The familiar voice rang again in the Demented’s head.
He knows who you are. He knows he is going to die.
The Demented shrugged and gave him a warm smile. The rain battered down harder around them and the streamline above them thrummed with thaumaturgy. Somewhere a stray cat yowled and fought with something.
“You’re very astute. The average plebian wouldn’t be able to see the flaws in glamour like this. Makes me wonder if we’re using the full potential of our citizens. I mean a man could walk past you every day and not see that good brain of yours.”
The homeless man nervously chewed his moustache. His breathing had quickened and he cast glances down the alleyway to see if anyone might come to his aid. The Demented reached out and put a pale hand on his shoulder.
Open that crusty skull.
The vagabond turned his head this way and that as if to deny the danger in front of him.
“I ain’t no scholar sir. I don’t mean no offence, your business is your own. You don’t need to give me no money.”
The Demented spoke in his kindest most patient voice. A single droplet of rain dripped from his long nose.
“How did you come to be here?”
“In this alley?”
“In this predicament.”
The first hot tears cut a line through the grime of the man’s face.
“I was a soldier sir. Saw my service out in the war. Got injured at Tucker’s Drop. Couldn’t stay in one place after that.”
The Demented slowly shook his head.
“You’re a veteran. A man who has put his life on the line to defend the values of this great city, and how does it repay you? It’s criminal.”
The vagabond drew his improvised blanket up around him.
“It’s fine sir it’s my own doing. I drank to cope. It’s fine I’m just gonna get some sleep, you needn’t give me nothing. I just need to sleep.”
The Demented slipped a hand into his coat and around the handle of a little knife. The sort used to peel a piece of fruit.
“How in all good conscience could I walk past a fellow citizen, down on his luck, and ignore his plight. Look at me.”
The vagabond’s eyes searched the rain soaked cobbles around him.
“I don’t want to, sir.”
The Demented leaned forward and moved his head until his face caught the gaze of the homeless man.
“You know who I am don’t you? You recognize me.”
The man’s voice broke a little as he replied.
“Yes. You addressed my battalion once when I was in the army. You gave my general a medal. Your face looks different but I can tell it’s you.”
Hurt him tear him.
The Demented drew the little knife from his pocket and glanced down the alleyway.
“I want to thank you for your service to Free Reign.”
The man nodded and closed his eyes as the tears ran down his cheeks.
“Thank you sir.”
The Demented inexpertly poked the little blade into the man’s neck. He crouched over him for a few moments to see if it had the desired effect. When the man reached up to stem the bleeding and started to choke, the Demented feverishly stabbed again and again, into his face, his eyes, his throat.
It was over far quicker than he thought. If he was honest with himself, he was disappointed at how quietly the man had bled out and passed over. He almost seemed to invite it by the end. The Demented threw a few dirty rags over the body. He wiped his little knife on the man’s coat and folded it away into his pocket.
He knew that the grandest plans could be foiled by the smallest detail. He could not allow even the slightest possibility of being recognized. Not with so much at stake. When your plan was to destroy an entire city, you could leave nothing to chance.
But the Demented knew as he stood up from the corpse, that he had wanted to kill, to see what it felt like. It felt good.
He craned his neck around to ensure that he had not been followed and then slipped into a nearby doorway marked with Glottish graffiti. The ancient stone steps descending from it reeked of stagnant water and urine and he raised the hem of his robe to avoid soaking up the filth.
At the bottom of the steps a small gondola awaited, bobbing gently in the water of the dirty tunnel. In it stood a tall silent figure wrapped in dark robes. The gondolier reached out a taloned hand to assist the figure aboard. In a deep whisper the creature spoke from beneath its hood.
“Droom kra ack’brah ha.”
The Demented nodded and stepped aboard. When he replied, his own voice was distorted by his warped and glamoured vocal chords.
“Brasheek D’or anzhan.”
The gondolier pushed off with his oar and they glided down the dripping tunnel and out into the silent waters of the lake. When the Demented looked back he saw a few glittering lights in the Inns by the wharf but most of the citizens were asleep. The only light that shone on them was from the stars and the three moons.
They pushed out across one of Free Reign’s freshwater lakes towards the monastic island at its centre. The little waves lapped at the gondola and a few disturbed seabirds called out as they passed. Soon the Demented began to see the bobbing lantern on the beach ahead. As they drew closer, two figures could be seen standing on the water’s edge. One was inhumanly tall and gaunt, the other a man as broad as a bear.
As the gondola grated against the gravelly beach, the brawny figure called out.
“Your royal magisteriousness. Oh, it’s just a fucking honor, it really is.”
He bowed low and twirled his hand in a mockery of etiquette.
The Demented had no time for tittle tattle. He hissed across the few feet of cold lapping water between them as he disembarked.
“Do you have it?”
The large man raised his lantern a little. His broad pockmarked face looked like a leering ape. His greasy hair hung lank across his forehead. He turned and nudged the tall Fallen next to him. The grim angelic creature did not flinch.
“Straight to the point.”
The Demented waded through the cold water to the beach, holding his cassock high.
“I had to see it for myself. To confirm its authenticity.”
The big man lowered the lantern and sneered.
“My word is my bond, you didn’t believe me? You know what I had to do to acquire that artefact? The risks I had to take? And I didn’t do it for you, puppet-man. I did it for the glory of god.”
The Demented tutted and glanced at the burly man’s tall Fallen companion, who stood utterly still and silent beside him.
“I wouldn’t believe a fork tongued word that came out of your rotten mouth, Jonas.”
Jonas Reach offered him a square toothed grin. He was clad in a waistcoat and smart woolen overcoat but he conveyed an aura of barely contained savagery and violence. He was every bully rolled into one.
“Is it my face? Do I have one of those untrustworthy faces? I do don’t I? My mother told me my eyes are too far apart. Harsh words from a woman whose fucking legs were usually too far apart.”
Reach nudged the Fallen next to him again. His eternal straight-man was impassive. The Demented stepped closer to the criminal’s face.
“You’re a mercenary, Jonas Reach, you have no loyalty to anything but coin. No matter how many causes you champion. I am a high priest of the lord and do not have time to dally with your ilk. Are you going to show me the device or not?”
The big man feigned hurt and widened his malevolent eyes. He spread his hands.
“So you really don’t trust me?”
“I trust the greater power that uses your pitiful flesh as a vessel, Jonas Reach. That commands you in your prayers. Never forget that’s what you are, just a skinsuit for the Ebon King to wear. Temporarily. When I look into your bloodshot eyes it’s not you I’m talking to, it’s the sleeping dragon within.”
Jonas Reach put his thumbs in his belt and struck a pose as if about to have his portrait painted. He p
uckered out his scarred lower lip. Then he pointed a meaty finger at the newcomer and his voice seethed with violence.
“You know what I think grates on you, you officious worm? That a man like me could go out into the desert and hear the voice of the Old Gods. Directly and unfiltered. That he would choose me as his agent over someone like you. That really sticks in your craw, doesn’t it?”
The Demented drew close in, spittle spraying from his magic-distorted mouth as he spoke.
“You’re an attack dog, Reach, a foot soldier, and you will do as you are told.”
Reach towered over the man and drew in a big breath. His big chin jutted out as he spoke.
“I, your highfalutin arsebanditry, am the chosen one. The voice of god came to me in the wilderness and commanded me to enact harsh judgement on this city and its decadent inhabitants. I am the hammer of the Ebon King. And if god trusts me, little man, why don’t you?”
The Demented sucked his teeth and shuffled up the beach away from the lapping water. He sneered at Reach over his shoulder and spoke quietly, almost under his breath. He felt the hammering in his head begin again, the precursor to the voice of his master. It was exhausting being the conduit for such an ancient and glorious voice, but he accepted his duty and his fate with grace.
“God talks with me all the time.”
Jonas Reach nodded to the tall Fallen angelic being next to him, who reached down and produced a box. He held it there as Reach placed a key in its padlock and creaked open the lid. He spun on his heels and addressed the cowed man like a mountebank selling snake oil.
“Here you are my good man, I present to you the device known as The Dark, a precursor artefact of unquestionable authenticity and unfathomable thaumaturgic power. It’s the perfect little bastard for blowing up the city of your choice.”
The Demented walked slowly forward and peered into the box. Inside, nestled in a cushion of velvet, was a glass sphere. Inside it a dark smoke swirled like storm clouds. He reached out with one pale hand and touched the glass. His lips quivered sensually. He glanced up at Jonas Reach.
“Do you know how old this thing is?”
Reach curled his lip and closed the lid.
“I know what it can do. So you can get me where I need to be? Into the heart of it all?”
“Yes. There are ways almost no one knows about beneath the city.”
“Will it work? Can something as small as this really extinguish the First Spark?”
“It will.”
“And the city wardens? I hear that they have assigned the Regulatory department to the case.”
“I can deal with them, send them down all sorts of dead ends.”
Jonas grunted.
“I hear there’s one little warden bitch in particular making a nuisance of herself. Smarter than the rest.”
The Demented grinned.
“Taken care of. She’s outside the safety of the city walls. All sorts of dangers on the dark wild roads from Longforgotten.”
“Good.”
“We will be fine if your deadhead friend can curb his soul addiction for five minutes, that is.”
Reach took a pipe from his waistcoat pocket and thumbed down the tobacco in its bowl.
“We wouldn’t be anywhere without Mr. Emberdark and his gang. Everyone’s got their little addictions, and no drugs go through this city but through me. Whether it’s Opaque, or young girl’s tasty souls, right Mr. Emberdark.”
The Fallen turned its emaciated head slowly and offered them a disturbing grin.
The Demented regarded the Fallen with disdain and then turned from it.
“And what about this other problem? This lone Vigilante? We know almost nothing about him.”
Reach grunted and took out a box of matches.
“He ain’t a problem. We’ll deal with him.”
The Demented offered him a sly grin.
“Is that why you’re hiding out here, protected by your Fallen friend Mr. Emberdark? Does the Wraith afear you, Jonas?”
Jonas Reach lit a match and sucked on his pipe. The bowl flared orange and crackled. In the cold wind by the lake the smoke from it blew out over the water towards the city. His big dark eyes were illuminated and he stared over the water.
“I think I know who he is. And so should you, since you sent him to his death at my hands. I know why he wants my head so badly.”
“You wronged him so badly to merit this rage?”
Reach glanced around with a wry grin.
“Oh I took away everything he had. And I laughed while I was doing it. Me and Mr. Emberdark there. Got to admit I thought we’d killed him.”
The Demented furrowed his brow in mock concern like a priest taking confession.
“Do you deserve what’s coming to you?”
Reach laughed and puffed on his pipe.
“Deserve? We’re about to raze this city to the ground and kill millions of people who don’t even know what’s coming to them. Since when did anyone ever get what they deserve?”
22
THE VIGILANTE’S TALE PART 7
“Is he alive?”
The burly Firefox looked to his mistress then crouched down and picked up the prone man’s limp arm. The fingernails were blue. He let it flop back down onto the filthy mattress.
“Good as dead, mistress.”
Madame Bonekeeper took a nervous drag of smoke from her long rillo. She scuttled to and fro on her multi jointed white spider legs.
“Damn it. How much did he take?”
The Firefox picked up an empty flask from the side of the mattress. The palest green residue sloshed around the bottom.
“A whole phial mistress.”
“You gave him that much?”
The Firefox hunched his shoulders. His ears flattened a little, awaiting the blow from his mistress’s dense forelimb.
“He had the money mistress. More than the money. He was throwing gold about like it was confetti.”
Madame Bonekeeper drew in close, her black hair becoming untangled from its clasp and falling about her cold white face.
“You’re a fucking fool. I’ve a good mind to have your fur stripped off.”
The Firefox humbled himself even lower, bowing from his fat furry belly.
“Forgive me Mistress. He wasn’t the sort to be told no. He was obviously a doomseeker. I don’t think he had any intention of coming back.”
The proprietor of Madame Bonekeeper’s Mistmarket shifted her limbs with a series of creaks. She looked around at the smoky Opaque den. It was gloomy and lit with only a couple of firefly lanterns. They bobbed and tapped against the glass in an endless escape bid. A few other bodies writhed on low couches behind the many silken curtains that draped the room like old spider webs. None of the other imbibers were fully conscious and most were completely lost in the mist dream. There were no witnesses to speak of.
She glanced down at the limp body of the Free Reign soldier. She hadn’t spent this long building up her good reputation for safety to let it be spoiled by one traumatized man-at-arms with a death wish. She blew out a fine trail of smoke and looked at her employee with narrowed lemon eyes.
“And you just thought you’d help him along did you? Do you see that coat he’s wearing? See the medals sewn on to it?”
“So he’s a soldier. He’s not the first solider to have seen too much.”
Madame Bonekeeper crouched low and grabbed the soldier’s overcoat. She hauled his deadweight up and few inches.
“This patch. Do you know what it is? Do you?”
The Firefox’s little orange eyes darted about the man’s body for an answer.
“No Mistress.”
“It’s his regiment. This man was a Wing Clipper. Free Reign’s elite service. They swear a blood oath for life. I’ve seen ten of them charge a Krazen fasthold of a hundred men and walk out the only one’s breathing.”
The Firefox gave a nervous smile and shrugged.
“Well he’s barely breathing now. Wh
at harm can he do?”
Madame Bonekeeper dropped the body back onto the straw mattress. She glanced askance around the room to make sure none of the other dreamers had awoken. In a low hiss she spoke.
“He might be at death’s gate but I for one don’t want any of his highly trained friends turning up looking for him do I? They tend to stab first and ask questions after.”
The Firefox swallowed hard and wrung his furry hands.
“Oh. I see. What do I do?”
His mistress looked down at the body and chewed her blue powdered lips.
“Take his coat and burn it. Search him for any other possessions that could identify him with Free Reign. Put him in the alley with the other vagrants. Without flashsalts he’ll be a corpse by morning.”
The servant roughly slipped the unconscious man out from his greatcoat. He threw it crumpled to one side. Then he started to strip the filthy shirt from his frame. As the soldier’s torso and arm were exposed he stopped.
“Mistress, he has ink. That winged regiment badge. It’s on his arm.”
Madame Bonekeeper slapped her own white skull.
“Just put him out! He’ll get thrown off the harbor wall with the other night-dead. The fish will take his tattoos with the rest of him. Unless you fancy sawing his arm off on top of everything else.”
“No mistress.”
“Well get to work. The last thing I need is the attention of those pedantic fucks at the Free Reign embassy asking after one of their own.”
As the servant dragged the soldier’s body out of the back door like a sack full of grain, he stopped and gave a curious little grin.
“Look mistress. I think he’s still in the mist-dream. He’s smiling.”
Madame Bonekeeper looked down at the dying two legged heap of trouble that she wanted out her life as fast as possible. She didn’t much like what she was doing, but after a hundred years she wasn’t about to lose her business or her good reputation.
“Well then let him go peaceful. Whoever he’s with, she was obviously worth dying for.”
Out in the alleyway the fireflies bobbed in their lanterns. The tropical rain had washed most of the filth and refuse down into the storm drains. Only the bodies remained, washed clean of sin and blood.
SMOKE AND BLADES Page 16