The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  It was not so much a voice as a sound. It was not so much words as it was music. He could understand it, discern its meaning, and yet it sounded like nothing he had ever heard: a song not meant for mortal ears, a quavering harmony that drilled into his head, the resonant echo of a very old brass bell struck with a very old oak stick.

  Not the sort of thing one goes seeking out.

  Yet not the sort of thing one could really afford to leave be, either.

  Sword in hand, Lenk edged his way toward the nearby decrepit buildings, scanning the gloom for the source of the sound.

  “Hey! Hey!” Chemoi piped up from her spot. “Where ya goin’? Ya can’t just leave me!”

  “I’m not,” Lenk replied. “I’ll be back soon. Stay here and stay quiet.”

  “But Shuro said—”

  “If she should return first, fondle her balls until I come back.”

  Chemoi muttered a few choice curses at his back, but he did not turn around. His eyes were fixed on the darkness, searching for any sign of movement as he crept past the shattered buildings. Beyond their stone frames, the land opened up. Massive distant shapes loomed, but he could see nothing in his immediate vicinity.

  All around him, he could see nothing but blackness.

  And one spot of light.

  Mocca stood like a ghost lost in gloom, wandering down a darkened street that yawned out into the black. He didn’t seem to register Lenk at all, his attentions focused on what appeared to be a long, thin lamppost long dead, one of hundreds marching up the street.

  The man in white paused, hesitation playing on his face as he studied the lamppost. Warily he reached out a hand as if to touch it. But before his fingers had even brushed it, he winced as if burned and drew them back.

  “Something the matter?” Lenk asked.

  Mocca did not look at the young man as he approached. His eyes were fixed on the lamppost, his words a breathless whisper.

  “I remember this,” he said.

  “This street?”

  “This lamp,” Mocca said. “And this street. And every brick upon it and every building here. I was there for every construction, every project, every artifice wrought. I remember all of it.” He stared at his own hands. “And if I touch them… and my hands go right through them, I fear that I will realize this isn’t real.”

  Lenk glanced at the lamppost, reached out and wrapped fingers around it. The chill of metal greeted him.

  “Feels real enough to me,” he said.

  “Time has a way of twisting memory,” Mocca muttered in reply. He gazed out over the darkened city. “Far below, in the darkness to which I was cast down, I could think of nothing but Rhuul Khaas. The city I had built and the people I had left behind. Down there I could but dream. And in my dreams, all I saw were its edifices and statues, its lights and sounds. And as the decades dragged on and things around me got darker, the city only became brighter and grander in my dreams until I feared to wake and see only blackness.”

  He held his hands up high, inviting the entire city to rise up and embrace him. And when all that came to meet him was the moaning wind, he looked almost disappointed.

  “And I return to my city,” he said, “and I see only blackness.”

  “It has been a while,” Lenk said.

  “Too long,” Mocca said. “Maybe so long that the Rhuul Khaas I thought of existed only in my dreams.”

  “How would you know?” Lenk looked around. “It’s pitch-black out here. You can’t see a damn thing.”

  “For the moment.”

  “What?”

  “No, never mind, it’s…” Mocca paused, stared thoughtfully at Lenk for a moment. “Actually, you might think it a little interesting.”

  “Look, I know you’re used to talking in cryptic gibberish, but this is a bit much even for—”

  Mocca shut his eyes, smiled softly, and disappeared into thin air.

  “—you.”

  Lenk looked around for the man in white, but saw nothing.

  And then he saw light.

  The lamppost beside him suddenly flickered, a soft orange light rising up from inside a translucent globe seated at the top. A small vial within bubbled with a liquid that radiated a light that steadily grew brighter.

  And soon it was joined.

  One by one, on either side of the street, many more lampposts marching the avenue awoke. Their light was faint at first, but grew steadily, and each one lit up faster than the one before it. Soon they were springing to life everywhere, upon every street and every corner, until the entire city was bright as day.

  And Lenk saw Rhuul Khaas for the second time.

  Buildings of obsidian and marble stood silently, their walls reflecting the light of the lamps and making the city seem even brighter. Aqueducts ran a spider’s web over the sky. Domed buildings squatted next to towering obelisks. Temples and homes and gardens and streets sprawled everywhere. Fountains depicting stone children playing, statues depicting learned men and women, pillars adorned with words written in a language painful and beautiful to see…

  He had seen it before.

  Mocca had shown him, in visions, but to see it here, to know it really existed.

  He had no words.

  “What… but… how?”

  Or at least no intelligent words.

  “My blood.”

  He turned. Mocca stood beside him again, staring up at the same lamppost. He gestured to it, the tiny vial ensconced within the globe.

  “A single drop was all it took,” he said. “It burns brightly at my will. I was afraid it wouldn’t work, but apparently I can still do it.”

  “How did you do all this?” Lenk gestured over the cityscape.

  “Same answer,” Mocca replied. “Blood, sweat, labor, and love. I was not alone in it, of course. Others brought the stone up, tilled the fields on the countryside below, mixed the mortar, and laid the foundations. But the designs were all mine.” He smiled sadly. “I was hesitant to awaken them again.”

  “Why? This is… incredible.”

  More than incredible, Lenk reminded himself. This was it. This was what he had come here for. The Forbidden East, Rhuul Khaas: All of it had been leading to this moment.

  Somewhere out there was the Library of the Learned. All he had to do was find it, find what lay inside, and he could have his new life.

  He paused. He blinked. He found he couldn’t remember the name he’d been promised.

  “It is incredible.” Mocca suddenly sighed. “After so much time. Even if the gardens are overgrown and the stones are cracked, it is as beautiful as I remember. And yet…”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  He replied in a choked voice.

  “They’re gone.”

  Lenk was about to ask who when it struck him. In the absence of darkness, the silence was all the more profound. Where there should have been people laughing and merchants yelling and lovers sighing contentedly on benches, there was only the mutter of a bitter wind.

  In his visions he had seen people of all kinds—tulwar walking with humans, humans walking with shicts. Yet the twisting streets of Rhuul Khaas were empty, devoid of life and death alike. There were no bodies in the street, no bloodstains, no signs that anyone had died here, let alone lived here. It was as though they had simply left, one by one, until the final person here simply went through and extinguished all the lights until it existed as it did now.

  “Where did they go?” Lenk asked.

  “Elsewhere, I suspect,” Mocca said. “This city ran on my will, my body. The lamps fed on my blood, the law was based on my wisdom, the food was delivered by my creations. When I was cast down, what would be left for them?”

  He drew in a breath and the city seemed to inhale with him. The lights flickered, then stilled. The wind ceased its wail. All of creation waited for his next words, including Lenk.

  “But think of it,” Mocca continued, “think of what I could do. Think of what the world would be like, to be surro
unded by this.” He spread his hands out wide and spun in a circle, his laughter childish and whimsical. “Proof, living proof that there is a power out there that loves them and wants them to be safe, to be happy. No more children sobbing in the dark, wondering who is listening to them. No more armies marching under the orders of a god who never spoke to them. No more people tortured for a ritual that has no meaning.

  “With all that I knew, and all that I’ve learned, I could do it. I could make Rhuul Khaas beautiful once more. Or even the entire Vhehanna Desert, from Rhuul Khaas’s highest tower to Cier’Djaal’s lowest slum.” He turned to Lenk, his smile broad and free. “Imagine it, Lenk. I could watch over everyone, hear their every prayer, their every sorrow. The hungry man who needs bread? I can get it to him. The woman whose husband beats her? I can save her. The lovers whose families forbid them from being together? I can make them happy.”

  He swept up to Lenk, reached out as if to seize his hands, but stopped just short. He trembled, the lights shuddering in unison with him, going soft as he whispered.

  “Can you imagine it?”

  And Lenk could.

  Because he had seen it. He had seen the streets filled with people, heard their prayers and laughter, smelled the scent of their sweat and labor. He knew it had existed, because Mocca had shown him. He could imagine it, he could need it, and he would have said so, loudly, if not for the voice that chuckled just behind his ear in a quavering brass note.

  And spoke.

  “You’re not really believing this, are you?”

  “Lenk!”

  He blinked.

  Mocca was gone. His head spun, as though the visions that had so filled his mind were leaving him empty and weightless as they flooded out of his head and left him with stark reality. The lamps still burned quietly and Shuro’s form was like a black spot upon their brightness as she came running toward him.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she asked, breathless from running.

  “I was…” Lenk shook his head. “I thought I heard something. I went to go investigate.”

  “Chemoi’s gone,” Shuro said. “Taken by something.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “I would be, if you had done what I told you to,” she growled. “Lights just came on. Something changed in the city now that we’re here. What else could it be?”

  “I… I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Maybe she wandered off or got scared and hid somewhere?”

  Shuro glared at him for a moment before snorting. “Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll keep an eye out for her, but she’s not our priority. Something is stirring in this city. Khoth-Kapira might be waking up and he’s somewhere here. We’ll have to find him quickly.”

  “We?”

  “It’s too dangerous to split up now.” She pointed out across the city. “We’ll start on the outer streets and work our way in. Once we find signs of demonic taint, it should be easier to find him.”

  Taint.

  Demons.

  That’s right, Mocca was a demon. A demon who had been cast down into hell. A demon who spoke of soothing children’s tears and saving weeping women. A demon who had built a city out of nothing and made it a haven so people could live in peace.

  Mocca was a demon…

  Whatever that word meant now.

  “Hey!”

  He blinked. Without his noticing, Shuro had already started down the street. She looked at him expectantly.

  “Well?”

  “Sorry,” he called after, and started running toward her. “Sorry.”

  They went off at a light jog, hurried but ready. They exchanged not a word—Lenk said nothing of Mocca, of Khoth-Kapira, of the things he had seen. How could he? Could he say anything that would change her mind? Would she simply slay him outright for even speaking of him?

  Eventually she would learn. Eventually he would have to make a decision. Eventually the word demon would become something hard and real to him.

  For now, though, silence was fine by him.

  “Come to me, my fleshy friend. Come and keep me company.”

  If not by everyone else.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  WHEN BLOOD HITS THE WIND

  Voices in the dark.

  Fervent whispers pleading to names never spoken aloud.

  Her voice, screaming his name, growing fainter until it disappeared.

  Denaos could hear them, in dreams tinged red at the edges, in piecemeal choruses, in memories of echoes. They flew around his skull as it lolled on his neck, and slithered into his ears as they rang until he could hear no more.

  Shadows of heads bowed and hands clasped.

  Shafts of firelight painting walls red.

  Blood on the sandy floor, sliding from his brow and down his face.

  Denaos could see them, in eyes that swam in their sockets and in visions darkening. And even as he looked at them, they blurred as though being submerged beneath rising tides, until they were plunged into blackness.

  Hands on his arms.

  On his legs.

  Lifting him.

  Cold stone on his back. Cold iron around his wrists. Cold air on his blood as it wept from a dozen cuts and bled down his body.

  Denaos could feel this as he lay on the altar, but only for a moment. Just as he could see, just as he could hear, but only for a moment. There was only enough of a human left in Denaos to experience one sense at a time. Everything else went to the pain.

  A cold hand on his naked chest, gliding down. Slender fingers drummed upon tortured flesh, timid to touch the sticky rawness. He winced. Nails slid over his stomach, prodded curiously at the bruises left there from blows by knotted ropes. He groaned. A single digit found a single cut, parted the flesh like a curtain, and wedged itself inside the sticky, spongy sinew beneath.

  And then he screamed.

  Half-lidded eyes snapped open. Ragged breaths scratched raw at his throat. The scent of his own life, caked and stuck on his naked body, filled his nostrils. The sound of his shriek dying, smothered in the tiny room, hurt his ears.

  Pain brought him back to life. Pain reminded him he was alive. Pain would not let him rest, would not let him drift into the warm blackness that reached out for him, stopping just teasingly short of embracing him.

  He was alive because he had not felt enough pain.

  The woman had made sure of it.

  Teneir.

  He recalled her name, if nothing else. He could not remember where they had taken him when they dragged him out of Mejina’s house—someplace beneath the earth and dark and filled with shadows. He could not tell how long they had tortured him—days… or perhaps just hours, maybe. He could not remember where they had taken Anielle, what they had said to him before they drew their blades, what name he had screamed out when they cut his flesh…

  But he recalled Teneir.

  Her soft, rasping voice. Her yellow eyes. Her single finger held before his face.

  “Look at this.”

  But that blood on her finger. That was his.

  “You bleed red,” she said, “the same as I do. Your flesh is soft and yielding, as is mine. If I were to take this”—Metal scraped across stone. She held up a jagged blade, wet with his life—“and plunge it here”—she held the tip over his chest—“and then here”—she moved it to her breast—“we would both be dead. As far as the knife is concerned, we are the same. And it is the knife who decides who lives and who dies. When you and I are both dead, it will not mourn for one of us any more than it does for the other.”

  Yellow eyes bloomed into life before him, bright suns at the center of the darkness clouding his vision. Teneir’s head hovered over him, her veil hanging around a long, serpentine neck. He could only take her in in glimpses: malformed nostrils, lipless mouth, fangs glistening as she spoke.

  “A knife does not care. To a knife one life is as good as the other. How odd it is, then, that a knife should be kinder than a human.”

  The blade traced a sma
ll path down the center of his chest, pausing to kiss fondly at the red lines it had previously carved in his flesh. He cried out, but she took no notice.

  “Or a shict. Or a tulwar. Or even a saccarii,” she said. “Cier’Djaal is a city of many sins. There is not a race whose life spans long enough to find the original.” She let out a long sigh. “Sheffu tried. Perhaps he even came close.” Her gaze drifted off to a nearby shadow and lingered there. “I wish there had been another way.”

  Her serpentine neck twisted about as she looked back at Denaos. If the slackness of his jaw and the glassiness of his vision caused her any alarm, she did not show it.

  “Did you know him?” The groan he offered did not seem to perturb her, either. “He was a good man. A yenthu. One of the very last.” A smile meant to be something other than unnerving split her face. “When I was young, when my father did not have a house so nice as the one I live in, I remember being visited by a yenthu. He told me so many stories of the saccarii, where we came from, how we survived all these years. He made me realize that I could not end up like the other saccarii, dying in the Sumps somewhere. He made me realize I had to be worthy of those stories.

  “Do you know how to kill people, Jackal? Not a person, but an entire people?”

  She was talking to him. Her eyes were fixated on his. They held him, those eyes, kept him from slipping away into darkness. Some animal part of him knew that to close his eyes when hers were upon him would be to invite death.

  “Many have tried to kill the saccarii. Long before the Jackals ever heard the name Khovura. The shicts pushed us out of the forests. The tulwar pushed us out of the desert. The humans pushed us into the sea. First they killed our hunters, then they killed our soldiers, then they killed our mothers. But the saccarii did not truly start to die until they killed our storytellers.

  “Without stories, people do not know where they came from or what they are supposed to be doing in this world. They begin to believe that they came from nowhere, go to nothing. That they are simply born, that they simply die, that they leave nothing but a rotting body. Without their own stories to tell, they begin to believe the stories other people tell about them.”