“So much.”
The Red Witch man lifted the weapon again and held it sideways, pressing the barrel into the Recorder’s forehead, watching his eyes closely. The stock and body of the weapon were frosted but transparent and held a liquid inside. The barrel wasn’t actually open as a gun would be, but terminated in a turquoise spongy Pro-Mat plate.
“Explain this.” His voice was deep and cavernous. He was addressing Kensi, perhaps savoring the panic and seeking to flavor it further.
Raggedy Kensi chuckled again, “Liquid computer, my sweet, juicy darlings. To see such bad things and feel them and live a long miserable life in no time at all. Just awful what you’ll see and what you’ll feel and the crying and it goes on for years, doesn’t it?”
“No time at all…stupid coat…”
She and Misling both turned their eyes to Bomar’s cold face, stretched and dead like a folded latex mask. Kensi had produced a smaller pistol-style version of the injection weapon the Red Witch man held and suddenly looked at her through its clear stock, grinning as the image of his eye stretched across its curved surface watching her. He gripped her neck to turn her head aside and expose the top of her spine. He wasn’t interested in more talk and was eager to get on with it, clutching and clawing at her as she struggled; but he couldn’t hold her steady enough to expose the spot he needed.
“Explain, meathead.” The Red Witch man said it again, drawing some irritation from Kensi at the interruption and the delay. Unseen by anyone, Misling was clutching his fist.
“Turn it right round…”
“About Bomar?” Kensi was asking the Red Witch man for guidance, his voice screeching in his urgency. When there was no answer apart from maybe amusement on the massive nightmare face, he continued although was getting out of breath with the struggle.
“I call him Bomar because it’s a funny name. Snuck into his little Bomar house and watched his little Bomar’s. Such a pretty rascal he had, and was helping her with her math, wasn’t he?” Kensi leaned forward to put more weight on Sylhauna’s bound arms. She was kneeing him in his back savagely and grunting and trying to bite his left knee unsuccessfully. Kensi wasn’t really strong enough to keep her down much longer and clearly wanted to get on with things.
“’I’ll be right back’, she said, didn’t she? She had to poop. ‘Right back’ is funny because I grabbed her, didn’t I? Before she could. I grabbed her and I stuck her and it doesn’t take long, does it?”
“Out of shape…get on with it…juicy strips…”
Kensi had to right himself as he was almost bucked at Sylhauna’s struggling. He was huffing at this point as if he’d been running as he told the story. He looked at the Red Witch man again to see if that was enough as he was losing his balance and getting winded. After a moment, he knew he had to continue for the Red Witch man’s pleasure. Unseen by anyone, Misling braced his legs widely, coiling.
“It’s like ages go by but it’s only a blink, isn’t it? Sweet Kensi made it fast so he could see happy Bomar’s face when his little girl came back grinning and staring with spit on her chin all bubbling and wanting to slice into his neck. She went to poop and came back like that. ‘I’ll be right back’; and she was, wasn’t she? Your filthy fish is doing that now, isn’t he?”
Sylhauna halted only a moment in her struggle to glance over to Ring, still and silent as a fallen marble column. He hadn’t made a sound since he’d gone down.
“Talk to the bug.” The Red Witch man again directed Kensi.
“Turn it right round…”
“Can I stick her first?” He grunted, almost entirely out of breath at this point. He fumbled and clawed like he was drowning, still trying to expose the back of her neck.
“Can you? Talk to the bug, meathead.” The massive Red Witch man chuckled as he picked something from his nose.
Unanticipated by anyone, Misling launched himself into the weapon, smacking it to the side and attempting to claw his nails into the Red Witch man’s throat like a wildcat. No one would have known; but it was an assault made hundreds of years before by a young Duke Exeter in his practice before the first battle of his life, shamed by his trainer and eager to earn a command of any sort. Here at this moment, it was a similar act of hopelessness and finality with as much chance of succeeding.
Misling didn’t howl or shout a battle cry; but rather only moved fluidly and as brutally as he could. The young Duke had managed to draw blood from a seasoned field lieutenant and earned a place by the cannons in a battle whose name no one remembered apart from the Recorders. Here, young Misling managed to do nothing of any kind and was brutally slapped down with the barrel of the Red Witch man’s weapon.
With the barrel pressed coldly against the base of Misling’s skull, the Red Witch man chuckled, “Record this, bug.”
A theatrical pause followed where they all seemed to freeze, where music would swell and images would slow. It was a moment of surrender and terror. And then Ring said something.
“Faring.” His voice was distant, damaged. He was injured severely and could only just lift his head right then. The Red Witch man turned his face to look.
“Don’t listen to the fish, my darling!” Kensi was horrified to see Ring alert. “He says bad things, confusing things.”
“What’s he say? What’s a Faring? The juicy strips…”
The Red Witch man’s flaring eyes squinted, wondering why this man was conscious at all considering the blast he’d just received to his mind and the beating he’d taken. Ring unsteadily lifted himself to rotate over to his side and face them, now lying on his right hip and resting on his elbow. He was bleeding from his mouth and possibly from his tear ducts as well.
“Under Governor Faring of the Southern Red Witch annex. In his pool. Ask him.”
The Red Witch man’s face seemed to show delight and surprise as he bent over so as to better gauge the Recorder’s reaction, “Faring?”
Misling and Sylhauna were watching Ring with amazement. Kensi’s burning stare was fierce, an absolute hatred for Ring. He also looked exhausted after his attempts to hold Sylhauna down. Misling met the Red Witch man’s eyes then.
“From his fourth failure at the blackening through his time as Chaselord and ultimately Under Governor, and his capture and interrogation.”
It wasn’t clear right then whether the Red Witch man had heard of the Under Governor or was imagining him. Neither was it clear he believed Misling at all.
“His last words…?”
Misling paused uncertain, as if that made sense for a Recorder reciting from his Record. He was silent for an awkward moment, either because he was calling up the moment in its Mast entirety, fully preserved like a pinned insect in alcohol with its wings stretched wide, or because he was imagining and lying. Who could tell?
“He dragged himself along the cell floor leaving blood in a trail behind him.” Misling coughed and looked at Sylhauna, then back to the Red Witch man.
“Turn it right round…”
“His breathing was labored, like bubbles coming up through mud. It was cold; and mist rose up from where his legs had been severed as a streak of goo poured out.”
Misling hesitated, losing himself in the images he was watching, “It was not blood. Something else. Close in, eye-to-eye with the Recorder, his breath smelling of mucus and sewage, the Under Governor said, ‘I beat them. Tell them how I beat them.’”
The Red Witch fighter only watched and pondered. It was then, perhaps as Kensi was distracted at the Recorder’s recount, Sylhauna finally toppled him by freeing her hand and grasping his pony tail, tugging the street man’s head down viciously to the stone pavement. It bounced like a ball and elicited from him a shriek incommensurate with the force of the blow. In a panic, she seized the injection pistol from his loosened grip and slammed it onto the side of his neck where it made a whoosh noise and stuck fast. Then she scooted away, wide-eyed and frightened, watching him.
“Bah bah bah!” Kensi was shouting non
sense in his own panic. He snatched his arm out and grasped her boot at the ankle. She had thought she was far enough away and was shocked at his reach.
“Don’t.” The Red Witch man didn’t shake his stare at Misling for the moment despite what had happened behind him.
“No. Juicy strips…confusing things…turn it right round…”
Kensi looked desperately at his minder, the injection weapon hanging loosely from his neck, “But she’s being rascal.”
The Red Witch man at last shoved Misling’s shoulder and broke his pondering, turning and straightening to walk to Ring who was bleeding much worse from his mouth and the side of his face than before now that he’d tried to sit up. The minder kicked Ring down again, pinning his shoulder to the dusty street with an armored boot and pressed the frosted acrylic barrel against the base of his head, firing twice. Two horrible booms sounded, sending pulses of violence through Ring’s body. The minder watched for a reaction.
Ring managed to roll himself and look up, coughing. His voice was horribly distorted through the swelling and bleeding, “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
Fierce red eyes squinted. The minder looked at his weapon and tossed it to the street, sending it bouncing.
“Follow them.” The Red Witch man spoke to Kensi as he picked Bomar’s lifeless body up like it was a sack of concrete slung over his massive shoulder. The poor man’s face was bunched fabric, stretched and horrible and vacant, rustling loosely against the minder’s duster as the fighter walked into the shadows. He was leaving.
“Follow the juicy strips…confusing things…”
“That’s my Bomar, darling. My head hurts. It hurts really bad, my sweet Bomar.” Kensi was squealing and holding the back of his head and was horrified at the blood he was finding on the hand he was using to comfort himself. His other hand still held Sylhauna by the ankle. When he showed her the blood, she kicked him with the other boot and got up, rushing to join Misling and Ring, though still watching the panicked street man.
“Is that it? Is he not coming back?”
The Recorder locked eyes with Ring, trying to maintain Ring’s drifting attention as he held him by the shirt, “How are you unaffected?”
Ring’s eyes rolled up; and his mouth widened as Bomar’s had. He moaned, then regained control and became alert again, though sorely punished and suffering. His cheeks and jaw were swollen and purpling. There was severe pain in his eyes; and they were tearing up.
“How are you unaffected?”
“Misling? Shelter. Can’t stay here.”
The Recorder continued, “How are you unaffected?”
Ring weakly lifted his hand to touch Misling’s hands, clutched there at his collar, “Can’t black out. Don’t let me black out.”
Sylhauna at that point turned her eyes to Kensi to perhaps gauge his urgency, his intentions, whether he was in fact leagued somehow with the mysterious Ring. She was stepping further from him as she looked.
Kensi still sat like a toddler, holding his head and with the injection pistol still dangling beneath his ear, “He’s wicked; and he’s one of us. And I’ll eat his eyes. I will. The fish!”
Ring was becoming unresponsive and groggy as if under ether. Misling was stuck, uncertain. It may have been he was running back through his Record of the last day, skipping through to bits of dialogue or facial expressions for clues relating to Ring’s behavior. It may have been that he was scared out of his mind.
“His eyes!” Kensi hissed and snapped. “My chance!. You soured him on me, you filthy kiddies. On your field trip. Too much talky talky. Next time sweet Kensi cuts your throat and pulls your tongue through the hole. No laughing or explaining or blah blah. Just cutting and pulling and then I’ll dance, you filthy fish!”
Panicked, Sylhauna ignored the blathering and poked the Recorder’s shoulder to gain his attention, “I know somebody close by.”
Kensi stood and started walking toward them, “I’m dizzy, princess. You made me dizzy; and I can’t see good. And I’ll eat your eyes too.”
“Okay, we’re leaving. Get out of your head and help me. I know somebody.” Sylhauna started to lift Ring’s rubber arms, limited by his size relative to her own and awaiting the Recorder to act. He was hesitating, drifting into his memories and reviewing his archives for something.
When she understood what he was about, she tugged on him, “Bigger problems here.”
Amazingly and decisively, completely out of character for a Recorder and something that came to great attention and discussion in later times, Misling did in fact come from his reverie, and stepped quickly and aggressively to within paces of the street man, locking eyes.
“A bargain.” He gave Kensi a fierce stare, level setting his proposal. “Should you go away right now, should this Recorder never again see your face, your moment in the eternal Record is one of fearful service as a blackened Red Witch fighter defending the Southern Annex against…an incursion of purge troops, in fact falling in battle back to back with the Chaselord himself. Just the two of you against an overwhelming force and glorious. That is what this Recorder will place as your Record.”
Misling watched the street man’s face, the stirring of fancy and dreams, “Such a destiny, you will agree is unlikely from here for you; and it is free and promised and certain herein. However, should you follow, molest or interfere, should you in any way make yourself known again to this Recorder, your only mark preserved for the remainder of human history will be that you cried like an infant when bested by children and…were defecated upon by the Red Witch when they declared you worthless. Consider your chances.”
Though Kensi continued to stare ahead with a foam on the side of his lips, he did register something on this. He kept up the daze as Misling at last spun and assisted Sylhauna. He maybe called after them once to cast threats or venom as they faded hobbling into the shadows; but his voice only sounded like broken wheezing. Just when the three had faded into the mist, Kensi tugged the hypodermic pistol from his neck and began limping in an awkward trot in the direction towards which they’d gone.
“Like jelly.”
14 fROM THE TERRACE
The sun was still yet to rise; and it was cold…still the early lonely hours between evening and morning. A withered man, not old really but withered nonetheless, was laying in his damp linen, sweating in a fever and shifting position to seek comfort. Beyond his artifact-cluttered room and through a cramped kitchen where the floor was antiqued brick and copper pans hung in haphazard fashion, he could see the night sky and city lights from an open terrace window with a broad limestone sill wide enough to be seated upon.
“Who is that?” It was perhaps the odd rustle or snap; but it shook him.
When there was nothing further, he inhaled deeply as if coiling for a jump and threw his arms out to assist in righting himself, trying to sit up so as to reach a bottle of sana which was sitting on the tableside drawing a moisture ring on a stained piece of laced filigree. He couldn’t sustain the position, however and fell back empty handed, squinting his eyes in frustration or discomfort. Whether his left side or his right, there was no comfort to be had; and he at last rested again on his back, laboring.
“It hurts.”
The look of his face was of surrender, sadness that it had come to this. Slid to his side and scattered about the floor were models of pillars and pilasters, ornamental gargoyles and intricate architectural pieces in miniature; and he maintained odd bits of latex molds stacked in rows about the floorboard. He placed his hands gently on his stomach to rub the skin thereon; but decided against it and moved them again to the side so their weight should not press upon his abdomen.
“What’s that? Are you back?” There was another rustle from beyond his doorway. It was more definite that time; and he knew it.
He stared with eyes round and alert for a time, then tried to sit up again to gain a better vantage. Something fell and shattered somewhere near the terrace, only a few paces and around the corner from where
he lay. He inhaled sharply and gripped his linen as if he were falling.
“Is it you? Speak up. Who is there?”
Suddenly, Sylhauna’s face popped around the doorframe as she waved, “Hi, Lennox. Sorry about that.”
He eyed her suspiciously, with disgust, “Are you stealing? What are you doing?”
She held up a finger to sign that he should await an answer, then continued toward the entrance, “Just need to open your door real quick. Where is she?”
Lennox tried again to right himself, upset and intolerant of this disruption. He protested but was ignored as he strained to listen to noises of the new entrants, not visible from the untidy sick bed in which he lay. He rolled to one side and propped himself on an elbow to gain his view, at last seeing Sylhauna and Misling with difficulty drag Ring down the main corridor past his bedroom entranceway. Ring was speaking a string of words that made little sense, but seemed to be an attempt to wake himself.
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