Blackest Spells

by Phipps, C. T.

  “We have a deal?”

  The lizard’s name is Ren, from the Red Skirt, and he promises a country virgin for five gold chits. Even if I hadn’t spent an ounce on clothes or drinks or bribes I’d only ever have had four.

  “Maybe,” I tell him. “But I’ve gotta see her, first. Won’t be paying unless I like what I see.”

  He doesn’t like that. In these sorts of places, brother, when you’re this deep the time for walking out is gone, and one way or another, you’re gonna pay.

  But he says “Of course,” like he’s not about to walk out and set the bruisers on me. I smile. I let him turn. When he goes to move I drop a hand to his round, skinny shoulder. I raise my pistol and point it at a bruiser’s face, and I blow it clean off.

  Things get pretty red after that. The other boys freeze like any civilians who hear powder flare, and I get my knife out and start stabbing. They don’t deserve it, but I don’t care. I picture them standing still while little girls parade past them—these big, brave boys never saying a word, just collecting their chits. The stabbing comes easy after that.

  “Where’s the girl?”

  I’m panting now and just trying not to slip on the blood. My left hand’s cut up because I can’t hold for shit since Baker Ridge. But it works well enough.

  “She’s…she’s…” The lizard’s gone white as a sheet, so I slap some sense into him. “Second door on the left! No one’s touched her. Not yet. I swear to God!”

  It’s the wrong thing to say, so I cut off one of those fingers he can’t stop licking. I tell him if I have to come back he’ll remember this moment fondly.

  I step out into the hall and already old men and young girls are running. If it had just been the pistol shot, or just the screams, folk can stick to their business. But put the two together and folk always panic.

  I stumble across re-loading my pistol and kick the door, and for a moment I swear to God I see her. No, not yours, brother—my Suzie. But I shake my useless, blurry eye in its socket until the girl becomes a stranger, her arms hugging her knobbly knees. I see the hair and the skin are wrong—she isn’t yours.

  “Let’s go.” I hold out my best hand, but she screams and scuttles as far back as the room allows, and I know there’s nothing I can say. So I go back to the lizard.

  “It’s the wrong girl,” I tell him. “Who else has one? A recent grab. No more than three days. Light brown hair, lighter brown skin. Taken from the Northern district. Fifteen years old. I know you scum all know each other, now tell me, or I’ll make what I do to you the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

  He looks me in the eye and sees I fucking mean it. He talks. He tells me about a warehouse more like a prison where the snatchers take their slaves, and from there they go to the whorehouses or private buyers—says he only knows of two like mine, and he thinks they’re both still there. I threaten to take another finger, but I believe him. I leave him alive and when I do I realize I don’t plan on coming out of this thing. But it’s alright, brother, it feels good. It feels peaceful.

  I rob the place of a few meager coins before I go. I wouldn’t bother except I’ll need some help. I’ll need a saber and maybe more guns—pistols, long-stocks, doesn’t matter, and if I’m lucky another man or two to carry ‘em.

  Next I hit some veteran drinking holes—Old Saggy and Irongut. I flash a bit of stolen coin and get a few toothless brothers with more booze than blood in their veins. I get lucky and hear there’s men asking after me already, no doubt gang-thugs who found my handiwork at the Rest Stop. Someone must have seen me, just like I knew they would. Someone always bloody sees. What matters is I’m running out of time.

  So I get sloppy. I club another few rich men in alleys and hurt a few more bruisers without using up any gift because I’ll need it. I buy four cavalry sabers and a whetstone from an antique shop, plus a few old wheel-locks—even a bloody crossbow. It’s not much, I figure, but it’ll do, and I give the boys my instructions.

  This’ll likely be my last report, brother, and thank God for that. I hope when you read it you won’t blame yourself because the truth is, I should thank you. I’ve drunk down every chit and more since I left the army. I’ve done things, brother, things I’m not proud of. I’ve used up near every ounce of the Lady’s gift left flowing in my veins, stolen every scrap of time until I’ve wrinkled and puckered like an opium slave.

  But at least I’ll have this. You’ve given an old, useless drunk one more purpose—one more thing to do and maybe even a good reason to die. It’s more than I expected. It’s certainly more than I deserve.

  I hope I’ve saved your little girl, brother, when you read this, and that she’s home safe and sound. But if not, well, I promise you this: tomorrow will be what the Ridge should have been. It’ll be my very last thing. I’ll steal every second I’ve left in these bones, brother, and do the regiment proud—Under-Sergeant Fulvi Keydu. South Army. Formerly 17th division. Final report.

  Post-Script

  Hello, father. I’m sitting on a sweat-stained chair worried about fleas, and I’ve been drinking. There’s blood on my hands and on my dress. But no, none of its mine, though I wish maybe it was. It took me awhile to stop shaking enough to write this, but then I needed it anyway to think of what to say.

  First things first: I’m sorry I left in the middle of the night. It was stupid and if I was going to leave I should have done it in the day with kind words, or with an argument, but in either case as a woman grown and not a scared little girl.

  We’ve never been close, you and I, surely you know that. And when mother died…well, that’s no excuse. I don’t know why I left when I did except I didn’t want to live on the farm my whole life and marry the Thacker boy, and I thought in the city I could change who I was and be…something more.

  I know you always talked about the world and how hard it was, but I guess I had to see for myself. Maybe in the end I’m more like you than I thought, or maybe I’m just a little girl. At least I used to be.

  I didn’t understand you or the things you’d seen and done. But now I’ve seen girls my age so worn down and used by life they stopped washing themselves. I’ve seen human beings treated worse than any animal on even the Lister farm. Some of the girls here…they just gave up. They stare at the walls and don’t say a word no matter what you do. They’re breathing corpses. I didn’t know a person could be dead but still alive.

  And tonight…I’m sorry if this is hard to read my hands are still shaking…tonight, I saw a massacre. I saw a man like you, I mean, another version of you. You’d spoken of him, I think, just once or twice—I didn’t remember his name until I heard it, but I remembered ‘the hero of the ridge’. When I saw him I admit that thought never entered my mind.

  For the last three days I’ve been locked in a filthy attic waiting to be sold, but they didn’t hurt me. A lot of the other girls they did.

  Many times I’d imagined you or maybe some stranger coming for me, stopping this and putting the world right again, but no one ever did. There’s not even a lock on the door because there’s always, always men outside watching, sitting in plain daylight without a worry in the world.

  I’d sit at my grated window and imagine escape. Or I’d think of being back at the farm and all the stupid little things I hated like waking up before the sun, or sharing a bed with Lisbet. Time went on and pretty soon all I was praying for was to be sold to a man who wasn’t too old, or too cruel. And when a savior finally came, I was almost embarrassed.

  All I saw was this old, dirty man stumble into the street. He looked drunk and worn down and hardly able to hold himself up. He looks up like he’s just remembered where he is. Then he calls my name.

  “Roxxy,” he says, not even Roxanna, but ‘Roxxy’, just like you would. His voice is like a chimney and he coughs after he yells.

  I couldn’t understand it. I watch this toothless, hunched old man lean on his walking stick and scratch at his fleas, and I don’t know why he should kno
w my name, or call it out.

  The men holding me watch him, too, and they just laugh. These hard, young brutes playing dice seemed ready to ignore him, knowing he’s maybe here for a daughter or a grand-daughter—that he’s helpless even though she’s just inside. And God forgive me, I didn’t say anything. But he doesn’t move, even when they threaten to run him off like a wild dog. He just calls again.

  I felt like two people, then. The first wanted to hide away and accept whatever came, as if my life weren’t mine anymore and if I just kept my head down then maybe I could bear the weight of that. But the other knew this moment mattered. Maybe it wasn’t even me, just a voice in my mind telling me to find my courage, right now, to seize it, or my whole life would be misery and regret. And there was something about him, something strange, something familiar.

  I put my face to the grate and screamed as loud as I could.

  “I’m here! Up here!”

  His face turns up, angled, like one of Uncle Tymen’s hunting dogs. And in a blink he throws his ratty cloak back to show pistols and knives and maybe armor, and suddenly it’s like the old man was just an illusion, some mask worn by another man.

  Three more men step out from the darkness beside him and they’ve got walking sticks, too. Except the old man props his up and holds it with one arm, and I realize it’s really a brass-handled gun just like you store in the basement. He braces it against his chest.

  Some of the young men stand and start calling out, but before they’ve taken a step there’s a click, and just like that, without another word, the old man shoots.

  Father, I…tonight. Tonight, I saw four broken down old men stand against ten half their age. They came to that place, that awful place, and they came ready to die. They came just for me, and the first man fought like the men in your stories. I guess I never believed it, not truly, but he moved like some magic hero in a myth.

  As I watched I think I imagined he was you. I pictured the glorious endings, the beautiful victory, all the battles won for the old dead king. But that’s not how it was. It was loud and horrible, and the men were all screaming. The old man fired his pistols one by one and every bang meant a young man screamed and fell in a cloud of blood and smoke.

  Then he used the sword, and they hurt him, even as he killed them. These brash, cruel brutes who’d threatened me with more vile words than I knew existed stabbed him and clubbed him but he just wouldn’t fall. Covered in blood he killed them, killed them one by one, and I felt like I killed them because I’d imagined it so many times.

  Before it was over I got up and I ran. I ran out into the night and one of the other old men took me and told me to ‘stay put, darling’. Then he re-joined the fighting, and I stood there and watched the street run its gutters red, until finally all was quiet except for a few dying men.

  Your friend was one of them, Father. Your friend died tonight.

  The other men told me his name was Fulvi. They told me where he lived, and that they were supposed to bring me there. I came thinking I’d find walls covered in honors and medals. I thought a man like that must be celebrated, accomplished, and proud.

  But the walls here are bare. The floor is dirty wood covered in empty bottles, and all I found were a little bag of chits, these letters, and a note that said ‘Go back to your father, girl. One day you’ll know the loneliness of love’.

  I cried a long time, I think, when I read it. He knew he’d die, and that I’d come here and see.

  So I’m bringing his letters with me. I owe him that, and more, much more, though I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him now.

  The men are telling me we need to leave. They say the gangs will be out and they’ll ‘be damned if we let you get killed after Baker done what he done.’

  And they’re right. Fulvi saved me, father, and he died for it. I don’t know what that means or what to say except I’ll never forget him. He did it for you, and maybe for him. And I don’t care what happened and if he deserted the army, or if he ran away. He’s still my hero. Just like you.

  I’m coming home, father. These men will help me; they said they owed Fulvi that. Maybe they can help us on the farm and things can be better, for us, and for them. I don’t think they can come back here. But I’ll read you these letters myself.

  Your Roxxy.

  Soothsayer

  By Matthew P. Gilbert

  I had just broken into a furious, uphill sprint when I ran into the Soothsayer. He had already tossed the rope over an abandoned lantern pole and was just starting to hoist his kill. Cussing and muttering under his breath, he hauled on the rope, throwing all his weight into the task as he inched his burden higher and higher. His victim, a large man, dangled a few feet from the ground, suspended by his ankles, belly open to the elements. The scent of stale fires and fresh death hung in the air like incense. The blackened, charred frames of the surrounding buildings, backlit and limned in the pale moonlight, seemed like skeletal fingers pointing in accusation at the grim scene before them.

  Switching from the euphoria of running to the cold sweat of a potentially lethal encounter isn’t as jarring as one might think. Adrenaline is adrenaline, whatever the source. Still, it can be disconcerting. I tried changing course to avoid running headlong into the grisly pair, but shock, speed, and fortune conspired to humble me. I lost my footing on a loose cobblestone and went down face first into a pile of something warm and smelling of death. I felt bile rise in my throat as I realized just what I had blundered into.

  Cursing myself for a fool, I leapt to my feet, ready for a fight. He spun to face me, his smoldering, feral eyes staring at me from behind a tangled mass of stringy hair, his intent unmistakable. With a hiss, he released the rope, letting the corpse drop to the ground, and drew a blade from his belt. It was no ordinary weapon he held. An eerie, green light, as bright as a torch, oozed like blood from runes carved along its length. He brandished it in my direction, his free hand clutching nervously at the dirty, bloodstained robe he wore. His lips moved, making sounds like words, but in no language, I recognized, a chanting, whispery, sing-song string of nonsense syllables.

  He was not a large man. I stood a head taller, and had a damned good weight advantage on him, but I had no idea what that knife of his might do to me. Somehow, I suspected it had many uses beyond simple illumination.

  “Soothsayer, I presume,” I said, as we began to circle one another.

  “The man who fights without a blade,” he answered, as if he recognized me, too.

  “You’re not what I expected,” I told him, still judging his capabilities, summing him up before I struck.

  “And you’re just what I expected,” he cackled, his voice a hissing, whisper-chant. He slashed the knife in a vicious half circle, carving out his personal space and showing me he knew how to use his weapon, was ready to use it if I came close enough. “It’s just a shell, you know, just a form, a life support system to keep the brain supplied with nutrients. No meaning in it beyond the mechanical.”

  “That’s how you think of people, just parts?” Waiting for an opening, for a gap in his attention.

  “Just parts,” he agreed, repeating the phrase several times. “Some useful, some not. I separate the wheat from the chaff with my little knife. You think I don’t know you, Lucian Lenoir?”

  I felt something cold in my gut as he called my name, and he knew it. He raised his free hand to his face and twisted his features into a fright mask, then cackled and slashed the blade again.

  “We’re no different.”

  “We’re about to be—”

  “‘You’ll be dead. That will be different, won’t it?’” he said, completing my sentence with a chuckle. “Stole your words, didn’t I?”

  “How—?”

  “Heard you say them,” he whispered, his face serious once again, eyes blazing with purpose. “In the guts of an older specimen. He was in poor shape. A pity, really, how they break down in this environment.” He jerked the dagger in my direction, punctuat
ing his words. “It’s the alcohol, mostly, damages the digestive system and the liver over the years, lets too many poisons slip through. They wear down, less reliable. They’ll have to be younger from now on.”

  I said nothing. I was troubled by the familiar pattern of his speech, but it was something I could consider after I had dealt with him. To hell with his knife. It would make a fine souvenir. I tensed, ready to spring. Keep talking, fool.

  “Now you’re going to try to kill me,” he said. “But you can’t.”

  “I don’t think you can stop me.”

  “We are all dust blown in the wind of merciless fate!” he told me, as if imparting some terrible truth. “I’ve seen these things before! Accept it! It’s not to be!”

  I leapt at him, but he was ready. He scuttled aside, then turned and fled, shucking his robe on the fly, his mocking and gibbering echoing from the blackened, crumbling walls. I should have known better, should have realized there was method to his madness, but his taunts nettled me, and I gave chase.

  He was damnably fast. I chased him for nearly a mile, closing the distance between us inch by agonizingly slow inch. By the time I came close enough to lay hands on him, we had left the burned-out area far behind and come into the wharves. No matter. This was as good a place as any to finish this dog. Just as I reached to grab a fistful of the long, tangled hair that trailed behind him, he turned and ducked into an alley. Damn him! It was as if he had rehearsed this!

  I turned with a drunken lurch, backtracked the few feet I had skidded past the entrance, and charged directly into his trap.

  Pain ripped through me in jagged, flashing thunderbolts as a padded club smashed against my chest, and I staggered backwards out of the alley. Three bruisers in stocking caps were headed my way, all sporting stout cudgels. I rose quickly, trying to clear my head and evaluate my situation. My ribs were intact, and the Soothsayer was sprinting merrily away, still laughing. As for my would-be assailants, their stances and form marked them as hopeless amateurs, the type who relied on brute strength and size to carry the day for them. They would be no match for me, but they could damned well waste my precious time.