs a desperate, ugly laugh. “Always. Thank your bosses for me, eh?”
I close the door.
“Hope it was worth it,” I say low and m
ean, and he goes quiet when he sees the knife. But he screams when I show him how the army handles traitors. I dump him in one of his nice, clean rooms with the spotless floors, the sheets so clean even the sergeants would be proud. I wipe his blood on them.
It might not even be your girl, brother, but I think it is. And I’m sorry again. But what’s done is done. I’m worn down to be honest but tonight I’ll see what I can find. She might be older and harder when I find her, but she’ll be alive. And if she is, I’ll do what I can.
Day Two: Night report
I saw some shit tonight. Just a few more memories needing a good drowning when time and coin allows. I didn’t find her, and best be thankful for that. I think I know where she is. But I’m ahead of myself.
First I rob the richest man I find in the city center. It’s not really hard to steal in this city, just hard to get away with it. Someone always sees you, always knows, and word spreads like rain dripping through the cracks until it pools at your feet and soaks you to the bone. You can’t escape. And I suppose there’s a certain justice, at least for the rich, and if a man like me takes what’s yours than sooner or later he’ll pay for it. But it won’t be quick, certainly not tonight, and I need the coin.
It cleans me up and cuts my hair and buys me a cane—gives the shine of respectability. Underneath it I still wear knives and even the last oiled up flintlock I didn’t sell, and I still keep some round-shot under my eyepatch. Maybe I even look like a veteran with more than the two coins he flashes at the door.
Anyway. I hit the Fields—the strip of watering holes and whorehouses and God knows what else on the outskirts. I tell ‘em I want good, clean country girls, and of course every bastard shouting on the corner tells me they’ve got exactly what I need. I try a few but the girls seem too experienced, too employed. Slave-girls are frowned on by decent folk, even here. So they’re kept in the back rooms and the basements—the special clubs. I know a few by reputation.
By the time the night’s dark as sin I’m underground exchanging words with a greasy lizard of a man. He keeps licking his fingertips and it makes me wonder where they’ve been. He winks like we’re conspiring, and all the while I’m sweating under this thick wool coat and sizing up his three thugs with cudgels and wondering how the hell I’ll see all his girls unless I take them on.
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