by S. G. Night
Racath needed nothing more. He replaced the book where he had found it, tucked Felsted’s ledger back into its drawer, and left the study. Back downstairs, he hurried back to the cabinet in the pantry that housed Felsted’s store of remedies, and peeked into the beaker labeled Jaborandi leaves. Indeed, empty, save for a few flecks of dried leaf that crusted the bottom. The grin broadened.
Before long he was back outside again, bolting Felsted’s door shut and slipping back into the streets of Pennyworth District. Sokol returned to his shoulder as he started making his way toward the Tillage Bazaar. The gyrfalcon twittered in his ear, and Racath smiled and shook his head.
“Not yet, dear,” he told her. “We’ll be back tonight to finish the job. First, we have an errand to run.”
***
Felsted left the offices of Dominion Intelligence at his usual time, closing the door firmly behind him. He stepped out into the usual misty rain and began his usual walk home. His fingers were stiff in the pockets of his fine burgundy vest as he followed only the safest roads through the city. Peace did not find him, not even as he reached Pennyworth District, the evening light was fading behind the clouds. His shoulders clenched nervously, Felsted skittered up his front porch stairs. Hastily, he unlocked his door, slipped inside, and bolted it shut again.
Sighing in relief and wiping the sweat from his brow, Felsted leaned heavily against the door to catch his breath. Finally within the safety of his perfect little sanctuary, he allowed himself to relax, his muscles slowly loosening around his bones. Another blessedly uneventful day.
So his evening routine began. He drew a hot bath in the luxurious copper tub the Dominion had provided for him. Its intricate series of pipes gushed a glut of steaming water that flushed the tedious everyday worries down the drain. After changing into his nightshirt and robe, he took the time to light the candles around his shrine to Amaranth, and thanked the god in quiet prayer for another day in safety. Next he examined all the doors and windows, double and triple checking their latches and locks.
When he finished, he fetched his ledger from the desk in his study and went to the kitchen to prepare the meal that he had scheduled for the evening: a hearty bowl of spinach salad and turnip soup. After mixing the salad with ingredients from his pantry and carefully tossing it, Felsted waited for the soup to boil on the stove as he prepared a scruple of deathwatch extract. With the precision of a watchmaker, he mixed it into the salad and the added a dash into the soup. He waited for an anxious moment, waiting, just waiting, for the mixture to turn a frightening orange. It didn’t.
Somewhat more at ease, he finished preparing the soup, took it off the stove to cool for a moment, then set the table for another dinner alone. When he finished his meal, he put the remains of the soup away for lunch the following day.
Upstairs, he retired behind the desk in his study, letting the upholstery pull him into a comforting embrace. After placing the ledger neatly back into its home in the drawer, he acquired the book that had been occupying his evenings for some time now: the Mythos Compilation by Caiphus Eldrich.
The book had been written sometime during the Third Age; it detailed the origins and myths of the archaic Roten civilization that had existed somewhere beyond the Grey Wall millennia ago. The Demons had allowed him to keep the volume — a rare treat indeed — but periodically, black blots of ink covered pieces of the text that they thought of as too informative. It bothered him a little, but he was content to enjoy the legends summarized within, even without the historical context. Just as long as the Demons were happy enough to keep him alive.
He leaned back and began to entertain himself with Eldrich’s discourse on a minor pantheon of Roten angels. All seemed to be quiet in the house, and the evening slowly wound down into night.
It wasn’t until perhaps an hour later that things began to make sudden turns for the worse.
It began with the lamplight in the study. Gradually, it began to irritate his eyes, seeming to be almost too bright. It turned into a mild headache before long, and as it worsened he lowered the light further and further until the lamps were almost extinguished. But it still felt too bright. Just a bit of a migraine, he reasoned, returning to his book. Nothing worth worrying over.
But then the hot flashes started, coming in quick bursts like he was sitting in a chimney. Then he would cool rapidly, leaving his skin slicked in sweat. After the third heat wave, he dropped his book onto the desk and grabbed the armrests of his chair with a white-knuckled grip.
Felsted’s mind raced. What was going on?! It couldn’t be poison — he’d checked, he’d checked! It might just be a little illness…but things were rarely so pedestrian.
And so he sat there, his breath coming ragged, waiting to see if his symptoms changed at all. He slowly began to feel worse, his body becoming achy and stiff.
But there was something else that seemed to be wrong. Not wrong with him, but something wrong with the room. Like there was a draft somewhere, but from where? He noticed the dark velvet drapes that concealed the window on the study’s wall. The tassels at their hems drifted slightly, almost too imperceptible to notice.
Squinting against the painful light, Felsted tried to rise from his chair, but his balance failed him. He nearly toppled to the floor, but managed to catch himself on the edge of the desk. He was gasping, panting, suddenly soaked in perspiration. His mind swimming in a foggy blur, he clawed his way upright and staggered to the window, wrenching the drapes aside.
The window was open. Just a crack, just enough for a breeze to slip through. A grim chill filled Felsted’s veins. It had been secure when he’d checked it before dinner. Hands shaking, he shut the window again and latched it.
He was about to turn away when a face appeared in the glass. A horrible, twisted, wretched face, pale and shriveled, blood dripping from cracked lips around tangled, jagged teeth.
Felsted shrieked, recoiling, almost losing his balance again and falling back onto the red carpet. But when he looked again, no creature sat outside the window. There was only his own reflection, pale and pallid in the glass.
This was far too much coincidence for him. He stumbled back to his desk, wrenching his copy of Common and Complex Toxins and their Counter-Potives from his bookshelf and throwing it open on the table. His breath coming in shallow rasps, he brought out pen and ink and scribbled out hurried list of symptoms on a scrap of paper, muttering in a panicked whisper under his breath.
“Fever…dizziness…muscle aches…hot flashes…sensi…sense…sensitivity to light…s-slurring speech….”
He started seeing things as he wrote. Spiders on the desk. Scorpions on the drapes. His pen growing viper fangs for half a moment. “H-hallucinations…fever…wait, I wrote that already…delirium—”
“And I expect your heart is all out of sorts, too.”
Felsted jumped a full foot upward, yelping in shock and spilling ink across his polished desk. Terror gripped his throat and he collapsed backwards into his armchair, curling into a mortified ball.
A dark shape melted from the shadows, stepping gracefully forward into the low lamplight. It was Racath, of course, but Felsted didn’t know that — his hallucinating eyes were probably warping Racath’s hooded, Shadow-wrapped figure into something hell-born and terrible, like a dark devil in the dead of night, towering over him on the other side of the desk.
To Racath, Felsted had the look of someone who had once been portly, but had since lost his girth to the leeching parasite of stress. His graying hair clung to his clammy face with the same dread with which his hands clutched his shoulders. The eyes in his middle-aged face were sunken from the poison, glazed over and mindless with horror. The look of a man who spent every waking hour in fear.
“I’d recommend page three-forty for what you’re looking for.” Racath said dryly. “Deadly nightshade. You shouldn’t procrastinate, Felsted. If you’d bought some more of your jaborandi leaves yesterday, it might have saved you.” His voice was like that of a
reproachful god.
The Human began to hyperventilate, hiding his eyes from the piercing glare that came from beneath his assailant’s hood. “B-but…but how?” he spluttered. “How c-could you p-p-poison—”
“It was in your salad,” Racath said flippantly. “Nightshade leaves are easy to come by, and they blended perfectly with your spinach. Your deathwatch wouldn’t activate unless it came into direct contact with the toxin — which was only released when you bit into the leaves. Too bad for you.”
Blood began to well from Felsted’s palms, his fingernails biting into his skin. “Who are y-you?” Felsted stammered, his eyes unnaturally wide as he looked Racath up and down. “What are you?”
“Why don’t you tell me yourself,” Racath said, words like iron, and jabbed a finger down at the open copy of the Mythos Compilation.
Felsted looked down to where Racath’s finger was grinding into the page. It was the passage that Felsted had just finished reading, about the Roten deity who brought comfort to righteous and wrath to the wicked. Azrael, angel of death and judgment.
Choked sobs began to claw at Felsted’s throat. With his hallucinations destroying his reason and shrouding Racath in the raw aspect of Felsted’s own fear, the Human did not need convincing.
“Azrael’s hand is on your shoulder, Human,” Racath declared, shoving the book aside. The painstakingly organized instruments and papers on the desk scattered, exploding off the desk and onto the floor, startling Felsted further. “I am here for your soul. But do I come in comfort, or in rage?”
Felsted did not answer, he simply bawled into the crook of his arm, hiding his face.
“You know the answer, I expect,” Racath seethed. “The truth is in your actions. The guilt is in your eyes. You have lived in sin for far too long. Tonight, I come in judgment.”
Felsted howled into his sleeve, the sound muted and muffled.
“Enough.” Racath’s commandment struck Felsted like a metal fist. “Look at me, wretch.”
His whole body rattling, Felsted looked up, pupils dilated to an extreme.
“W-why?” Felsted sobbed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Racath barked. “You know why. Because you sit in the Demons’ lap and do nothing, while outside people are dying. My people are dying! You’re so afraid of being hurt by those monsters that you would betray your countrymen to escape their anger. Your fear got the better of you, and you let your paranoia drag you down to hell. So don’t ask me why. You know. You know what you’ve done to deserve this.”
Tears mixed with sweat on Felsted’s face. “P-please,” he begged, his voice hardly more than a cracking whisper. “W-why won’t you just k-kill me? W-why p-poison? Just kill—”
“No.” The word shattered Felsted’s question like an ugly, stained-glass window. “I chose poison because you deserved it. Because I wanted to watch you wriggle while the fear turns your brain to paste. That fear of death that drove you to the Demons' door? I wanted to watch it betray you and eat you from the inside out. This is what comes of people like you, Felsted. I will not abide the folly of your peers’ betrayal. By every drop of blood on my hands, I swear that every single one of you who turned to the Dominion — for power, money, fear, I don’t care — will wither, break, and die. Azrael is coming for you and your friends, Felsted. The angel of death is here.”
The Human’s muscles began to twist and clench under his skin. He gargled and his eyelids started to twitch. But the fear remained.
“You had your chance,” Racath hissed, leaning across the desk so that his shadowed face was almost close enough to touch. He felt fire in his own gaze, burning into the dying Human. “But that’s over now. No more antidotes. No more schedules. No more sickly-sweet order. No more cheating death. Your time has come, Felsted, and I am your angel. Follow me into the dark.”
Felsted’s eyes rolled back in his head. Another gurgle came from his throat and his muscles locked, his limbs arching and convulsing uncontrollably. His clawing nails scarred the fine leather of his chair.
Racath reached around the desk, pulled out the ledger, and tucked it into his Shadow, hardly sparing Felsted a second thought as the seizure knocked the man out of his seat and onto the floor. The Human lay there, babbling and convulsing. Blood and foam frothed from his mouth.
Felsted was dead before the Genshwin left the house. In his wake, Racath left the shrine to Amaranth pulverized, the candles crushed and the statue smashed. He left the kitchen in shambles, the pantry turned inside-out and the pot of soup spilled across the floor. He left the xardez board overturned, the pieces scattered like broken bodies on the carpet. He left all the locks and latches open, all the knickknacks askew. He left the stained-glass window shattered.
ELEVEN
Entanglement
Racath reentered the Westside Inn just before midnight. It was crowded despite the lateness of the hour. He spotted a familiar, plainly dressed man at the bar, sipping at a wooden tankard. His Shadow trailing rainwater in his wake, Racath wove his way through the jam-packed tables and chairs, coming to lean on the bar next to the Duke.
“Your Grace,” Racath greeted, dropping Felsted’s ledger flatly onto the splintery bar. “It’s done.”
Jax opened the black notebook. “Impressive,” he grinned, looking back at Racath. “I wasn’t sure you could pull it off. Fortune smiles on you, Azrael.”
Racath enjoyed a private smirk at the irony of the name Jax had chosen for him. “So it would seem,” he said. “Now, I need answers.”
“That you do.” Jax ran his hand through his fine, silver hair. “You find a name?”
Reaching over, Racath pointed at the appropriate place on the ledger’s open page. “Right there,” he answered. “Zayne. No surname, though. Any idea who he might be?”
Jax chuckled knowingly, closing the ledger. “Actually,” he said. “I know exactly who he is.”
Racath arched an eyebrow under his hood. “Who?”
“Zayne Alyward,” Jax answered, taking another drink.
“And who is that?”
“He’s a smalltime burglar, one of The Burrows’ own,” Jax told him. “Freelancer. Does a lot of business with one of my fencing syndicates. On the surface, he’s a loyal member of the Burrows. But we’ve had our eye on him for a while, though. I’ve had suspicions that the Dominion got to him, but I couldn’t be sure. There wasn’t any evidence. Until now.” He tapped the ledger. “This…this is a death sentence for Mister Alyward, for certain.”
“I’m good with death sentences,” Racath said darkly. “I’ll take care of him. Killing him benefits us both. Where can I find him?”
Jax frowned thoughtfully for a moment. Instead of answering, he held up a finger — a gesture for Racath to stay put for a moment — and then he left the bar, stepping out into the crowded taproom. Racath watched him, waiting curiously. After a minute or so, Jax returned, carrying something. He set the newly acquired items down on the bar for Racath to see: a pair of dice cups and a dozen ten-sided wooden dice.
“This isn’t an answer,” Racath observed deprecatingly.
“Patience, Majiski,” said Jax, shooting Racath his sly smile. “It’s a virtue. Now, are you familiar with the game Four-and-Twenty?”
“In passing. Why?”
“It’s extremely popular this side of the river,” Jax said, sorting the dice into two groups of five. “The snobs on the eastern bank see it as a frivolous poor-man’s game, but it’s probably the Burrows’ favorite pastime. I own a few gambling establishments that make a killing off of it.”
“Delightful,” Racath said dryly. “How does this help me?”
“Relax, assassin, I’m coming to that. Here,” Jax nudged one of the piles of dice and a cup at Racath. “I’ll teach you how to play.”
Wearing a skeptical frown, Racath reluctantly took the playing pieces.
Jax held up one of the ten-sided dice for Racath’s inspection. “Four-and-Twenty is a subtle g
ame. It’s about luck, wit, and lies. The goal is to roll as close to twenty-four as possible. To start,” he picked two of his dice. “We each select how many dice we want to use for the opening roll — as few as one, as many as five. Normally, there would be a low wall on the table between us to prevent us from seeing each other’s roll, or how many dice we’ve chosen.”
Racath frowned, juggling numbers in his head. “And why would you ever want to pick any less than three?”
“It is advisable to use no more than three dice for the opening roll,” Jax said, shaking his dice in his cup. “If you break twenty-four, you lose.”
“Ah.”
“But using less than three dice has its advantages. See, there are several combinations of rolls that beat a simple twenty-four. Rolling a single eight, getting a straight one-thru-five, and so on. I’ll point them out as we play. Go on, roll.”
Racath thought a moment, select three dice, and dropped his dice cup down onto the table; Jax did the same. Peaking under the cup, he totaled his roll: eighteen.
“Next,” Jax continued. “We can either choose to roll additional dice to supplement what we have, or stand with our roll. This is where the betting starts. An initial bet is placed when someone chooses to stand with their roll, and the other must match it, regardless of whether they choose to stand or continue rolling. Bets continue with each additional roll until both of us have chosen to stand with our roll, after which there are a further two rounds of betting. We’ll play it through to the end — you want to roll again or do you want to stand?”
Racath picked one more die and rolled it, as did Jax. He checked his roll and frowned. A seven, bringing him to twenty-five.