by Watson Davis
I turned down a cross-lane, expecting to come around behind the man, but instead, I ran right into him, slamming into him, knocking him down, tumbling on his arse, his hands reaching behind him to break his fall. I stumbled to the side, falling to one knee, my knife dropping to the ground.
“Watch out.” He glared at me. His eyes narrowed, studying me, his face twisting.
“Master?” I asked, not having planned our meeting to go quite like this, rising to my feet. “Have you heard of a young boy and a coulven girl? Light blue skin, quite pretty.”
He stared at me with the eyes of an angered lord, affronted by an inferior, glaring with the focus of one prepared to exact violence on another who would not fight back, with the gaze of someone thinking of their next move, of searching for their enemy’s weakness. He twisted himself on the ground to face me, his hand moving to the dagger on his belt.
I lunged at him. He whipped out his knife, the blade slicing my abdomen before my hand caught his wrist, before I landed on him, driving him to the ground. I climbed on top of him, my left hand locked on his wrist, my right around his neck.
“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” I said, bringing my knees up to help pin his left arm. “Where is she? In the temple?”
I relaxed my grip on his throat, allowing him to speak, but instead used the opportunity to gurgle, “Help.”
I slammed his head into the pavement, and leaned in closer. “Tell me where she is or I will take your knife and fillet you like a fish.”
“Sheriff’s office.”
“Hey, now!” a man’s voice said from behind me. “What are you doing to the cobbler?”
I slammed the man’s head into the pavement once more and leapt to my feet, running away, the man’s dagger in my hand.
# # #
“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help,” the woman said to Frontin, the sheriff’s deputy, putting her thin hand on his biceps and giving it a squeeze.
“Thank you.” Frontin cleared his throat and nodded his head, sketching a jerky bow, pulling the door open. “Um. Thank you, Miss Joosten. And you tell your ma and da I appreciate the grub. I do.”
The woman paused in the doorway, glancing back at Rucker and Aissal in their cells, saying, “I don’t know if you should be all alone with a couple of escaped slaves. Especially a coulven.”
Frontin laughed, flicking his hand toward them as though dismissing them. “They ain’t gonna be a problem. The monastery’s collars got lots of spells on them.”
“You come get us, though, if you need us,” the woman said, walking through the door to the rickety, wooden walkway outside.
“Sure will.” Frontin nodded and eased the door shut, locking it with a key, a silly smile on his face. He turned and leaned his back up against the door, looking at nothing in particular, eyes unfocused, a lopsided grin, the key in the door.
Rucker pushed up against Aissal, whispering, “She cast some sort of spell on him or something?”
Aissal nodded, a smile bubbling up to her lips despite her fear, her hunger, her exhaustion, hoping Mr. Frontin would find a long life full of happiness and children with Miss Joosten.
The boards outside creaked under her weight as she walked away.
The platter Miss Joosten brought lay on Frontin’s desk, a platter piled high with some sort of butchered animal flesh, the bones sticking up like handles, breads and butters, grilled vegetables, kinds Aissal had never seen, slathered in cow butter, the black cross marks from the grill visible on them, a pitcher and some glasses. Aissal’s mouth watered. Rucker’s stomach growled.
“I think she likes you,” Aissal said to Frontin, having enough restraint to keep from pressing her face against the bars, unlike Rucker who seemed to be attempting to squeeze himself through to get to the food.
Frontin pushed himself off the door, pointing at Aissal, the warm glow gone from his eyes, replaced by a cold gravity. “You’ve got nothing to be saying to me, and you’ve got nothing to be saying about her.”
Aissal opened her mouth to object, hoping that by speaking to him, he would realize that she and Rucker were people, regular people, not horrible criminals who deserved to be returned to the monastery to die.
His forefinger waving at Aissal before the words left her mouth, he stopped at his desk, right beside the platter of food. “If you want something to eat,” he said, “you’ll shut your yapper.”
Aissal breathed deep and forced her mouth closed, releasing her death-grip on the bars of the cell, nodding and backing up, raising her hands in submission.
Frontin picked two bowls off the platter, one in either hand. He walked over to the cell, placed the bowls on the floor, and with his boot, pushed them through the bars, one by one. He walked back to his desk, rubbing his hands together, grinning, grabbing a checkerboard-colored napkin, tucking it in at his collar.
Aissal picked up the bowl before her, a bowl full of some sort of foul-smelling green paste.
Rucker picked his up, grimaced, and glowered at Aissal. “Ugh.”
“Can we at least get spoons?” Aissal asked, stepping closer to the bars. “Perhaps some of that tea to drink?”
“You should be happy enough that you got anything.” He rolled his eyes, shrugging to no one in particular, and picked up one of the ribs, pointing the piece of meat toward Aissal. “Now you want spoons. Spoons can be used as deadly weapons. No, ma’am. No spoons.”
Rucker stuck his fingers into the paste, lifting it to his mouth, his tongue stretching out to pull the disgusting mess into his mouth. His eyebrows raising, he said, “This is not bad.”
Aissal stared down into the bowl, raising her hand, her unwashed hand, filthy with who knew what and how many infinitesimal life forms she couldn’t see, each one ready to leave her ill with some horrific gastro-intestinal distress.
A knock on the door, three sharp raps, made her jump. She hadn’t heard anyone walking on the sidewalk, no creaking of boards, no thumping of boot on wood.
Frontin straightened in his chair, easing back, setting the meat down onto the platter. Three more sharp raps, Frontin shook his head, sighing. He stood, taking a quick sip of his tea, and pulling his handkerchief from his collar, he stomped across the office to the door.
He unlocked it and twisted the door handle.
The door exploded in toward Frontin, knocking him from his feet, sending him falling backward into the wooden railing separating the entry from the office area, splintering two of the bars but not with enough force to snap them clean through.
Caldane landed on Frontin, driving him the rest of the way through those bars. Caldane set the edge of a knife against Frontin’s throat, pressing down against him, snarling at him. Frontin kicked his legs, undulating his body, trying to throw Caldane off.
Caldane growled, “Be still and quiet and I may let you live.”
“Don’t kill him, Caldane,” Aissal cried, tossing the bowl aside, the bowl shattering, the gooey contents splattering, pressing herself up against the bars, reaching through them.
Frontin stopped struggling, going limp beneath Caldane, who glanced up at Rucker and Aissal from beneath his brows. Caldane lifted Frontin to his feet, shutting the door behind him with his leg. He said, “Where’s the key to let them out?”
Frontin moved, trying to talk, but Caldane stuck the point of the blade into Frontin’s neck, shaking him, a stream of blood welling up from his neck, dribbling down his chest.
“No sudden movements,” Caldane reached around Frontin, removing the dagger from Frontin’s belt, hurling it into a corner.
“Over there.” Frontin pointed at his desk. “Top right drawer. There’s a ring of keys. It’s the one marked with three lines.”
“Make any noise, and you’re dead,” Caldane said, shoving Frontin forward, maneuvering him through the office to the table, opening the drawer with his left hand, keeping the knife against Frontin’s neck, reaching into the drawer, withdrawing a ring of keys. He tossed it toward A
issal. She stuck her hands out through the bars, misjudging the throw, the keys hitting the bars and bouncing off, falling to the floor.
“I’ll get it,” Rucker said, dropping to his stomach on the floor, stretching his arm out through the bars, grabbing the keys and dragging them back. He held them up to her.
Aissal accepted them, flipping through the keys, looking for the markings, finding the one with three lines. “I’ve got it.”
“Good. Get out of the cell,” Caldane dragged Frontin from the young man’s desk to the cells.
Aissal stretched her arm through the bars, trying to insert the key one way, flipping it and trying it the other way. The key slipped into the lock. She rotated it. The door opened.
Rucker ran out, jumping into the air.
“Yes.” Aissal stumbled out, tears welling up in her eyes. “Thank you for coming back for us.” She stopped looking at his abdomen. “Are you bleeding?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking the knife, plunging it in one side of Frontin’s throat, and dragging it across.
Aissal stopped moving, staring, her mouth open, tears of happiness now empty of joy.
He threw Frontin into the cell, Frontin squeezing his neck with both hands, eyes wide, gurgling, Caldane slamming the door shut, locking it.
“You can’t do that,” Aissal whispered, pressing herself against the bars once more, but on the outside staring in.
“Come on,” Caldane turned, looking at the weapons arrayed along the wall, Rucker at his side. “We’ve got to get stocked up and get out of here. We don’t have much time.”
Aissal chased after Caldane, grabbing at his arm, looking back at Frontin who slid down to his knees in the cell, both hands pressing against his throat, blood pumping out between his fingers. “He was innocent, and you’ve killed him.”
Caldane pulled a bow and arrows from the wall. He gaped at her, brow furrowing, confused. “He’s one of the enemy.”
“That’s what the empress wants you to think.” Aissal pointed at Frontin. “That’s what she wants him to think. But you are not enemies.”
“Uh, yeah.” Caldane nodded his head. “We are.”
Someone knocked on the door. Rap, rap. “Frontin?” a man’s voice said. “Are you up, boy? We’ve got a problem by the temple.” Rap, rap.
Frontin tried to speak, tried to call out for help, or in warning.
Caldane lifted an axe from the wall, pointing with his chin toward the door, whispering, “Open the door when I tell you, but stay behind it. Don’t let him see you.” To Rucker, he said, “You hide under the desk.”
A lambchop in his fist, Rucker slid underneath the desk, hugging his knees to his chest, gnawing on the lambchop.
“You can’t kill anyone else,” Aissal whispered to Caldane, yanking his arm. “These people are innocent.”
Rap. Rap. “Frontin?”
“Just open the damned door.” Caldane set the axe down, lifting a chair, and shuffled to the door without making a sound, standing to one side, chair raised.
Aissal rushed to the door, aware of every creak of the floor beneath her feet, sure whoever stood on the other side of the door would hear and realize something was wrong, wondering why Caldane, so much bigger and heavier, didn’t seem to make any sound.
Bam, bam, bam.
Caldane nodded. Aissal unlocked the door, turned the handle, swung the door open.
“Frontin, Empress take you.” A man strode in, a tall man, broad through the shoulders, wearing a worn tunic and patched breeches smudged with dirt and smoke. He stopped, confused, searching for Frontin, and Caldane hit him with the chair to the back of his head.
The man fell face first to the ground.
“Close the door and lock it,” Caldane said, falling to the man’s back, pounding him one more time with the chair.
The man lay whimpering on the floor, his hands covering his head.
“Make a sound and I will gut you,” Caldane said, his voice frightening, serious. He grabbed the man by his neck and breeches, and dragged him to the cell. “Rucker. Open the cell.”
Rucker popped up from beneath the desk, and taking the keys, sprinted to the cell, flipping through the keys on the ring, trying each one, until he found the one that fit. He opened the door and let Caldane throw the man in beside Frontin.
Aissal ran to Caldane’s side, pushing Rucker away, grabbing the cell door before Caldane shut it. “We can’t leave them like this.”
Caldane stared at her. “You are not serious.”
Rucker pushed up against Caldane’s leg, a lamb chop in his fist, pointing it at her, saying, “Yes. Yes, she is.”
“I am,” she said. Frontin lay on the ground now in a pool of blood, the man kneeling in the blood beside him, hesitant to touch him, tears streaming down the man’s face.
“Well, you stay with them, but I’m getting out of here,” Caldane said.
“Wait,” she said, “Listen. Think about this. There has to be something in here that can get these collars off. If we can find that, and if we can get our collars off, will you let me heal this man?”
Caldane sighed, squeezing his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. “OK. Fine. But hurry. I’ll give you a few minutes while I’m collecting weapons and supplies.”
Aissal spun and knelt, reaching out to Frontin through the bars. “Frontin? Where are the keys to release the collars? Tell me and I can heal you, save you.”
Frontin waved his arm toward the office, his face pale, lips quivering, and his voice garbled and strange, said, “Magical key. Desk drawer.”
“Great,” Aissal jumped to her feet, running across to the sheriff’s office, through the door, around his desk, yanking out drawer after drawer, rifling through the papers, stopping when she came to an object, a black glassy cylinder of the same sort of material as their collars, so black it seemed to suck the light out of the air around it.
She hesitated to touch it, taking several deep breaths, preparing herself. Her hand darted in, snatching it up, forcing her stomach from rebelling against the slimy feel of that glass. She lifted it to her collar, inserting it, expecting fireworks, a release of magical energy, something spectacular.
Nothing happened.
She rotated the cylinder.
Click.
Her collar released, the black glass of the collar grudgingly surrendering the skin of her neck, tugging at her, but falling away.
Cold wind swept in, brushing up against her neck in an almost orgasmic release.
She pulled the collar off, throwing it to the floor. The collar shattered, screeching, the black glass splitting apart, wriggling apart like uncountable black worms, the cylindrical shape of the collar melting, the worm-like creatures squirming on the floor, disappearing into the wood floor.
Aissal held the back of her hand to her mouth, gagging, and rushed back to the cells to save Frontin.
# # #
A chill breeze swept down through the remains of the slaves’ quarters, the wind moaning in chorus with the group of wights, the wights clearing stones, separating the rubble, the leaves twirling and dancing.
An assistant approached bowing, the female whose name Fi Cheen never recalled, a female of singular shape and form, her black and red tunic hugging her curves, the magelight glinting off the silk. “Overseer Fi Cheen.”
“You may begin.” He rubbed his hands together, thinking of the warmth and comfort of his suite, thinking of letters from home requiring responses, of the meal waiting for him in his dining room, his suite the first rebuilt after Diyune’s backfire, although the other masters had not discovered that fact.
His assistants prodded the slaves with their staves, applying pain spells as needed, directing the slaves into their new cells, freshly rebuilt, the ones marked for sacrifice going into their own holding cell, the work slaves who had not yet turned, who had not yet completed their eventual transformation from the effects of the calming spells, into a separate barracks. The female assistant’s buttocks jiggled
in a stirring manner.
I should remember her name.
He stood on the platform overlooking the slaves and wights as they toiled only as a matter of routine, a symbol of their servitude to the empire, the ever-present overseer watching over them, keeping the possibility of escape from entering their spell-addled brains, until the spells addling their brains took their eventual toll. His mind wandered, thoughts going to his meal, his correspondence, his family, anywhere but this boring task where nothing of interest would or could happen.
“Overseer?” The female bowed before him once more.
He turned his eyes to her, letting her wait so she perceived her status.
She swallowed, her mouth constricting, her throat swelling, her knees bending. “They are all loaded, sir.”
“Half rations for the workers. They were entirely too active today.”
“Yes, sir. Half rations.”
Fi Cheen nodded, waving his hand, signaling for her to continue with her duties. She hurried away, her buttocks swaying with an interesting hitch he’d noted before.
He breathed deep, levitating down from the platform, tapping his lower lip, trying to remember her name. Dreh-lo? Liulay? Dey-ra? He strode from the barracks, across the yard to his apartment, rubbing the hair on his chin, resolving to speak with Soti about the girl, about her studies, about mentoring her.
Smiling at the possibilities, he entered his quarters, his left hand behind his back, sliding his door open and closed with a wave of his right hand, the unconscious murmuring of an incantation, his thumb rubbing the ring on his forefinger. The warmth of his rooms wrapped around him like an old lover, moist and dewy, a scent of rose-petals and rice wine masking the devil-stink lurking underneath, an unnecessary reminder of the previous day’s chaos. He kicked his wooden sandals off, dropping them beneath the entry table, his mouth watering in anticipation.