The trouble was compounded with the lack of light, torch or otherwise. The towers of this drunk-laden labyrinth reached so high as to pierce the sky. As that was not nearly enough, the seasons worked against the pair. Clouds bloated with black hid whatever sunlight beaming down. Even fire was a fickle thing, providing warmth while at the same time giving beacons to those cocky bands of toughs who sought to prove their manhood by beating up the bums that made the whole kingdom into the ruin it now was. Thus the shadows, alive with their fluxing and folding. It was a miracle Shayna knew the path without sight. She probably goes this way for work. Singing. At a bar. One step away from a whore, to most men’s eyes.
De Varin’s face soured at their presence. Shayna sat the librarian down and hurried to de Varin to explain the situation. Explain? Mykel chuckled. The way the two were glaring at one another, they could have been father and daughter arguing the arrival of a new beau. Then again, the notion did have merit. The last time de Varin met Mykel, he was seething with anger at the rejection of one of his “girls.” Finally, the innkeep threw up his hands in surrender. Shayna hurried back with a grin on your face. “Come on. I just pulled his last nerve.”
Down the stairs they went, back to the winery that saw their disastrous first meeting. It was almost a replica of the experience. Shayna lit the fireplace, darted back and forth with a plate of honey-cakes. Then she disappeared into the stairwell. Some urgent matter.
Mykel shuddered; the shadows took on faces and voices. Lord Fenrir, chastising him on the situation. Kurtis, always a sneer on his face, laughing like a fool. Lady Fenrir. Lazarus. All had the fierce eyes of a predator, towering over him as though a giant next to a mouse. Their voices... whispering a thousand ways of surrender, of hunger, of despair. Mykel found himself hugging his knees as an effort to keep the faces at bay. It literally took all Mykel’s willpower to uncurl from the hold.
“Mykel.” The librarian snapped to attention with a cry. No. Not any danger.
“Shayna.” His eyes lowered to the bundle she carried. “My clothes. How did you find them?”
“You don’t grow up in the slums without knowing the precise art of bargaining.” She laughed as Mykel become a whirlwind of spinning clothes. The 14th Century garb dispelled the fear into a pin-prick. He was himself again.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Steel crept into her voice. “So. Can I know the events that brought us together, or will I be reduced to a simple pawn?”
A thousand answers flashed through Mykel’s mind. The slow consumption of the cakes gave him time to analyze each word from all angles, analyzing every hint of threat. “There is a man by the name of John Jekai. He thinks I have done him a great grievance. I have never seen him before yesterday. He had me imprisoned. I would still be there if not for Lazarus.”
Worry quaked within the chambermaid’s eyes. Mykel smiled, which made her blush. This, in turn, made Mykel blush. They knew there was no need for such, which increased the blushing by tenfold. When laughter finally broke the spell Mykel continued. The townspeople turning on him. Jekai’s convenient arrival. His escape. “Which finally leads us to the present. Lazarus was opting to leave in the morning, but they will be on him...”
“Mykel?”
Mykel didn’t hear her. The sleeping instincts inherited by primal ancestors, now roused in twitches and whispers. His eyes darted; his ears perked. Shayna had to dash like a madman to keep up the librarian’s bounding pace up the stairs and from the inn entirely. Even then the chambermaid had to marshal her strength to keep up.
The scene played out before them in flashes of grisly detail. The soft snapping of twigs in a bonfire. A sudden heat pricking every hair on his neck. Fire. Something was on fire. “Caryl.”
Rage propelled him across the streets. Before long a crowd was forming, an audience for a theater of hell. They ogled the fire as though some ancient relic. Not a one of them raised a finger to help. All they did was snort as they bounced off Mykel’s frame. The sea of grins finally parted, revealing the hellish show that mesmerized them all “Oh. Caryl. No.”
The cathouse was a torch. Flame curled into fingers from shattered windows, twisting upward into flashes of smoke. Those forming a line of buckets paled at the fierce rage of the fire. Every drop of water hissed away in hazy lines of vapor. The fire just kept growing. “Caryl! CARYL!”
He started forward. He was three steps from a run when suddenly arms of iron hooked over his own, holding him back. “Get your damn hands off me!” He found a spot where the hold slacked and backhanded the idiot who barred his way. Again the arms held him back. Mykel twisted with a murderous frenzy. The arms were stronger, dragging him step by step from the house. “No! Let me go!” Another crack of thunder; he was free again, to no avail. The doorway was wreathed with fire, with clouds of smoke black and thick. To breathe the very air was poison. There was naught anyone could do.
Rage made him turn, rage and the anticipation of hurting someone, anyone. I’ll kill him. If he hadn’t held me back... All of the rage withered and died as his eyes met the fool who dared hold him back.
Shayna. Already the gray swelled to an ugly bruise bending to the contours of her eye. A second one, purple this time, thickened the skin of her cheek. There were no tears, no pain.
“Shayna.” His legs were boneless. The cobblestones cracked hard against his knees, but Mykel felt it not. “Shayna, I’m so sorry. I’m... I’m...” Fat tears wound down his cheeks, his heaving to fight against the searing pain clawing through his throat. Shayna took him into her arms, and held him as the sobs poured forth. The onlookers? They emptied their seats, an audience at the end of a grand show, only to scatter at the lightning crackling from a cloudless sky; at the way the clouds were whipped to frame a vortex, a tunnel of darkness.
The library. Lazarus. The old man could easily defend himself from every threat posed to him. But on a day when Caryl died, on a day when the world tumbled from fragile pillars, such rules could be shattered.
He started running... but a part of him already knew he was too late.
. . .
Shayna watched Mykel disappear into the night. The fool still loved Caryl. He loved a common whore, but he didn’t have the decency to remember the last Companion. You knew this was coming, her conscience reminded her. Mykel’s love was nothing new. She knew the details surrounding their last meeting, that night so long ago. She also knew the danger if they should ever cross paths.
None of that mattered when she glimpsed him last month. All the reason in the world, all those nights convincing herself their fates were never to be together. It’d been such a bloody mess, that night when souls shattered and the cold rain that did nothing to numb the fires of their traveling. Avoidance wasn’t just necessary but imperative. Any hint, any whisper of collusion, would result in death. The reapers were particularly hungry, and they didn’t take failure very well.
Now, standing here by the house of that whore, the house where they had fucked and made love and fucked again, that house blazing like a torch, she couldn’t help but think it was worth it. She could literally feel the grains of sand slipping through the hourglass ever since she caught that brief, tantalizingly glimpse. It hadn’t felt a burden, feeling her own death creeping up on her. That day when she offered her singing talents to de Varin, hoping against hope, there was no regret.
In the olden days Shayna would have known the knife was coming even before the assassin thought to strike. A life in squalor had dulled her instincts. The blade was small, going into her back swiftly, causing the bones to melt and her skin to crumple into a heap of ragged breathing. No one noticed her or the assassin. No one cared. They were too busy watching the whorehouse burn.
Mykel…
Then the darkness
swooped in, and she was no more.
XI
The librarian ran straight into a nightmare. The castle was slain and reborn into a twisted, demonic vision. Children running, screaming like headless banshees. The ground became spotted with sudden pits of murky rainbow that swirled like oil atop a puddle. The children scrambled across the puddles and suddenly vanished as they ground gave way soundlessly. No disturbance, no ripples, no nothing. Just gone. The mere sight of this travesty smoldered in Mykel’s gut. He embraced the irritation, feeding it until rage swept through him with tantalizing warmth. A trap. That was beyond the pale, even immersed in rage. Someone’s playing a game. “I’m not a pawn!”
“Quiet, you fool. Do you want to get us all killed?”
Mykel all but jumped out of his skin. The darkness behind him had stolen frame and shape of the objects within it, but the librarian knew that smoky, rough tone. “Lazarus?” he asked quietly. “Is that you? What’s going on?”
“Of course it’s me. Do you have your steel?”
His khatars were concealed within his sleeves, blades folded back almost to the rim of the iron handles that bound his arm to the blade. “Yes, Lazarus.” Wait a minute. “What is happening?”
“Not now. There isn’t time.” At the last word his glanced over his shoulder. “You have two choices. You can stay here until the versi find you. Believe me, they will find you, and they will lick your bones clean.”
Nausea made him tremble; he was afraid that if his lips parted vomit would spill free. “What’s the second option?”
“You come with me. Fight. Or die.”
“Uh...” For once in his life Mykel found himself struck dumb. It was because of the blood, he knew. The bloody tears hot and slow on the walls and pillars, the fat blotches littering the rugs. The corpses with their damning blank eyes. One couldn’t help but notice. “I’ll follow.”
“Good. We’ll take the corridor that goes to the library’s rear entrance.” He paused, then waved his hand. Instantly a wall of flame filled the doorway and then vanished. No more corpses, no more blood. It was an illusion of normalcy. “Do not falter. Just follow me. Focus on me.”
Better them than us, Mykel thought as he crept out. Lazarus took the lead, which found Mykel in relief. It was not a permanent thing. The blood and guts, the killing, the bubble of certainty. He was dead if he kept still, and the sights around him made him want to melt into the ground in fright. So he kept on.
Mykel saw many children dying, or dead, or somewhere in-between; frozen like stone in the murky pits that snatched them up in cruel jaws. Their small faces cried out the questions of terror their little minds could not comprehend. Before long the stone smacked too much skin to Wil’s taunt face, and Mykel hurried along. He did not want to find out if the mysterious murderers could smell vomit.
Mykel did not know how he survived, stumbling from shadow to shadow like a wolf cub on its first legs. They were a temporary comfort, those shadows, hiding him from sight. But soon the walls about him loomed menacingly, their vague shapes dark with the night’s shroud, hinting promises of even darker fates. Pebbles scraped along with his footsteps, and he flinched as though the sound were claws skittering across stone. Any shade lighter than the shadow in which he walked became ruby lights glowing with a menacing grin. His heart hammered so hard in his chest it was impossible to think no one could hear it.
“Don’t,” said Lazarus.
“What?”
“Don’t think about it. You want to live? Then don’t think.” Lazarus glanced at him from the shoulder, eyes sharp with the urge of vehemence. “Don’t lag behind. You do not want to know why.” Mykel sighed and followed the old man. Any chance I will come out of this will be because of him.
Before he moved three paces he saw a blur of midnight against the fire, then another. Snarls and grunts rose higher than the fire’s crackles, coupled with the sudden flails of ebony and strings of purple Mykel could only account as blood. There were two of them; four eyes of glossy blood red gleaming savagely, too many grating words mismatched in tone for there to be only one tongue. Between them, sprawled across the ground, was a bloody mangled heap half-shrouded with buzzing flies. Only pink shreds gave it any semblance of its former humanity.
Versi. Sefiros Cayokite’s demon villains made in ebon flesh, mindless and savage. In the stories they were born from the blackest pits of hell, and served whatever higher demons capable of physical form. “A farce. It has to be.”
Lazarus, in the middle of cleaning his khatars, glanced at the librarian. “Tell them that.” A gesture took in the whole of the room. “Their death is not a trick. The stakes are much higher than your books.”
Mykel stepped back into the room and stared at Lazarus. “Th-this can’t be happening.”
“And yet... here we are.”
There were more of them along the path, prowling like sentries of the night, sniffing the air to make claim to the land before them. It was a claim, Mykel realized. These were primitive creatures, with primitive instincts. They would mark their territory for their own and kill anyone who dared to walk upon it, human or no. Mykel tried to wring some warmth from the scholastic opportunity, but somehow it could not compare to the analysis of warm weathered texts.
It got worse. The ground groaned and heaved and fell away to swirling holes of jagged chaos, swallowing children and adults alike. It was as if the entire world had gone mad.
Mykel shivered inwardly. The place was... cold. Cold as a grave. Visiting barons and rivers of servants always made sure that the halls were never empty. Never before had it been this cold, this bone-chilling cold, swirling in like a hail of knives. It made it seem no foot had set upon the citadel in a thousand years. Mykel shuddered at the thought he had been in this place not two days past. “Wasn’t there some mention of the royal family staying here?”
Lazarus shook a negative. “The family has walled themselves up in their castle since the King’s death. They are safe for now. If the versi are allowed to spread, then the castle will fall.” Lazarus’ voice gained a venomous tone. “That’s why we need to stop them here.”
They continued. Mykel’s thoughts tumbled and spiraled in maddening frenzy that he didn’t feel the thudding against Lazarus’ back. Mykel jumped back as though seared by flame, managing a weak laugh against Lazarus’ viper glare.
“Quiet.” His eyes veered towards a side corridor no one used. Mykel of course knew it; it was an egress into the library; one of his personal favorites. There was nothing obvious marking the corridors any differently than any of the others... but now that Mykel was searching for it there was a slight rumble coming from the hall’s far end. It was sharp, like the sound of hammer on anvil... or the dance of steel on steel. Someone’s fighting in the library. A haggard scream whispered down the hall like a gentle ghost. Mykel shuddered.
“Damn them,” Lazarus whispered. “I can’t believe they’d return to the blood rites.”
“What blood rites? What are you talking about?”
“Sacrifice.”
Only savages do sacrifice. The words would not come out, though. What he had seen was savage enough.
A shrill scream pierced the air, howling in a way that made the bones tremble. Immediately they rushed into the hallway’s intersection. Where? Mykel’s face darted back and forth like a cornered badger. Where? Another scream came, double the first. There. He started running, chasing the heels of a third scream that suddenly cut off in the middle. Damn you—He turned the corner and stared.
At first all he could see was a mass of black, but then his hearing kicked in, and a buzzing, snarling sound permeated the air. The sound of ravenous hunger, unfulfilled for a thousand years, savage and all-consuming. The sound stopped and sha
pes came up from the mass, misshapen heads of darkness with blazing red eyes piercing the soul. At the cluster’s center lay a bloodied hump of shredded flesh, the blood staining the bones scarlet.
Mykel wanted to vomit. Fear kept him straight. Fear and the growing animal growl, made him look up to the Versi. The misshapen heads took shape to his eyes, the heads of birds and bulls, of tigers and dragons and wolves, and many more he did not recognize. All different, yet all of them looked as though they were carved from blocks of obsidian, and all of them stabbed him with those burning, lifeless embers on the marble in patches of cesspool. It took a moment before Mykel realized it was blood. He had to bite back the bile.
Then suddenly it was over. Lazarus and Mykel stood alone in the hallway, the former looking the same as he did a moment before, save for purple blotches staining the red fabric. The creatures all lay dead in a scattered circle about them.
“What...” Mykel took three breathes before continuing. “What... happened?”
“I happened.” Lazarus started ripping off the stained fabric, working methodically as a butcher, grunting as the last of the sleeve fell away. Now the khatar on his arm showed freely; three long serrated blades poised in a triangle about his wrist. “Keep your wits about you, boy. We don’t have time to make mistakes.”
Mykel swallowed. Mad. Everything is mad.
Purple stains flecked pillars and paintings and murals, acidic bubbles churning on the fresher ones, until the entire hall seemed stained in violet. Bones clacked and tumbled across the floor when their feet struck them, or crushed in a powder cloud of dust that billowed slightly before settling. Lazarus stopped only once when Mykel could not contain himself any longer, after that he didn’t even glance behind. Mykel resolved not to look down again.
Screams occasionally cut through the hallway, and their reaction varied. When the scream was but a pale thing in the distance Lazarus continued down the hall without as much as a pause. When the scream was almost right on top of them he didn’t even glance about; he just seemed to melt into running in another direction. Mykel was always a half-step late but that didn’t stop it from all the versi being slain. No matter how fast they ran, no matter how many corners they turned, there were always more to pass around.
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