by Tim Akers
I let the Spirit of Fire slip, just a little, just enough. Afraid for the terrified man I was about to end anyway, I stuck my hand out, offering the edge of my robe to the flame. The Spirit struck.
Smoke billowed up from the thick weave of my student’s robes. It filled the air with thick clouds of hot ash, the hem of the robe dancing in embers as the spirit rushed along its edge. Mistakes like this are common among the students at the Iron, especially in their early years, so our robes have the slightest bit of mystery woven into them, to resist fire and water and the other elements. I kept the sleeve closed over my fist, yelling and waving my arm, making the smoke in the room worse. I glanced up at Hizzesh, who was smirking at me in obvious amusement. Several guards rushed from the corners of the room and beat the fire out with heavy clothes. They had seen this show before, and feared nothing from the Elementals.
“Gods, sorry about that, it got away…”
“Back to your task, bumbler,” Hizzesh said, a little bored. “If you’re going to learn to do this sort of thing right, you’re going to burn yourself a few times. As long as it’s you, and not the property.” He nodded to the slaves, grimacing. “Finish and be done.”
I tied the threads of the Fire Element tight, regaining control and giving Harlon a glance. He was putting the final touches on his subject. The weeping man slumped to the side, his head lolling, as a corona of ghostly water tumbled over him like a waterfall. The effect would have been quite beautiful, if the act hadn’t been so horrific. Harlon stepped back, satisfied. There was no sign of the Spirit of Law.
“Your friend is getting ahead of you,” Hizzesh said. “Come, come, finish up. I have no time for more mistakes.”
Grunting, I plunged my mind back into the tapestry of the subject’s soul. I brushed aside the scattering of memories, the cloud of thought that hung over the still waters of his life. Unconsciously, I began to trace the lines along the edge that I would fray and weave, if this was my soul, if this were a normal binding. Then I remembered what I was about and turned to the center of the man’s spirit, the heart of his heart, where the pattern of the four-fold lines was most tightly woven. Steeling myself, I grasped the densest weave of that pattern and tore.
It was nightmare. For all my study, for all that I knew the theory of what we were doing, I wasn’t prepare to untangle the soul of a man I had never known, or any man, any living thing. The luminous threads snapped and crackled, shrieking out in psychic horror as their lines were cut, as the weft of his days was loosened and undone. It was the worst kind of ending, a deliberate picking apart of memories and hopes and the dull, monotonous accumulation of days upon days that makes up a life. With one thought, one casual slip, I undid all of that. I ended him, ended everything that he may be and had ever been.
The gaping wound at the center of his soul howled, the frayed edges writhing in the aether like the severed tails of snakes. As quickly as I could, to end the misery of his complaint, I gathered the snipped threads together and tied them to the edges of the Element of Fire. The spirit didn’t like the process, could feel the trauma of this man’s unmaking. We struggled, ‘binder and bound, fighting in the ruin of the slave’s life. Finally, I pulled the skeins tight and drew the spirit down into the gap, binding it tight and hard. The heat of the Elemental seared the lining of the soul, but the man would never care. He would never care again.
I pulled out, and realized I had been sobbing. The man knelt before me, his hooded skull tipped back, his mouth open. He had sucked some of the hood into his throat, and wisps of smoke curled around his shoulders. The Spirit of Fire rested easily around his head, a crown of glimmering flame, noble and bright.
“You were screaming,” Harlon whispered at my side. He had one hand on my shoulder, holding me up. “You both were.”
“I can’t do it, Harl. I can’t do another,” I whispered. My whole body was trembling, and my mouth tasted like vomit. “They can’t make me.”
Harlon sighed, frustrated. He let go of me, giving Jovin an angry look and going to the fourth slave. He had already bound earth to the third man, as evidenced by the ingot of stone slowly orbiting around the slave’s limp form.
“Always have to do everything around here,” Harlon muttered as he gripped the final slave by the shoulders. This one was a woman, I could tell now. It looked like she had vomited in her hood, and was now crying quietly in the darkness. Harlon pulled her roughly straight and then went into the trance. The air hummed with music of her soul.
“He has a thing for it,” Jovin whispered from behind me. “He snapped that third one together in no time, none at all.” Even through his glassy eyes and the distance of his drug-seared brain, Jovin still looked scared. He gave me a look like a deer eyeing an arrow. “You going to be alright, man? You made a hell of a sound.”
“It’s fucking awful, what we’re doing,” I said, pausing to spit bile that had bubbled into my throat. “It’s just fucking terrible.”
“It’s just fucking business,” Hizzesh said from his grimy throne. He watched me closely, weighing me, as Harlon finished with the final slave. Jovin was right. He had a knack. The binding was done in no time.
“That’s the end of it,” he said, squaring his shoulders as he stood next to me. I wiped my face and nodded. Hizzesh watched us, smiling. “We’ve paid Jovin’s debt.”
“That’s the end of it, for now. I’m sure Jovin will find a way to owe me, in the future. And I may have use for you,” he said, looking at Harlon. “I always have a use for talented boys.”
Harlon stood still for a moment, radiating fury and wounded pride. I began to worry that he would try to strike the man on the bench, and undo us all. I put a hand on his arm, but he shook it off.
“That’s the end of it,” he said again, then shouldered his way out of the room. Timidly, Jovin and I followed him. The girls were waiting in the street.
“How’d it go?” Elia asked, her eyes bright as stars. “Did our pattern…”
Harlon ignored her, marching up the street and back toward the Iron. Elia gave me one look, brief and withering, then rushed after him. Becca waited a little longer, staring at my pathetic condition, the tears on my cheeks, the trembling of my hands.
“It’s alright, Rae,” she said. “None of us really expected much of you.”
She turned and went after Harlon and his girl. I watched them go, disappearing into the crowd. When I looked around, Jovin was gone, as well.
I was left with the empty man’s memories, the screaming history of his life, spilling out of him and into me. The street was filled with his days, and the loss of uncounted tomorrows.
I went to find a bottle and a bed. Whatever it took, to empty his life from my heart of hearts.
####
I stayed away from the club room for a few weeks. There were classes, and I picked up a second job at the college. My studies improved, if only because the dull tedium of formulas and histories of class drained the empty man’s life from my mind. Nights were the hardest, the darkest. Nights were long and sleepless. So I studied.
The first time I went back to the club room, to collect some books that might help me, there was no one else there. Becca’s things were gone from their corner, and there was another new couch under the windows. I stayed, doing my work on the table, hoping someone would come by. Anyone. When night fell and the streetlamps spun to life, I gathered my things and left, locking the door behind me.
Elia was just coming down the street. She stopped when she saw me, nearly turned back. I gave a half-hearted wave. With obvious effort, she came over.
“I left some things,” she said. “Some personal stuff. I was just collecting it.”
“Collecting it? Are you not using the room anymore?”
“Oh. Uh, no,” she blushed angrily. “I’m not really… I don’t think it would be right. The library is fine for me, for now.”
“You can drink in the library?” I asked, laughing. She gave the barest ghost of a smile, then ret
reated back to her silent walls. “I’m one to talk. I haven’t been around, not since. Well. You know.”
She nodded, embarrassed. I hadn’t thought about what things would be like, after. None of us had, it seemed. We were too caught up in the problem, and our clever solution, to really think about anything after.
“Listen,” she said, haltingly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we pushed you into it. Harlon told us all about… what happened in there. What it was like. How you couldn’t go on.” She paused, then put a soft hand on my elbow. “I think that was the better thing. To refuse, once you saw the truth of it. It’s so easy, when it’s a pattern in ink and linen, it’s easy to forget. To forget what we were actually doing.”
“Thanks. I…” memories of the empty man washed over me, and my mouth hung open, slack. I shook myself. “Thanks,” was all I could manage.
Elia smiled at me again, a sad smile, soft. It looked like she was going to say something more when a voice, booming and smart, greeted us from down the street.
“There they are, the quiet lovers!” Harlon called. “Never thought we’d see the ghost of you, Rae! Thought you’d melted into the floor or something.”
The two of them, Harlon and Becca, marched down the street like it was a parade. Becca was in some new style, the tiers of her dress ruffled like a wedding cake, a hat on her head like a spider’s embrace. She was twirling a stone-tipped cane, glamoured to glow like the moon. Her cheeks and her lips were as red as blood, and her laughter cut me like a knife.
“Oh, gods,” I muttered to Elia. “Do they have to be so…” I turned to her, but she was gone, her back disappearing into the crowd. “Gods, child, is it that bad?” I whispered to her retreating form.
“Well, what became of her?” Harlon wondered as he greeted me with a handshake and a slap on the shoulder. “No matter, no matter. How’ve you been, lad?”
“Busy,” I said. “Classes, and…” I stole a glance at Becca. She smiled at me as she always had. “Just busy, I guess.”
“Well, we’ve missed you. I had to show Jovin the door, I’m afraid. Nice fellow, but I can’t risk that sort of entanglement again.” He turned to open the door to his building, still smiling. “Come up for a drink? Or something?”
The man who stepped out of the alley was unremarkable in every conceivable way. The knife slipped through my robe and skittered off my ribs before I took another breath. Harlon’s face changed as he tried to understand what he was seeing, and then the man lunged smoothly at him. Harlon snapped to attention and flinched, just deflecting the blade that was meant for his heart.
“Did you think he wouldn’t know? Did you think you could avoid the debt of betrayal, ‘binder-man?” the assassin said, his voice oddly without anger or emotion.
Becca screamed and struck the assassin with her cane, to little effect. The man punched her and she crumpled, blood splashing from her mouth.
“Not me,” Harlon grunted. “Not me!”
He punched the assassin, but the man sidestepped the blow. I was on my ass, I realized, holding my hand to my side. There was blood, but not as much as I feared. Pain stitched through my ribs, but I could breathe, I could move. I tottered to my feet, just as Harlon tried once again to drive off the attacker.
The assassin blocked Harlon’s attack, ducking under the larger man’s sweeping strike, then buried his shoulder into Harlon’s belly and shrugged him off like a cape. Harlon fell to the ground. The attacker skittered forward, raising his arm to strike the final blow.
A gout of flame engulfed the attacker’s arm, tight coils of flame that flashed through his unremarkable sleeve and cut into his flesh. He gave out a terrified scream, waving his arm in terror. I turned to see Elia running toward us, her head wreathed in fire.
The Elemental that she had summoned tore free from the assassin and flashed into the air, disappearing into the close clouds above. Elia began to summon another spirit, but the unremarkable man rushed forward. I yelled, running forward, throwing myself at that attacker’s feet. We stumbled and rolled, the knife skipping across the pavement as he fell. I tried to punch him, but he blocked the blow and struck me once, twice, a final time across the face. I fell, senseless. He stood and drew another blade from his belt, then gathered my robe in his fist and raised my head off the ground.
Again, fire sprang from his shoulders. The hood of his cloak gathered most of the flame, and the Elemental was again gone as soon as it was summoned, crashing through the glass of Thuen’s tavern. People began screaming and rushing into the street. The assassin dropped me, shedding the burning scraps of his cloak.
“That’s enough, bitch,” he muttered, then rushed to Elia’s side and put the blade into her. The flame around her head snuffed out, like a candle in a vacuum.
There was too much traffic in the street now, too many people screaming about fire and murder and blood. The assassin turned to me and spat, then collected the knife from fallen Elia’s heaving chest and disappeared into the chaos of the crowd.
My head still ringing, I dragged myself to Elia’s side. Her mouth was open, gasping, her lungs struggling to suck air through the blood and broken bones of her chest. Her skin was pale as the moon, and twice as cold. I put my hand behind her neck and tried to lift her off the cobblestone street.
“Help!” I yelled. “Somebody help!” I looked around at the crowds of people. There was knot of frightened drunks around Becca, some leaning down to talk to her. She sat with her back to a barrel and a slick of blood pouring from her mouth and down her pale chest. There was something wrong with her hand, the fingers in more directions than seemed possible. “Help!”
“Is Harlon… Is Harlon…” Elia gasped, her voice like the grating of a rusty winch. Then she shivered, she stretched, and she died. There in my arms.
A man paused beside me, leaning down to look at Elia’s cold eyes. He shook his head sadly, patting my shoulder.
“There’s nothing to do for the girl,” he said. “Nothing to do for the dead.”
He stood and ran over to Becca, producing a bag from his robe and laying out a series of vials. Some kind of medic, then. I looked from Elia to Becca, and then to the crowd. I caught sight of Harlon, hobbling down the street. Hobbling back to the Iron, away from his dying friends.
“Nothing to do for the dead,” I whispered. “Nothing.”
I gathered Elia in my arms and stood, the pain in my side sharp as fire. Her head lolled back, her mouth open, teeth glistening and wet with blood.
“Maybe,” I said, and ran to the door to Thuen’s building. I kicked it open, Elia’s limbs dangling loosely as I ran, blood dripping from the tips of her thin, white fingers. Up the stairs, through the door that I had locked, opened this time with a boot and my shoulder. Her perfume filled my nostrils, a smell that I had never noticed in the year I had known her, mixed with the butcherhouse stink of meat and shit and death.
I flopped Elia down as carefully as I could on the table. Her blood blotted through schemes we had drawn, the plans we had made, in ink and hope. I lit a lantern and then rushed to the bookshelf, throwing aside thick tomes of knowledge, the books we had stolen from the library and those we had honestly purchased with Harlon’s generous gold. Looking for one volume, one thin volume, probably banned.
It was stuffed in the back of the shelf, turned to the side and forgotten. It had nothing to do with our business of these last few weeks, though truly it had everything to do with it. Life and Death. Complicated stuff, and no time to weigh the consequences.
I threw the volume open beside Elia’s rapidly cooling body. The room smelled horrible, incense and this dead girl, and the sharp tang of my own fear throughout. I flipped through the book with shaking fingers. Things were more familiar now, the diagrams something that made sense. I began to think I had a knack for this, just as Harlon apparently had a knack for tearing open people’s souls. I didn’t have time to do this properly. I only had time to guess, and pray, and try.
Elia’s disinteg
rating soul opened for me like a puzzle. The four-fold pattern was falling apart in my fingers, the lines turning to ash as I touched them. Struggling to make sense of the diagrams in the book and the chaotic reality of a dead girl’s heart of hearts, I finally found the folded lines of Life and Death. I hesitated, trembling, unsure which to select. Finally I took Death in my hands, frayed it, then cast my eyes to the aether, looking for whatever remained of Elia’s tender soul.
She came to me, because I was looking for her. Her presence, that new-found scent of perfume, the serious line of her smile… yes, even the surprised, needful gasps from Harlon’s bedroom, filled my head and my soul. Smiling, I frayed the edge of my soul and offered her the threads, the anchor of my life, something beyond death.
“Elia,” I said, as quietly as I could. “I think… no. I’ve been wrong, all this time. Elia, I love…”
“No,” her voice, thin as fog and just as frail, ghosting through my heart. “No.”
The tapestry of her soul fell, crashing, to the table. The paper thin lines of Death and Life became nothing, snuffed, forgotten. She left me alone in that room, the edge of my soul raw and empty, wounded. Her spirit became nothing.
Outside, the crowds continued to gather and to mumble among themselves about the attack. Curls of smoke worked their way up from Thuen’s burning tavern, singing my eyes. Elia lay quietly on the table. Still. I crossed her arms over her chest in prayer, then tucked the book into my robes and stood. I left her there. The tattered banner of my soul, I stitched back together, closing the door in my heart between Life and Death. That was the last day I saw Harlon, and I never spoke to Becca again, though she stayed on at the Iron. But I always kept my eyes open for Elia, as my studies strayed from the common planes of the Elements and drifted into deeper studies. Every time I stepped beyond the aether, opened my soul to Life and bound the spirits of Death, I watched for her. I waited.
Waited for the taste of her perfume, the ghost of her memories. I left that door open, always watching. But she has never come.