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

by JM Guillen

  “I forget that you haven’t met my good right hand.” Alejandro walked to me and lowered his arm. “I’d like you to meet Juan Pablo.”

  The bird opened his wings widely and cawed.

  “Good. Good omen.”

  I almost grinned at the bird’s croaked words.

  “Juan Pablo. Like the Esperan lover?” Esperan lore was thick with romantic rogues fighting greedy Dons who ruled their people cruelly.

  Alejandro grinned. “Exactly.” He scratched at the bird’s head and assumed a stage whisper. “The ladies really go for the talking bird.”

  “Juan-Pablo.” The raven said his own name as if it were a single word. “Good bird.”

  I shook my head and then looked into Alejandro’s face. “What were you late for, Alejandro? I didn’t expect you back.”

  The judicar dug into his satchel, wincing slightly. “I owe a considerable service, mijjin.” He looked up at me. “Honestly, everyone here owes you a debt.”

  “Debt.” The raven’s caw seemed wise, aloof.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When I arrived, the other day, the—” He searched for a word, and then shook his head. “—the fire had me, captured my mind the moment I looked upon it.” Alejandro gave me a small nod. “I might have been lost if a young man hadn’t reminded me of what I was supposed to do.”

  I was confused. “You’re the one who saved me.”

  He laughed. “You may think so but no. The fire had my mind just as it had everyone’s. Then, what do I see?” He put a hand on my shoulder. “A boy. A simple orphan boy who was about to burn himself to death for a girl who was already gone. He was not taken. He was not lost. Seeing him reminded me what I was there for.”

  “Tia.” I hadn’t said her name aloud since the fire, and it tasted like ashes in my mouth.

  “If not for Tia, for you, then the people I saved would be dead now.” He squinted at me. “This was a young man whose name I did not even know.”

  I cocked my head. “How did you find me if you didn’t know my name?”

  Alejandro gave me a dashing grin. “Judicar cleverness, young senír.”

  “Clever.” Juan Pablo seemed to be mocking.

  Alejandro rolled his eyes. “I described you to the first person I met in the Havens. He gave me your name and fetched you for me.”

  I shook my head ruefully.

  Alejandro continued to dig in his satchel.

  “Here we go.” He pulled a small round object from his bag and handed it to me. “I thought you deserved this.”

  “What is it?” I knew as I looked, however. Small and round, like a coin, it had a small hole on one end, so it could be looped through a cord. It was black on one side and blue on the other. On the black side, there was a small relief of the Offices of the Just, set on Teris Hill. On the blue side, printed particularly carefully, were words in tiny, neat script:

  Alejandro De’veras, Eddon House, Vista Avenue, Little Gijon

  “It’s a judicar token. You deserve it.”

  My eyes must have been wide as saucers.

  I knew that the tokens were often given as rewards or as a sign of favor. If I wished, I could easily exchange it for an iron note, which was more money than I had ever had.

  I would never sell it, however. Judicar tokens were symbols. It marked me as someone who had helped the city. I felt a surge of pride, even though I didn’t believe that I deserved it.

  “I didn’t really do anything, Alejandro. I was just there.” The token had weight, the weight of honor and recognition. I hadn’t done anything to deserve that. I hadn’t been a hero.

  “I saw what you did, little senír. When I walked up, you were trying to burn yourself to death for a girl who was already clearly lost. Then I sent you to stand over by the Salt’s Warehouse, and you did. When I brought others back to you, the first thing you did was comfort a crying child.” The judicar raised an eyebrow.

  I looked at the ground. My voice was soft. “I didn’t do anything special. Anyone would have done those things.”

  The judicar laughed. It wasn’t cruel, but it still hurt.

  “Mijiin, I deal with people all day, every day. I have the entire Warrens to watch over, and so I’ve seen it all.” His smile faded. “It is not a normal thing for a person to think of others first.” He shook his head, and his eyes darkened. “My days comprise of drunken fathers who sell their daughters on the streets or dockside brawls where someone gets killed over a few silver slips.”

  “Slips.” Juan Pablo jumped from Alejandro’s shoulder and began to peck around on the ground.

  “Exactly.” Alejandro nodded at the bird, as if he had just made some sage comment. Then he knelt to one knee so his eyes were level with mine.

  “When trouble came, you were there for others. No one had to ask you or convince you of anything. Your first thought”—the judicar snapped his fingers—“was about the right thing to do.” The judicar took a breath. “That’s rare. You may not know it yet, but it is.”

  Unbidden tears filled my eyes. Angrily, I wiped them away.

  “I just want them back. I want it all back.” I bit the end of a sob off before it could escape.

  Alejandro turned stoic. “No. You won’t ever have them back. Life cast a die, and they were lost.” He softened his tone. “But even as the fire took them, you stood strong; you did what you could do.” The man cocked his head. “How old are you?”

  “I’ll be in my ’prenticing year in one month.” I paused. “A month and three days.”

  The judicar chuckled. “About ten-and-two. I thought that’s about where you were. Do you know what you will choose to do?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I know I won’t take a new surname, whatever I do.”

  The judicar beamed. “You will keep ‘Havenkin’ as your last name? Are you leaning towards being a cantorè, then?”

  I paused for a moment. That question had become heavy, hurtful. Only weeks before, the answer had been obvious.

  “I thought I might be a cantorè, but now I know better.” I paused again, a touch uncertain, and ran my fingers through my hair. “I’ll keep the name, though. I decided that the other evening.” I looked at the man. “It’s the least I can do. It will help me remember.”

  “There isn’t a guild who wouldn’t be pleased to train a young man such as you.” The judicar turned serious then. “A great man can be a great man anywhere. The city needs great guildsmen and merchants as certainly as it does great cantorès and judicars.” He paused a moment. “The young man I saw the other evening will be great at whatever he chooses. Don’t forget him.”

  “I won’t.” The judicar’s fatherly tone allowed no other response.

  “Good lad.” Alejandro stood, squaring his wide-brimmed hat on his head and straightening his cloak. “Are you ready to go and right all the wrongs in the world, Juan?”

  “Ready. Go.” The bird hopped up on the judicar’s shoulder.

  “I’m not speaking crooked, young sir. I saw the cloth you were cut from the other day.” The man’s voice grew soft, and his eyes narrowed. “Never lose sight of who you are. The world needs great people. ‘Good’ is fairly common. ‘Great’ is exceptional. Know the difference, and never allow the good parts of yourself to overshadow your true greatness. Choose well.” Alejandro nodded at me and then walked into the mist filled night.

  I watched after him, long after the man had left.

  9

  Late in the evening I slipped from my cot. Last I had heard, the fifth Eventide bell had rung. Hopefully, Rasmun would still be about. The lightmen typically patrolled all night, making certain the lamps remained lit.

  Stealthily, I crept from my dormitory and into the cool shadows.

  I couldn’t say why Eimle’s words had touched me so, but they had been like bells tolling in the night.

  “The tale of Aeldred the Drae is a story about a man who believed in standing against evil. When no one would listen to him, he showed
them what could be done, by doing it himself.”

  Alejandro’s warning about the difference between ‘good’ and ‘great’ sang with Eimle’s words, a counter harmony. They tumbled in my mind and stirred coals in my heart.

  What had happened with the fire had been wrong.

  The cantorès seemed willing simply to drift along, accepting the disaster. The rest of the city all just seemed thankful that it had “only” happened to the Havens.

  I was angry.

  Everywhere I went, the burning, tarry scent of the fire seemed to drift behind me. I could almost hear the echoes of my friends as I slipped through the velvet dark.

  “Dead.” Sometimes, when thinking of them, I would say the word aloud. Taste it. It was as if I had to remind myself.

  Rio had been the eldest. He was squarely in his ’prenticing year and just a little older than me. I had three summers on Jaque, the youngest. He had started his ’tiquities year only a few months ago.

  Then the spectral fire had come. It had come and eaten them. They would stay those ages forever.

  I crossed the courtyard and made my way past the streamgarden before I heard him.

  “Thom.”

  For just a moment, I heard Cyrl’s voice, clear as the Lightman’s star. I turned and looked into the shadows, but there was no one there.

  Cyrl was gone. He had been sung into the white fire. He had smiled while his hair and skin and tears burned away.

  I took a deep breath and crept through the lavender.

  Only moments later I heard her laughing. It was more than a sound. It was like the wind spiraling around me. She sounded so wild and happy and free.

  Tia.

  No. Not Tia, not Cyrl.

  Even as I cast about, looking for the source of the sound, the shadows slightly writhed around me. I caught the awful, tarry stench of the fire, as if it were somehow coalescing with the darkness.

  “Hullo, Thom.”

  Then I saw Shaen. He stood in the shadows, his eyes flickering with light that was not there. Slowly, he turned his head, looking away from me. The side of his face danced with the strange white flickering light.

  A strange pain stabbed through my head. I leaned against the wall, regarding Shaen with disbelief.

  This couldn’t be real. I had heard the haunting whispers before, but this—

  It’s beautiful. The boy’s eyes remained empty, still holding only echoes of anything like laughter or being a boy. The strange smile that spread across his face was beatific, but Shaen still looked as if he were dead.

  No. They weren’t empty, I realized again. I could see the white fire in his eyes, dancing. It had slid inside him, to devour his secret dreams.

  In the background, Tia laughed and laughed.

  I closed my eyes, thinking they might be gone when I opened them again.

  They weren’t.

  “No.” I clenched my eyes shut. “Not here. Not true.” What had Alejandro said?

  “You won’t ever have them back. Life cast a die, and they were lost.”

  I opened my eyes and locked them on Shaen’s.

  “Life cast a die.” My voice trembled. “You died. You all died.” Just saying the words gave me strength.

  “You should have come with us, Thom.” Shaen smirked.

  I saw Tia, little more than a shadow, slip up behind him.

  “I miss you Thom.”

  “No.” I took a step backward. My fist clenched white-knuckled around my icon of Elsador. I had known they would come. It had all been for nothing— my charm of threes, all the counting of steps, none of it had mattered.

  “The fire sleeps within you, Thom.” Shaen laughed.

  “Come with us. You belong to the fire.” Tia gave me her shy smile, but I felt her gaze, like cold fingers of flame across my skin.

  “I don’t.” My voice trembled only a touch. “I’m here. I lived.”

  They laughed then, laughter that cut, sharp and cold and cruel. In the shadows around us, I saw Cyrl, and then Jaque. Their harsh smiles curved wickedly. The shadows around us sang of joy and death.

  “Do you think we don’t live, Thom?” Cyrl’s voice held yearning. “Do you think we don’t hunger, we don’t need?”

  I could feel them now. They climbed inside me, in my every memory, in my every breath. Of course I belonged with them. We had always been like—

  I took two steps away from them, my heart thundering in my ears. If I stayed, they would take me. I knew it like I knew my own name.

  “Thom—”

  Tia’s voice became sweet like dark cider.

  I wanted to run to her, to Cyrl and Jaque and Shaen. Like in the courtyard, we would run, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh—

  Tears ran hot down my face.

  “No.” I clenched the medallion so hard that its edge cut my hand. “No.”

  I turned, stumbling.

  When I cast my eyes over my shoulder, Cyrl smirked.

  “You can’t run, Judicar. We’re inside you. We’re together.”

  Yet I ran through the courtyard into the waiting arms of the night. I ran as we had run together an eternity ago, before the whispering flame took them.

  In the corridors behind my mind, Tia continued laughing.

  Laughing. I could almost feel her hand in mine.

  I ran until I heard her no more.

  10

  I don’t remember most of my run across the courtyard. I don’t remember slipping up the drainpipe to the tiled rooftops, and I don’t remember scrambling down the older-than-old willow.

  In a froth, a thin sheen of sweat covered me. I panted like a bellows.

  I dropped across the wall, landing in the shadows of Oriele Street. My eyes darted as I scanned for the wicked glint in Tia’s eyes and strained, listening for Shaen’s cruel laughter.

  “Not really them.” My breath billowed as mist in the air. “Not them at all.” But I knew it had been. Their whispers had been following me through my days, and tonight they had found me.

  This time of year made people easier to spook. The Reapingtide festivals would come soon. Autumn had stolen its way into the city, bringing with it the haunted wind from over the ocean. Esperans named it Il Viento Malo, “the bad wind,” with good reason. Hearing the wind sough through the twilit streets always seemed like such a sad sound. The wind itself seemed to mourn the fallen world, singing some sorrowful tribute to all the lost things in the Hollowlands beyond.

  “Go, Thom.” I couldn’t say what part of myself I was speaking with. Nevertheless, I stepped into the street.

  Was that...?

  I turned, suddenly convinced that my gaunt dreamings somehow followed me, as if they slipped from shadow to shadow on the darkened street. I actually paused, staring down the cobbles, but no, nothing.

  Nothing that could be seen at any rate. Only a few drunken guildmen up the way on Oriele, lingered out in front of a dilapidated taproom.

  Otherwise I sensed nothing, only wind and shadows.

  I turned and made my way into the streets. Yet something tripped my gait: The streets were dark— darker than usual. The lightmen hadn’t been this way yet, which seemed odd to me. The only light streamed from the occasional public house or the lantern of a ragman or streetcrier.

  Odd.

  I felt a quick flash of anger as I mused on the darkness. Maybe the lightmen wouldn’t come. The entire Warrens neighborhood stank of fear and the deaths of children. It was certainly better than here than in the Havens, but still, the stench remained obvious.

  I worried that it always would be.

  “You look lonely.” The woman leaned up against the side of one of the Carpentry Guild’s stores. “Young man such as yourself. What could you be looking for out this late?”

  I gave her a weak grin. “That’s a good question.” I hurried on, trying to be gone before she could make any offers.

  “Perhaps I could show you a lil’ something, sweets,” she called after me.

  I ignored her
.

  Prostitutes were dangerous. Everyone knew that.

  When I found Rasmun, the lightman sat beneath the gaslight on the corner of Sandal and an alleyway. The yellow light flickered around the man, who limped along at playing a flute. Rasmun’s eyes widened when he saw me. He stood and stammered for a moment.

  “Thom?”

  I realized that he didn’t exactly know how he should greet me.

  “I’m— I’m so pleased to see you!” He walked forward as if to give me a hug. Then, his eyes glanced behind me and fell.

  He sighed.

  “Are you the only hero in my streets this evening?” His voice was soft, his eyes tired.

  I nodded, a small, quick thing. My eyes were wet, but I didn’t cry.

  He slumped. “I see.”

  For a long moment, we simply stood there, looking at each other.

  When Rasmun absently put his flute in his small satchel, his hands trembled just a touch. When he spoke, his words were tight. “The inquisitors came? After the fire, I mean.” It wasn’t really a question.

  I nodded, anger flashing in my blood.

  He sighed again. He seemed so old, even though I knew he wasn’t.

  “I’m surprised to see you out.”

  “I had to wait for everyone to go to sleep.” I shrugged. “It’s harder.”

  He nodded grimly. “I can imagine it is. Bad business.”

  I gave him a sideward glance. “The streets are dark all along Oriele.”

  He sighed. “They are. Also along much of the Eastyrn Warrens.” He gave no further explanation, and I didn’t ask.

  The silence stretched on for a moment. He reached into his satchel and pulled out some dried pork wrapped in waxen paper. He took a bite and handed me the rest.

  I took it.

  He sighed deeply. “It’s superstition, young hero. I’m afraid that only I and a few others will be working for a few days.” Rasmun stood. “Shall we walk?”

  I nodded. We turned away from the Havens, away from the cloying scent of the lost, and walked toward Dockside. We walked for a good half block before I started talking again. I don’t know what it was about Rasmun. It felt as if I could say anything to him.