Regarding Oaths and the Whispering Flame: A Tale of Dark Fantasy Steampunk Horror (Judicar's Oath Book 0)

by JM Guillen

  The boy clutched wildly at his head, batting at something in the air we could not see. Less the cry of a boy, he howled like a wild, wounded animal. He stumbled and went down, catching his knee on the cobbles in a brilliant spray of red.

  For a nonce we froze, stunned.

  Jaque stopped, looking bewildered. Then his eyes grew wide.

  “Listen.” His eyes grew even wider as horror crept across his face. His hand crept up to his head, and he ran his fingers through his dark locks. I watched as he clenched his hand and started pulling at his own hair.

  “It hurts.” Tia’s voice seemed tiny, like a single candle in a vast, unyielding night. “I can’t see, can’t see—”

  Then red agony blossomed in my mind. I don’t remember falling to my knees or skinning my hand. I only remember the pain and one stark, lonely word:

  Nothing. It was less a word and more a concept. Nothing is here. Nothing is watching.

  I heard Tia sobbing, a heart-wrenching, broken sound. I wanted to reach for her, wanted to hold her before—

  I looked up, trying to find her. My head throbbed, leaving me confused. I couldn’t think through the bolt of cotton blanketing my mind.

  Then I saw the fire.

  I had no other word for what it was, but this was far from any fire I had ever seen in my short life. Brilliant white, it meandered through one of the wards for the youngest children. People poured into the courtyard, some screaming. A boy smashed his head against one of the fountains, but I couldn’t understand why.

  “Thom.”

  It was loudest of all the sounds, and yet it was only a whisper. It seemed comforting, calming. Somehow, however, it didn’t seem right. I shook my head, trying to find my friends.

  Jaque was here. Cyrl was here. Rio—

  Rio was walking toward the fire.

  A group of others had drawn near it was well.

  Didn’t they feel the heat? Didn’t they know?

  I had to get Rio away.

  I pushed myself to my feet, a strange, wild grin pulling at the edge of my mouth. It wasn’t funny, not in any way. Yet I could feel the laughter, like dark pitch bubbling deep inside my mind.

  “Thom.”

  I ignored the whisper and struggled toward the group of children.

  “It’s beautiful.” Shaen lingered furthest from the flames. That strange white light flickered on his face. The boy’s empty eyes held only echoes of anything like laughter or being a boy.

  No. They weren’t empty. That white fire danced in his eyes, as if it were already inside him, already devouring his secret dreams.

  Shaen appeared dead already. The strange smile that spread across his face was… unreal somehow. Wicked. Mad.

  “Move. Let me…” Another boy pushed past us, and his words trailed off. He seemed caught as he gazed upon the light.

  I watched, fascinated. He acted as if he thought the fire were the most beautiful thing in the world.

  Then I saw Rio.

  He stood in front of the fire, little more than a dark silhouette before the brilliant flame. His wild hair ruffled in the wind. Rio swayed, like he was listening to some lost, misbegotten music that only he could hear.

  Yet he wasn’t the only one.

  I saw others, children and adults both, rush to the eerie flame as if they were moths. They laughed and cried and called out the names of friends and family long gone. I could smell their burning flesh, see eyes and skin melting away from them as they laughed one final time.

  Screaming, crying, and strange, delighted laughter washed through the courtyard as the whispering flame leapt from building to building, destroying all in its wake. It didn’t care if it burnt wood, iron, or stone. Everything it touched burned.

  It was hungry. Whatever it was, it wasn’t actually fire. I knew that, on some deep—

  “Thom.” The whisper coiled and pricked like a serpent of thorns in my mind. “Come, Thom.”

  “Rio!” I cupped my hands around my mouth, even though he was only five strides away. He didn’t turn, didn’t stop swaying.

  He didn’t pay me any heed at all.

  “Mother?” another little girl called in rapture. I didn’t know her by name. She sat on the cobble after being knocked over by a larger child. She reached for the flames as she started to get up. The beautiful smile on her face reminded me of the smile of a child awakening from dark dreams and seeing a loving parent.

  “No.” I grabbed her arm and pulled. She absently pulled away from me, not even meeting my gaze.

  “Come, Thom.” The thought grew strong enough to be painful. It burned in my mind. I squinted my eyes against it and sank to my knees.

  It grabbed and snagged like fish hooks in my mind.

  Behind me, one of the dormitories collapsed. The building fell with a thunderous sound that had to echo across half the city.

  Where were the fire brigades? How come no one had come to help?

  I searched for Rio, but as I peered through the brilliant flame, I couldn’t find him. My heart stuttered in my chest.

  “Rio!” Panic rose in my voice as I fought to maintain my focus. The whispers buzzed in my mind like hornets.

  He was gone.

  All across the courtyard dozens of people walked into the flames, laughing as they did. They didn’t seem to feel the fire as it licked at them, as it devoured the flesh from their bodies. Yet the terrible heat dried my tears.

  “It can end, Thom.” The pain returned, like a flaming spike in my skull. “It can all end. Come with them. If you don’t, you’ll be alone.”

  Then I saw Tia.

  She rested on her knees before the white flames. Her long, black hair danced around her face. She was crying, holding her hands out to—

  Nothing at all.

  “Da!”

  Now that I fixed on her, I could hear her, even as I could read the word on her lips. She looked happy.

  Then her light, yellow shirt, a thin, frilly thing, caught on fire.

  She didn’t even wince. She shuddered when it first licked her skin but didn’t cry out. Whatever she saw in front of her encompassed her entire world as the flame savored her soft flesh.

  “Tia!” I tried to run to her, to pull her from the flames. I cried out as the full heat struck me in the face.

  It raged too hot. I tried pushing forward again but couldn’t. Could the others not feel it? I smelled my eyebrows and arm hair singe, and my chest burned with every breath.

  That didn’t matter. I bit my cheek, steeling myself against the flame and against the strange, mad whispers in my mind.

  Tia’s hair caught. I watched as her pale, beautiful skin ran like wax.

  “Boy! Step away from the girl! She’s gone! You need to come toward the street!” The voice boomed as he called.

  I blinked. She wasn’t gone. I could still—

  “Boy!” The voice sounded a touch panicked. “Stop! Look at me.”

  A judicar, he wore the traditional blue and black, although it seemed covered in ashes and dust. Seeing the uniform immediately helped me unclench my heart. In all of the screaming horror, he seemed the only adult who had any grasp of himself.

  Still, his eyes flashed wide, and a trace of panic edged his voice.

  I dragged my gaze away from Tia and began to walk toward the judicar. The whispers clawed at my mind like feral cats. The pain was strange, like being sliced open by dreams. I bit my lip and forced my legs to walk.

  “It took them all. I thought I could get her. It’s talking. It’s talking—” I babbled as I reached the judicar.

  The man knelt down. He shook his head, as if he too forced himself to focus.

  “I hear it, young senír.” The man blinked, as if clearing his thoughts. “It’s talking to me too. I need you to get across the street. Go sit in the stoop under the gaslight by the Salts’ Warehouse.”

  “You have to save them.”

  The judicar gave me a smile. “I’ll try, mijiin.” His smile said something else; it s
aid that the man believed the others to be lost.

  I saw it then: the man was afraid. Unlike the Reclamation heroes, he knew fear. The great judicar was just a person, just an Esperan man. My heart sank.

  If he were just a person, he couldn’t save them, could he?

  Then the judicar turned from me and walked into the thick, greasy smoke. The punky-sweet smell cloyed, sickly. Only a moment later I lost sight of him. With physical effort I turned my head away and walked across the street.

  Once there, I still heard the whispering of the spectral flames.

  “Thom.”

  The call had weakened, but I could still hear it. In some irrational part of my mind, I worried that I would always hear it, that the strange, flickering flame would never die, would chase me wherever I went.

  The fire soared, brilliant against the night sky.

  After only a nonce, the man returned. He had four of the cantorès with him and a few children. Along with his obvious burns, he limped.

  He regarded me.

  “I sent my raven the moment I saw the flames, mijiin. The brigades should be here soon or other judicars. If any ask, tell them Alejandro is the only official on the scene.”

  I nodded dumbly.

  Cela, one of the youngest girls he had brought back, cried inconsolably. “Mother…” She called for someone who wasn’t there.

  Instinctively, I reached for her.

  “Wake up, little Cela.” I stroked her hair as she cried. “It’s safe. You’re safe now.”

  The judicar watched me a long moment and then nodded in approval.

  I felt his gaze and glanced up. “You’re hurt. You can’t go back in.” Burn-blisters already peppered the man’s face and arms.

  The judicar shook his head. “That’s why they pay me the notes, why I get the girls, young senír.” He smiled at me and then turned back toward the fire.

  The smoke swallowed him a second time. I watched as the judicar plunged into the flames, time and again, and brought out half-mad children or cantorès covered in blackened burns.

  He kept going. Even when his arm blackened. Even when his lungs heaved with every retreat. The judicar never stopped. His selfless effort was the bravest thing I had ever seen.

  Soon after, I heard the brigade sirens.

  Soon after that, hard men came, bearing sharp eyes and a different kind of fear.

  4

  The inquisitors arrived far before dawn.

  Of course, the fires had died long before that. This wasn’t due to the work of the brigades either. The fires burned regardless of how many carts of water were pulled into the courtyard. Eventually, the brigades started pulling carriages and men out, realizing their work accomplished nothing.

  Then the fire and its strange whispers simply faded. In its wake, it left the bodies of the dead, the ramblings of the mad, and the gutted ruins. Although a few buildings withstood the conflagration, none remained unscarred.

  “It’s in me.” I remember one boy whispered. I think his name was Cormin. “I can see it, Thom. It’s in me. It’s burning and burning. It’s burning up everything I’ve ever been.”

  I tried talking with him, even tried helping Cantorè Joriin calm him down with some tea. Nothing seemed to help, however. He simply kept trembling, his wide, dark eyes darting to shadows I couldn’t see. Bald patches covered the entire left side of his head where he kept pulling at his hair.

  In the end, the inquisitors took him.

  Four of them came to investigate, stern men wearing their scarlet and whites. They brought with them a great mastiff and cold, unforgiving eyes.

  They didn’t even talk with any of the cantorès when they arrived. They conferred with Alejandro for a moment but seemed to argue.

  “—weren’t even here!” The judicar waved his arms at one of them. “You can’t cry sorcery without proof!”

  “We can.” I remembered the silken voice of the shortest inquisitor. “The portents are all around us. For the well trained, the proof is written on the lives of these children. We will still dowse of course.”

  “We’ll put the Havens to the crucible, all right,” said the man holding the dog’s chain, a man with a hawk-like face. “But we know what we will find.”

  Alejandro said something then in rapid Esperan.

  One of the inquisitors flushed.

  Another, the first one, with the smooth voice, gave a small, tight-lipped smile.

  “None of that matters, and you know it.” His eyes hardened to steel. “The moment we assemble our gear, we will complete our dowsing. The taint of sorcery will be found. This location is under our jurisdiction, Judicar. You have no say here.”

  Alejandro actually did have more to say, and he said it. His words surged fierce, spiteful, and angry. I didn’t even know what some of them meant. I sincerely thought that it might come to blows.

  At one point, he noticed me watching and offered me a small, sad smile.

  I didn’t see Alejandro again for the rest of the day.

  Soon after, the dowsing began. The four inquisitors divided up the Havens into quarters and began their investigations independently. During this, the great mastiff remained chained in the central garden after the inquisitors cautioned the children to stay away from him.

  “He shouldn’t bite unless you are one of the tainted.” The hawk-faced man spoke to Sari, who seemed terrified. “But it’s best to stay away from him. The entire Havens stinks with sorcery, so it’s hard to say what he might do.”

  Each inquisitor bore an odd, clockwork device. Like a censor, the long wooden handle led to a chain holding a vessel at the end. A strange mixture of clockwork and alchemy, the rounded, teardrop-shaped vessel made for an odd device. Fixtures and dials of silver and brass encircled the bottom, clicking and whirring as the inquisitors made small adjustments.

  This was Terrwyn’s Crucible.

  We had read about the crucibles in our ’tiquities year, of course. The devices had been invented to detect the gloaming, or as the inquisitors phrased it, ‘the taint of contagion.’ Reading about the device had been one thing, but actually seeing them being used in my home terrified me. It drove home the cruel horror of what had happened to me and mine.

  Once wound, it began to sing a low, haunting song and glowed with an azure flame.

  The four men scoured the ruins, holding their devices before them as if they were icons of Altheus himself. The unearthly whine warbled eerily across the ruins of the gardens and the wards.

  When combined with the stench of death and greasy smoke, with the bodies of the dead and the mad, the tinny, shrill sound held its own kind of horror.

  The whine seemed to tug at the mind, like tiny fierce claws. I hated the hungry way the sound felt as it ran across my skin. I imagined it to be great, grasping tendrils from some invisible, lurking mystery.

  The inquisitors themselves seemed immune to the sound. In fact, the inquisitors seemed immune to much that would have made them human. They knew neither compassion nor sympathy.

  They wandered the Havens, holding their dowsing devices before them, the mastiff on its chain. Intently, they watched the strange, searing blue brilliance that danced and shimmered within. If the eldritch light changed color or shape, the inquisitors became excited and spoke in hushed whispers among themselves. Several times, when it changed in the presence of a person, one of the inquisitors took that person aside with the growling dog.

  I never saw any of them again.

  While the inquisitors performed their investigations, those of us who survived required the care of one of the docieren. These learned men regularly volunteered to care for the health of the orphans. They set up a tent in the summergarden but soon became harried trying to tend to everyone.

  Marten, the kindly man who tended to me, had brilliant blue eyes and a shock of white hair.

  “Your lungs are burned. You breathed in too much of the smoke.” His ear pressed to my chest as I breathed. “I do not know how well they will h
eal, young man.”

  I had nothing to say. I hadn’t spoken a word in hours.

  He lifted a bowl to me, and I took it. I sipped at the bitter liquid inside and winced.

  “This is a strong medicine.” Marten held up five spicy-smelling packets of nahlnn-leaf. The man’s raspy voice did not match his beaming smile. “One of the cantorès will prepare it for you. He will drop one in boiling water, first thing in the morning. You will breathe the steam until the water cools. Then drink it.” He eyed me. “Repeat my instructions.”

  I blinked up at him. I must have seemed like a ragged mess. At some point, probably when going after Tia, my shirt had partially burned. I had ashes in my hair. One of my shoes was missing.

  It never occurred to me to remove the other one.

  As the man looked at me, I couldn’t even find words. I only nodded.

  He sighed with resignation. “Once per day. You might always have a hard time running or doing something that needs you to draw a lot of wind. I can’t exactly crawl inside there and see how badly you were burned.”

  I nodded again.

  The dociere leaned forward, peering at me curiously, as if he hoped he could draw me out with will alone. He reached for a pocket, offering a licorice stick. He held it out to me.

  “I figure, after peering and poking in a young man’s throat, he deserves a little something sweet.”

  I took it, moving like a marionette. I still felt far away, as if lost in that awful white fire, surrounded with whispering horror.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  I wanted to tell him; I truly did. The man was so kind. But still, I felt as if this were all a nightmare. Perhaps if I ignored it, I would awaken and all would be well.

  Perhaps.

  “We need this one.” A silhouette darkened the door of the tent. It was one of the inquisitors, a man I had not heard speak before.

  “I’m tending to him. I’ll be done soon.”

  “You’ll be done now. We need the ones who weren’t affected by the fire.”

  Weren’t affected? Anger flashed through me, white and hot. Everything I had had been burned in that fire! My friends, the only family I had ever known, they were gone.