by Devin Madson
Malice started to laugh, the sound dry.
‘Feeling better now, yes?’
The pounding headache was already coming back with the whisper of a thousand thoughts. ‘Not really,’ I said. Head in hands, I was sure my skull was throbbing.
‘Don’t worry, she’s only your half-sister.’
I groaned and he laughed again, but he owned no amusement, only despair. ‘I’m amazed there’s enough of you left to get hard,’ he said. ‘You’re more than half dead already, yes?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Use your brain.’ Malice rolled over in the semi-darkness. ‘When was the last time you ate?’
It hurt to think. His scowl swam in and out of focus. ‘I don’t know.’
‘And when did you last sleep?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Darius need never have worried; you’re going to the grave faster than either of us, yes?’
I tried to remember what it felt like to eat. To swallow. To taste.
‘Did you come here for a reason?’ Malice said, trying to wriggle himself upright. ‘Or just to mock me for being without the use of my hands?’
‘You told me at Rina that I would need to be chained up before the end,’ I said. ‘What did you mean?’
‘I thought that was obvious.’ Malice’s words pulsed in time with his own whispers. Freak. Killer. ‘You’ve killed a lot of people, yes? So have I. So has Katashi. Even Hope has ended his share, but the difference between us and you is that we won’t wake one day to find ourselves the only living soul left because we dreamed the world’s destruction.’
Wedging his foot against Hope’s back, he managed to get himself upright. Sweat stuck his long hair to his face and soaked his robe. Malice swayed, looking for a moment as though he would be sick. ‘Endymion,’ he said, tilting his head back and letting out a pained sigh. ‘I hate you.’
‘You hate me?’
‘Do I really need to repeat myself? With every breath I curse the day my men brought you to me. I curse the day I first heard your name. Endymion, both Empath and Otako, the perfect weapon. And Darius thought you could be virtuous.’
He had begun the speech sitting upright and ended it huddled forward. The pain of a thousand pricking needles spread through my stomach.
‘Alas that you have fallen, brother, alas that you turned out to be no better a student than me, yes?’ He started to laugh, still crunched forward and rocking back and forth. ‘The sins of the teacher be visited upon the student,’ he said. ‘I guess we’ve had many generations to perfect our particular kind of evil.’ He kicked the unconscious Hope. ‘Wake up! I need you.’
‘He isn’t going to wake up, you rotten waster,’ Avarice said, oozing contempt. ‘You’ve sucked him dry, just like Master Darius. The more he gave the more you wanted.’ The Vice spat. ‘Just die already and give us all some peace.’
Malice growled, and fought his way to his feet only to stumble. Hands bound, he hit the matting hard and a stomach full of bile and half-digested food sprayed onto the reeds.
Avarice didn’t move. ‘Withdrawal,’ he said when he found me watching him. ‘Usually when he gets like this we get him more tar. Hope was useful for a while.’
Curled up, Malice moaned, his long hair half-swimming in his own puke. This pathetic mess of a man was the Vice Master. He had struck fear into the heart of Kisia for five years, the same five years Darius had served in the capital. Malice, the abandoned puppy seeking attention. A man whose love had nearly destroyed an empire.
Malice’s shoulders shook with dry sobs. The tide of his maddened whispers sloshed around me as I crouched beside him and touched a crumpled cheek.
Memories hit me hard. Sounds. Smells. Words. Moments in time he had stored like paintings in his mind. Darius silenced by Maturation. Darius as a boy, lit by burning hedgerows. Darius laughing. Darius smiling. The touch of his hand. Of his body. Of his soul. The click of Errant pieces. The rush of the wind as they rode. The chatter of the city far below moving like a colony of ants. Darius groaning. Darius undressing. Darius slowly pouring a pot of roasted tea that smelt rich just like him. Darius. Darius. Darius. Everywhere he assailed me, every choice, every second of Malice’s life seeming to hinge upon the brother he adored, every shred of Malice’s soul vibrating to the call of another man’s voice.
But there were other memories too, locked away deep. They lived and breathed the same, sucking in Darius’s soul and never letting go, but here there was anger. Here Darius snarled. He mocked. He jeered. Here he laughed at the pain he caused, grinning as he took out his frustrations on other bodies, with pretty boys and an endless cycle of whores whose heavy, curving flesh had turned Malice’s stomach. Arguments. Empathic battles fought with a hand to each other’s throats. Then Darius’s blood poured over my hand. And as Avarice gave his all to his master, the first Vice was born.
Malice yanked his head awkwardly back, half rolling into his own vomit. ‘Don’t you dare steal him from me!’
I fell back, hands lifted as though in surrender. ‘Steal him?’
‘I can feel you trying. Oh, don’t tell me it’s an accident.’ Dry laughter scratched from Malice’s throat. ‘How many people have been sucked into that head of yours?’
‘None!’ I could not shift my eyes from his face. ‘Only… only…’
‘And you call me a monster.’ He snorted; the sound superior though his whole body shook with withdrawal. ‘Well, did you see it all? Go on and judge me you munted up little cunt. Put me out of my misery, yes? Put me down like the rabid dog I am.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I can’t. I don’t… I can’t see anymore. I can’t see what’s right and wrong. It’s all a mess and my head aches.’ I pressed my hands to my skull, unsure if the horror I felt was his or mine. ‘The gods will judge. The gods will judge. They will balance the scales. They always do.’
‘Is that your judgement? Go away and rot!’
‘If you’d told him about the child none of this would have happened,’ I said, closing my eyes as the room began to spin. ‘He loves her.’
No answer, but each word was a dagger in his heart. In my heart. Anger raged through me, full of chagrin and self-loathing, and Malice wailed like a wounded beast.
‘No!’ he screamed. ‘He’s mine!’
I reeled back and hit the door. Wood cracked. The paper screen snapped, and in a tumble of shredded paper and shards of wood I fell into the passage.
‘What’s going on?’
The captain stood over me, sword drawn, his eyes caught to the room where Malice was still screaming.
Words tumbled off my tongue. ‘He’s mine! Don’t you dare touch him! I’ll kill that shivatsan little bitch. I’ll cut her up. I’ll carve her into pieces and make him eat them.’
Through my aching head the passage was alive with noise, and I could no longer tell the whispers from the spoken word. It was all a mess of shouting while the world spun.
‘What’s wrong with the freak?’
‘Stop that nutter from screaming or they’ll hear him in Shimai! Where’s the general.’
‘Too busy getting well acquainted.’
‘Endymion!’
My swimming vision locked on the door to Darius’s temporary cell, drawn as though by the pool of silence it exuded.
‘Endymion!’
Father Kokoro’s face hovered overhead.
‘I’ll cut the bastard from her body,’ I screamed. ‘She isn’t fit to so much as touch him!’
‘What is going on?’
‘I don’t know, Father, he went in there and came out screaming.’
‘Shut him up, Captain, he’s drawing too much attention.’
‘Too late.’
More whispers were joining the fray as new souls pressed in.
> That man has a Traitor’s Mark. Who is he?
There’s something familiar about him.
Why aren’t they grabbing him?
A hand gripped my arm. Blood. Fire. A man in my arms struggling for life. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘You’re going to be fine. Think of Solana, you have to make it back for her.’
In the mess of voices someone swore. Panic. ‘Are you talking about Lian? What happened to him?’
Silence, but just for a moment. ‘He’s dead. You were there.’
‘No. No! I wasn’t! I can’t remember!’
His guts had spilled through my fingers.
A hand grabbed at my sleeve and there was Kokoro again. He was going to arrest me, to have me burned for sorcery and he wouldn’t even tell me who my father was. I shoved him out of the way and ran, pushing through the mass of souls pressing in. Shouts followed me all the way, whispers clinging.
‘They all suspect, but that doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Not one of them would betray me.’
‘What’s going on?’
The round was awash with doubt and fear, a fog through which I clawed seeking freedom.
‘What’s the use in fighting?’ I said. ‘There’s no way we can win.’
‘Stop him!’
More words poured from my mouth. ‘The gate is closed. He’s cornered. We need to knock him out. A scabbard? A stick? I don’t want to kill the stupid kasu.’
I half ran, half fell down the stairs, taking them three at a time, pain jarring my knees. There were people everywhere, limbs, skin, silk, stink, every thought tearing at me as I passed. More stairs, another landing, souls everywhere. Bright light was all that drew me on.
I hit the window head first. Wood snapped. Glass shattered. A myriad of little cuts and I hit stones wet with rain. The shimmer of lantern light. Every breath choked with voices.
‘Whoa! Are you all right?’
Rain caressed my face. Above me a lantern lit the golden threads of a dragon flying through crimson silk. Then General Ryoji, raindrops glittering as they fell into his dark tousled hair.
‘The gods will judge,’ I said. ‘They never leave the scales unbalanced.’
‘What?’
‘Just ignore him, Hade, he’s mad.’ Hana. ‘Bind his hands and get him out of here.’
I tried to run, but pain shot through my leg and I fell, shards of glass cutting into my palms.
‘I don’t dare touch him.’
‘Just don’t touch his skin. Tie him mid forearm and put him with the others in a new cell. Father Kokoro can see to them.’
‘No!’
Hana leant down, her face drawing closer to mine though she, too, dared not touch me. ‘Only the gods can help you now, Endymion.’
Rain hit my face, each drop like a kiss from the sky. ‘Justice comes to everyone,’ I said, sucking breaths into my aching lungs. ‘Even gods.’
Chapter 24
Outside my head, Endymion’s screams began between the forty-fourth move and the forty-fifth, around the time my imaginary piece hung in the air over my opponent’s imaginary king. I curled up tighter, shutting my Empathy in.
In the passage the screams turned into shouts before fading into the distance.
I stared at the empty table. For as long as I had called the palace home, my Errant board had sat in this place. I had owned it since childhood, had learned to play with its well-worn pieces, but it had travelled to Koi with me and was now long gone.
The imaginary piece leapt its fellow, but it turned up blank. I drummed my fingers on the table. Secretaries and councillors innumerable had knelt at my board and let the game reveal their strengths and weaknesses, their fears and their assumptions. Errant was a mirror for life, and in the world of the court such knowledge was power. Had Kin been my opponent at this moment he would have taken the obvious risk. Avarice would have attacked, Malice defended, his eyes on me not the game. I had not yet played enough with Endymion to discern a pattern, but Kimiko’s style had been clear before the end of our first round. She played the random gamble because to her Errant was just a game.
‘I wonder if I might have changed your mind,’ I said, but silence was the only reply.
I continued the game, and outside my head the palace grew quiet but for voices outside my door. One my guard, the other deep and soft. The door slid. The appearance of Hana would have been unsurprising, even Endymion or Malice or Father Kokoro, but it was a hunched and hooded figure that entered. My imaginary pieces clattered about the stranger’s feet.
‘You have the wrong room perhaps?’ I said.
The figure spun, hand still on the door. ‘If you are Lord Laroth then I am in the right place.’
‘I am, though you appear to have the advantage, hooded man.’
A wrinkled hand pushed back the hood, but the sight of my visitor’s face did not alleviate my confusion. Scars disfigured its distinguished features making a mask from puckers and leathery wrinkles.
‘Ah,’ I said as recognition wormed its way into my mind. ‘You must be Brother Jian. I ought to have expected you.’
‘And I ought to thank you.’
‘For?’
A constrained smile. ‘Saving my life, though to what purpose I live it I hardly know anymore. I spent the rest of the season imprisoned here at the Emperor’s mercy.’
‘It was not I who gave the order to release you, so don’t thank me for that.’
‘No, that was His Majesty. He stopped here on the way to Kogahaera to ask me about Endymion.’
Brother Jian had closed the door, but remained upon the threshold like a wary animal.
‘Your brother doesn’t know you’re here I take it,’ I said.
‘No, he doesn’t.’ He advanced into the room then, his gait awkward as though one leg was shorter than the other. ‘You’re in danger, Lord Laroth.’
I laughed, though it was a dry, humourless sound even to my own ears. ‘You are a master of understatement,’ I said. ‘There is a fire-wielding maniac out there with a grudge against me.’
‘It was not Katashi Otako I meant. Kokoro does not like you. Any of you. It was foolish of me to think I might persuade him to help Endymion.’
The Errant game in my head was gone, leaving me no way to escape the old man’s pain. I sucked in my wandering Empathy, but inside my own head a suspicion was growing. ‘He persuaded my father to kill his own children, didn’t he?’ I said, giving it voice. I hated the tinge of hope in my voice, as much as I hated the held breath with which I awaited his response.
‘I was not in Mei’lian at the time so can give you no certain answer,’ he said. ‘But I would not be surprised.’
I let the breath go. ‘Then I am in your debt for the care you took of my brother.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’ Brother Jian bowed, the movement jerky and entirely devoid of grace. Yet somehow he maintained his dignity. ‘Though it would seem that what care I took of him was not enough.’
‘No amount would have been. I tried to teach him to curb his Sight, but I failed as you did. There is nothing more we can do for him.’
‘He could be granted freedom.’
Now the hope was in the other man’s face. ‘No,’ I said. ‘His other name is too useful. Were he in his right mind he could look after himself, but unless there is some plateau of sanity beyond the current incline of madness, I cannot even say he is worth saving.’
‘He is not mad,’ the priest said. ‘I have studied your condition since Endymion first came into my care, and from what I understand the branding in Shimai triggered what you call the Maturation. Usually it lasts a few weeks or even a few seasons, and a stronger Empath emerges the other side. Rather like a caterpillar in its cocoon I have always thought.’
‘Except that we are far from pretty butterflies.’
He smiled a r
ictus grin that twisted his scars. ‘Kokoro would agree, but he does not know what I know.’
‘And what is it that you know?’ I said. ‘No, don’t speak until you sit, you are giving me quite the crick in my neck.’ I gestured to the place across the table. The last man to kneel there had been Emperor Kin, for an Errant game that had changed everything.
‘Thank you, my lord.’ Brother Jian settled on the same cushion with none of Emperor Kin’s potency. He didn’t spread his robe or touch his sash, but he did fix me with an intent stare. ‘Some years ago Endymion and I were in Talithan, in northern Chiltae,’ he said. ‘I was looking through a discarded collection of prayer books and came across a notebook. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.’ The old man’s eyes lit up and he licked his lips. ‘Every page was covered in words, not just scribbles but the neatest words I’ve ever seen. It was as though each letter was formed with no thought of speed, or even time, only precision.’
‘I think its author was not the only one with no notion of time,’ I said. ‘Do get to the point.’
Beneath the mess of scars Brother Jian flushed. ‘Apologies, my lord, but it was truly amazing. Though not as amazing as its contents. It was a journal used to record experiments and observations. After reading a single page it was clear the author owned a degree of intelligence few could boast and had spent years on the work.’
‘What work? I cannot read your mind.’
‘Studying your kind and others like you. Not only Empaths but also other men and women with… special talents. There was mention of a Philosopher. And a Kuri. And something called an Aberrant. They were not described in detail, nor was the Empath, but the process by which you came to exist was theorised upon at length.’
The fluttering in my stomach made me twitchy. What difference did it make where Empaths had come from? It did not change the fact that I was here. That Malice was here. Always inescapably here.
‘I exist because my father put me inside my mother,’ I said, trying for dry wit and surely failing. ‘There is nothing mystical about me, Brother.’