His Ragged Company

by Rance Denton

  Then he got struck by lightning.

  Blink.

  The white world came pouring back into me.

  The Magnate’s chant, like a muffled gunshot, hovered overhead.

  Displeasure ripped through me, an arrow through animal-hide, almost turning me inside-out.

  Something else’s displeasure.

  And when it spoke, it wasn’t in words or ideas, so much as in bone-deep truths: communication plucked out of previously-built ideas in my head, and rearranged in front of the vision of my mind’s too-damn-blind eye.

  He asks a great boon. On your behalf.

  Speech wasn’t so much an action as it was a happening. The words simply were, things felt instead of heard…

  Too much thinking. Too much. Chatter, chatter, chatter…

  Slimy yet warm, a stinking palm brushed across my chin, my lips, and began to pry my teeth apart…

  Chatter, chatter, chatter…

  Blink.

  The darkness above the Magnate cracked open. The whole place went wild with blue and white light. The lightning didn’t stop with the Magnate. It bounced through him, shot in an arc out to his either side, and struck Red and Ivanmore, too. They were ready for it. Nobody should have been able to live through that kind of lightning, but they did. They persevered.

  Like they’d practiced it in a dance, they all pointed straight at me.

  I found out what the triangular coin was for.

  From the three magicians at the three points of the triangle, three bolts of lightning lunged at me, leapt into the air, then clapped down into the coin.

  I started jittering. Sand dug into me; lightning burned me from the inside-out. One of the candles tipped. A hot flash of fire swept across the sand spilled along my pantleg.

  Shit. Shit.

  Blink.

  A heartbeat. Its heart still beats. Its heart still beats.

  Oily tendrils sucking at my mouth. At my lips. At my skull, my brain, slithering into me, inside me, piercing every pore, pushing through every membrane you could imagine.

  It pulses with warmth. It breathes from within. It operates.

  The presence crashed across me, not like a wave, not even like a hurricane, but like a whole planet rolling over me, across, me, through me.

  I lived, right then, only because the spirit broker allowed it.

  Blink.

  I tried to sit up. The blinding lightning kept blasting into me, drilling the coin into my skin. I was being scraped clean from within. My stomach was a puddle of lava. My brain was a screaming pocket of sparks. The Magnate kept saying that word over and over.

  “Xa’anshangerrad. Xa’anshangerrad!”

  Moments slipped away. I writhed, smashed my legs on the altar. The lightning had me pinned like a cockroach under a bootheel.

  The Magnate yelled into the air, “I’ve my offering to give you.”

  Blink.

  Split in two. Right in half. That was me. One foot in that pain-addled world, and one foot in this one. All that I was in this place, this crude, flat, paper-thin sliver of existence, were thoughts that might as well have been cinders and smoke.

  Is this the offering? This occupied vessel?

  Shouting across planes, across worlds and existences, the Magnate said, “He is as we discussed.”

  A tongue lashed me. Slithering, wet, hungry.

  It tastes of…dominion. It tastes of other power.

  “But will it satisfy our bargain?”

  It belongs, it breathed, to Something Else.

  Blink.

  “It’s a body, Xa’anshangerrad,” the Magnate cried to the ceiling, “but this one’s different than the rest. You know the bargain: I give you free rein over the shell, and in turn you ensure the spirit conforms to my will and wishes.”

  Couldn’t remove the coin. It was seared in. A part of me. My fingers gripped at the side of the altar until I felt my nails start to crack.

  “This one’s special,” the Magnate said. “This one’s still alive.”

  Blink.

  Chatter, chatter, chatter. Humans wear a thousand faces. You do too.

  “I am who I have always been,” the Magnate said.

  Illemone’s favorite bauble.

  “Her lover.”

  Her vanity, Xa’anshangerrad thundered, for in this fold of time, it was everywhere, was everything. That is all you amount to. But a bargain made shall be honored. Show me it.

  “Must you always?”

  Show me it.

  “You know I—”

  SHOW ME.

  Blink.

  Even in the true world, up and down went topsy-turvy. Xa’anshangerrad’s fury filtered with such deafening power through the cavern that tiny flecks of stone rained down from above.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ivanmore snarled.

  “Give it what it wants,” Red said.

  “It’s mine,” the Magnate said.

  Red, still managing his conduit of power, snapped, “It just wants to see!”

  “She’s mine.”

  “Then goddamnit,” the undertaker said, “show the proof! Either way, this power’s gonna come full force, and you need to be ready—”

  A sputter, a flicker in the beam of lightning. One of the pulses burrowing into my chest fizzled.

  I could move. Just a bit...

  The Magnate, his palm gleaming red, thrust high his right hand toward the gaze of an unseen eye. Buried in his grip was the gilded locust-thorn, glowing hot and glistening with his blood. “Here. It’s here,” he said.

  Blink.

  There it is.

  “Is that all you wanted to see?”

  A beacon of light flickered into being in the distance, bleeding color across the lifeless span. There, like a blurry memory, was the Magnate’s hand and his beloved locust thorn, bleeding droplets of blood into the air.

  Here, though, the gilded thorn was…not the same. Countless golden tendrils, each a writhing snake, cast out like a net from its liquid-metal surface. They lanced into the great beyond, and floating at their ends were shadows, each one twisted up and gnarled in the most heinous kind of way. Sandshades. Held in place. Imprisoned.

  So many of them. Lifeless. Aimless. Tethered.

  Illemone’s Heart weakens little by little, human. The gift she has given to you tires like a withered old crone. You neglect it with misuse.

  “I’ll forge it anew when the Well is mine.”

  With what power? You borrow it from her. You are but its custodian.

  “She granted it to me fairly. Out of love.” A flare of light shot up across the wires of gold. The shades shuddered in response.

  Can it handle the strain of one more shade?

  “It has never failed me.”

  You traffic with fragile magic, human. Illemone’s Heart struggles. The burdens you have placed upon it threaten to unravel it altogether. Your citadel nears its fall.

  “Do you threaten me, Xa’anshangerrad? Do you threaten my life? My purpose?”

  Even powerful spellcraft, when stretched too thin, promises to shatter like glass under the fist of any other magic turned against it.

  “Then I will be wary and vigilant to a fault.”

  How long do you think you can abuse Illemone’s gift? Look at yourself, human. At the sweat on your brow. At the pain underneath that little seed you call a heart. You age too quickly. A hundred years is but a breath for me. You’re but an imposter. Magnate! A fool’s title for a kingdom built on fool’s gold. Your sandshades exist because of Illemone’s power – and her power alone.

  “I have built this with my own blood.”

  It’s human, the being croaked, to swing at the world with weapons forged by other hands and proclaim themselves destroyers, rebuilders, and saviors all at once. Will you risk all of this, human? Truly?

  “If I must. Faust will lead me to the Well, Xa’anshangerrad, and what I’ve destroyed in that search will return whole when I lay my eyes upon it.”

 
; I have never been fond of the stink that results from the crude mixture of human ambition and recklessness. Will this one pay the price for your desire?

  “A hundred times over, if he must.”

  To call her power yours?

  “It has always been mine.”

  No, the presence corrected. It has not.

  Parts of me broke away in this world. I was a spider’s web coming apart, wrapped around Xa’anshangerrad’s invisible fist like a bit of old cloth. Every time he squeezed, layers of me sloughed off like old flakes of skin. Days, months, and years came crumbling away.

  Or was it that I shot forward through them?

  Illemone’s Heart beat with hungry excitement.

  From the nothing, there emerged a smoky, black smear, coming toward me.

  I provide a spirit to fill the vessel. And the one that we’re to remove…

  “You keep it. An equal exchange.”

  A coiling snake of golden thread shot out of Illemone’s Heart, spiraled into the air, then skewered the unsuspecting shadow. It writhed, howled, thrashed, but like a fish on a hook, it only slid further, further down…

  They were going to take the me out of me.

  And replace me.

  The spear-point of gold flinched in the air. Then, with an oily spirit still impaled, shot straight toward me.

  Blink.

  When I tried to sit up, I swear I felt skin pulling away from my elbows and back, like I was an egg on a hot-plate…

  And that’s when I realized something: the shackles weren’t around my wrists anymore. My hands were free. The chains were still under me. I’d wrenched my way out of them, but it hadn’t been too hard. Effortless, actually.

  Red hadn’t fully closed the goddamn things.

  The lightning kept punching me in the chest. I howled, trying to push against it, meanwhile sifting through everything in my brain for a solution, a way to get out.

  The spirit rushed down into me.

  Pressure fused us together.

  In both worlds, my heart jumped a beat. Two beats. Ten.

  Death and life, simultaneous.

  Time was ticking. I was burning. I thought about what the Magnate had said to his pals.

  There will be more power than any single one of us can handle. Manage what you can and diffuse the rest across the triangle.

  I couldn’t really adjust my body. Unseen here, Illemone’s Heart still pinned me, impaled me, but my arms were free. I could swivel my head just enough to get a solid glance at the Magnate. I thought about his last warning.

  Nobody alone can handle this much magic.

  I grabbed my copy of The Collected Works of Shakespeare from under my head. Heavy little book. Hard enough to hurt, maybe even knock somebody out.

  Had to have good aim. The best. No wonder I liked shotguns.

  I threw the book as hard as I could.

  The Magnate saw it coming, but he managed too much power. Probably have thought I shouldn’t be able to move. I barely could – the pain was like a blanket – but I’d done dumbass shit before, so this was no different. Pages fluttered. The book soared like a bird. It smacked the Magnate in the face and knocked him back.

  I’d have to thank Cicero for the gift.

  With its foundation pulled from under it, the spell broke apart and went wild.

  Blink.

  Suppose a little bit of the Bard never hurt nobody.

  The Magnate, with a fury that trembled the world, let out a cry of desperation. Illemone’s Heart, thrust into this white plane, spasmed and flickered like a blown candle. Pressed almost entirely into me, the spirit Xa’anshagerrad had summoned tore at the core of my being: arms of black tar and smoke shredded me, desperate to hold on…

  Pulling time from me. Pulling from me what could have been—

  Pine trees shooting up into a cool blue sky.

  A warm home, budding with life.

  Clogging my nose, a hint of hearty stew. Onions, maybe. Bison. Pepper. Heaven in a kettle.

  A smoke-covered mantel, and perched on it a brown daguerreotype in a copper frame. A family, all unsure shadows burnt there by mercury and patience, captured in a frozen moment.

  Evidence of a life well-lived. Of fulfillment. Of happiness.

  And there in a rocking chair, an old man, his skin as fine as paper and his eyes as deep as a rheumy sea. He cradled a weathered guitar. The music whispered with a beginner’s beauty from his yellow fingers.

  His name was Elias Faust, and he was a happy man.

  The spirit dashed away, tearing it all from me.

  The white world fell away for the final time in a scream of noise and blindness.

  Blink.

  Once the book hit, a whole bunch of shit happened at once. I guess when you fiddle-fuck around with that much power, mistakes absolutely shouldn’t happen. I heard Ivanmore gargle just a second before the lightning lashed back into him. His head blew apart like a rotten fruit.

  Red must have been more trained, more prepared. He staggered out of the triangle with his head between his hands. Smoke poured out from under his hood. He was trying to handle the energy Magnate Gregdon had dropped.

  A flash of green shot out from the darkness, almost fast as a bullet. It whacked into Red’s chest and blew him back to the floor.

  A jade knife, lodged to the handle in his chest, stole all his attention.

  “Sandshades,” the Magnate roared as he stumbled back. “Put the bastard down like a dog!”

  I suppose you’re only worth as much as man’s patience.

  Countless guns discharged at once from the balcony. Arc-lights of fire and energy splashed down at me. I rolled off the altar and behind it. Bullets pecked into the stone but didn’t get to me. A spray of tossed flame flashed across the edge of the stone.

  A round whisked off the top of the stone table. I didn’t have no gun, no way to defend myself. From the rattling of magic and electricity in my veins, to burns on my chest, even so far as the formaldehyde still playing around in my skull, I didn’t have much of a chance.

  “Plan,” I said to myself. “Plan. You need a plan.”

  I peeked around the corner of the altar. Some of the sandshades jumped to the floor. Others took the stairs.

  A silhouette ran out from the darkness of the chamber. It ran, planted its foot on a stony wall, and bounded into three or four of the sandshades. Their attention shifted toward it. So did the muzzles. Gunfire didn’t seem to touch it. It had a single knife, glowing green, that moved like a predator. It stabbed, sliced, and sprayed sand with every motion as it cut through skin and robe.

  I scrambled out from behind the altar.

  Crossing almost ten feet toward Red’s shivering body took a damn lifetime. I grabbed the red-robed magician by his wrist. Even though every muscle in my body told me not to strain, I had to. I yanked him with me back behind the altar.

  The shadow still wasn’t dead. It kept fighting.

  Buying me time.

  “Faust,” Red said, belching blood.

  “The sawed-off,” I said. “Do you have it?”

  “On my belt. On my—“

  “Shut your mouth,” I said, sifting through bloody cloth. The sawed-off was there. A bandolier, too. And a talon-blade.

  “I hoped you’d notice,” he said, shaking all over like winter had just come over us. “I hoped you’d feel how loose they were…”

  I unholstered the shotgun and opened the breach. Loaded. And there were about ten more shells in the belt.

  I pushed his hood off his head. I nudged his chin with the shotgun. He looked at me. Red was an older man. Entirely unremarkable. A face even a crowd would forget. But not me. His eyes were soft. They were familiar. Gentle. And though what wisps of hair remained on his bald head had been burned black, I recognized him.

  The foreman of the mine, Mr. Bisbin, lay dying right in front of me.

  “Hello, Elias.” My middle finger paused on the back-most trigger. “A part of me hoped you’d ne
ver find out.”

  “You’re part of this goddamn madness?”

  “I had no other business options. No spine, either. But your shackles,” Bisbin said, “weren’t an accident. You’d either notice or you’d die a free man, even if you didn’t know it.”

  More gunshots. Several buzzed above us, raining rock down from the wall behind us. Bisbin grabbed my collar and pulled me down.

  “Things in Blackpeak haven’t always been easy, Faust. Men who don’t have a hope in the world, we’ll go where we know there’s money and power, even if it kills us.”

  “We’re in the mines,” I said. “In the coal mines?”

  “More than just coal down here, Faust.” Blood started bubbling on his lips.

  “Why didn’t you stop him,” I said.

  “Afraid. Scared.”

  “He’s eating Blackpeak alive.”

  “I kinda hoped you’d make sure he didn’t.”

  “You almost got me killed.”

  “But you’re not dead.”

  “Almost,” I said.

  “If I fell too far out of line, Faust, he would have known. I’d be dead, and so would lots of others. And if you’d died down here, you’d just be another black mark inked on this darkening heart of mine. But you didn’t.” He pressed a finger against my chest. “Not yet. You still got a chance.” Then he fell into coughing, and ribbons of blood spilled out of his mouth.

  “And how the hell am I going to get out of here?”

  “Mine’s a mine,” he said. “Every way leads out in the end. Be fast and you can make it.”

  “Fast isn’t really my forte at the moment.”

  “Ignore the pain. It’s temporary. Death is final.”

  “And what about you,” I said.

  “Do you think I want to go back up there and see the sunlight? Do you think I’d be proud to live in a town I helped terrorize? I belong here. I deserve this.”