Black Halo

by Sykes, Sam

‘That is why, Bralston,’ Miron whispered, ‘I want you to find my employees. There are six of them, four men and two women.’

  ‘And …’ Bralston swallowed hard. ‘You want me to protect the women.’

  ‘If it is in your power, I would ask you to protect them all. As it stands, these adventurers are a capable lot. The men are well-armed, and one of the women, a shict, is possibly even better-equipped to handle herself.’ Miron’s face wrinkled with concern. ‘The sixth member, however … she is not weak, by any means, but she is … untested.’

  ‘I see.’ Bralston scratched his chin contemplatively. ‘This woman … I assume she’s one of your own.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘As compassionate as even a Lord Emissary is, I doubt his charity extends so low as to reach adventurers. They live to die, do they not, to be used and disposed of?’

  ‘Perhaps some hold that attitude.’ For the first time, Miron betrayed a hint of sadness in his face. ‘Though you are right. She is sacred to Talanas, serving her pilgrimage with the others. A priestess.’

  The Librarian didn’t feel the usual cringe that accompanied such a word. Enmity steeped in years was forgotten, replaced by a sudden surge through his being, the same surge that had called him to burn men alive.

  ‘A priestess …’ he whispered.

  ‘I know you do not agree with her calling. But she is not yet hardened enough to know that anything beyond her faith exists.’ Miron smiled. ‘She is the one I wish to preserve the most. I fear the horror that was inflicted upon the woman in Cier’Djaal would shatter her completely.’

  The woman leapt to his mind, and he felt that cringe return. He recalled the bruises on her face, the way she folded into herself to escape the room. He recalled her eyes, so empty and distant as she watched two men burn for what they had done to her. He tried to picture what she might have been before the wizard, the heretic, had shattered her.

  He found he couldn’t bear to.

  ‘Perhaps, if rhetoric does not sway you, we might see if personal experience truly does trump age-old loathing?’ Miron asked as Bralston looked up. ‘I am told you were one of the few members of the Venarium that assisted with transporting the wounded during the Night of Hounds.’

  He nodded, slowly, loath to remember the event. A lesser man would have remembered images and sounds: fire, screams, felons running in the street, women begging for their lives, looting, carnage. Bralston, however, was a Librarian and had no choice but to remember the horror with precise chronology.

  One hour after dawn: the Houndmistress, bane of the Jackals and champion of the citizenry, before there were statuettes of her in every place of business in Cier’Djaal, had been found in her bed with her throat cut, her adviser missing from his chambers and her child missing from hers.

  Two hours: a man named Ran Anniq, small-time Jackal thug, had thrown the stone that struck the herald announcing her death.

  Three hours: Bralston was strongly reconsidering his denial that hell, as men knew it, existed.

  The Venarium had not been petitioned by the fashas of Cier’Djaal to aid until seven hours after dawn, when the wounded had become too great for the healers of the city to tend to. Bralston had not stepped away from the window of his study for all seven of the hours, save to file a request to visit a brothel, which was promptly denied. He had spared that building, still unblackened by the flames engulfing the city, only a glance as he and several other wizards filed onto a ship to use their magic to propel it toward Muraska and the healers there.

  They arrived seventeen hours after dawn, exhausted. The priests of Talanas had offered succour to the wizards, in addition to the wounded they had brought over, and many had grudgingly accepted. Bralston declined with no thought to why he should; he simply could not sleep for fear that the brothel had been razed, its women defiled.

  Twenty-two hours in, he had felt a hand on his shoulder. He had looked up into bright eyes, into a smile offering comfort. Hands flecked with dried blood had offered him a cup of tea. A woman in blue robes had placed her right hand around him and asked him what the matter was.

  At twenty-three hours, he wept. At twenty-four, he slept. At forty-three, he watched her from his ship, taking her words with him. Two weeks later, he had returned to the brothel, still thanking her quietly.

  Seven years later, he now thought of her again, of her god, of what she had done for him.

  ‘I know not much about the specifics of your mission,’ Miron continued. ‘Only that you seek a violator of laws, both wizardly and godly, and in this we coincide. I know what direction you head, and I know what direction I sent my employees … what direction I sent her.’

  ‘I … will do it,’ Bralston replied softly without looking up. ‘If I can find her … I will return her.’

  ‘I am sure you can find her … if someone else has not found her first.’ Miron cringed. ‘But I am not asking you to go without aid on my part. Your coat flew you here from Cier’Djaal, did it not? A journey that takes weeks by ship done in only a day and a half … its power must be exhausted.’

  ‘It will take some time to replenish itself, yes,’ Bralston replied.

  ‘Time, I fear, she does not have. A ship, however, is what I have.’ Miron pointed out the window of his room, toward the city’s harbour. ‘Seek a ship called the Riptide; you will find its captain not far away. Tell him that his charter requests that he deliver you to your destination.’

  ‘Our intelligence suggests that the outlaw is based near the Reaches,’ Bralston said. ‘But beyond that, we know little.’

  ‘There may be someone who knows more,’ Miron suggested. ‘A man by the name of Rashodd. He was involved in certain … peculiarities before my employees brought him low. We entrusted him to the care of authorities at Port Yonder.’

  ‘I shall seek him out, then. Your assistance is duly noted and will be reflected in my report.’

  ‘I trust that you will,’ Miron replied, nodding sternly. ‘Godspeed, Librarian.’

  Bralston rose swiftly and stiffly from his chair and cast a look over the table at the priest. He sniffed, then placed his hat upon his head, running fingers along its brim.

  ‘I don’t need gods.’

  The door shut with a resilient slam, as though the Librarian sought to make his discontent known through the rattle of porcelain as the impact sent Miron’s teacup stirring on its saucer. The Lord Emissary let it settle, listening for the sound of the Librarian’s determined footsteps over the hiss of the brown liquid.

  When all was quiet once more, he gently took his cup in hand and smiled at the door through a veil of steam.

  ‘Idiot.’

  *

  The harbour of Port Destiny was lax, only a few ships bobbing in blue waters that kissed blue sands, rendering city and sea indistinct from one another. Their cargoes had been unloaded, their crews vanished into the city for wine, dice and women. Most would return destitute and broken, ready to serve at sea for further wages. A few would not return, usually paying for debts they had racked up with either their service or their kidneys.

  That was a problem for a captain, Argaol thought as he lay back and shut his eyes against the morning sun. He would be one of those again someday, a captain with problems of unruly men and hostile seas and obligations to greedy men. But today, he was a man whose long, dark legs hung bare over the docks, a fishing line tied to his big toe.

  His titanic ship, the Riptide, lounged as lazily as her captain did, bobbing up and down in the water beside him. They would both be called away before too long. But for now, each was content to lose themselves in their shared insignificance between the vast city and the boundless ocean, each content in the knowledge they could ask for no better company.

  ‘It just goes on and on, doesn’t it?’

  He never asked for worse company. It always just seemed to find him.

  ‘Vast … endless …’

  Argaol stifled a groan, attempting to pretend he couldn’t hear her. He
remembered many an awkward conversation that had begun with this particular clichéd pseudo-insight.

  ‘I can’t even begin to fathom how enormous it is …’

  Any moment now, this would turn to some horrible confession, probably one involving a pelvic rash or a request for help removing a fishing hook from a particularly tender area. He clenched his teeth, hoped quietly that she would give up before she said—

  ‘On and on and on and on and—’

  ‘Zamanthras’ loving bosoms, all right,’ he finally spat out. ‘What in the sweet hell that I so dearly prefer to listening to you is on your wretched little mind?’

  Quillian looked down with disdain as he cracked one eye open from his lounging on the dock. Her face was hard, barely any more femininity revealed in it than was revealed in her bronze-swaddled body. She brushed a lock of black hair aside, exposing the red line of an indecipherable oath written beneath her eye.

  ‘What makes you think something’s on my mind?’

  Argaol stared at her with disbelief that bordered on offended. ‘I suppose I’m just the sensitive type.’

  Her befuddlement was short-lived, concern etching its way across her features as she turned her gaze back out past the docks and over the sea.

  ‘I heard what the Lord Emissary plans,’ she said, ‘before he met with the heathen.’

  Argaol chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘Is it wise to use the word “heathen” in reference to someone who can spit icicles into your face?’

  ‘Perhaps your faith extends only as far as your fears,’ she replied coldly. ‘The Knights-Serrant cannot afford such luxuries of sloth. Our sins do not allow it.’

  Your sins apparently don’t allow anything less than a gods-damned theatre production whenever you say something, either, he thought with a roll of his eyes. To hear her speak would lead anyone else to believe she was more than human. He had seen the flesh underneath her bronze, however. He had seen the red ink that was etched into her side. He knew not the language of sin, but whatever hers had been, they had been many.

  That fact made the Serrant’s temperament at least somewhat understandable, even if nothing else about her was.

  ‘You’re not concerned?’ she asked.

  He glanced down at his naked foot, the fishing line tied to his big toe as the rest of his slight, dark build sprawled out across the dock. He shrugged, folding his hands behind his bald head as he did.

  ‘I suppose I don’t look it, do I?’

  ‘His plan is to head for Port Yonder.’

  ‘Yonder’s fine enough,’ Argaol replied. ‘A little light on entertainment, but a bit of sobriety is good for the soul.’ He snorted, spat over the edge of the dock. ‘One would think a Lord Emissary’s duties would demand his presence here in Destiny, though.’

  ‘They do,’ Quillian muttered.

  That caused Argaol to turn a glare upon her.

  ‘Aye? The Lord Emissary’s not coming?’

  ‘Not unless something has changed since he went to speak with that heathen.’ Quillian shook her head. ‘He means for us to act as … as aides to the vile creature.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Surely you can’t be well with that.’ The Serrant turned an incredulous glare upon the captain. ‘I was assigned by the Master-Serrants to protect the Lord Emissary, not some … some …’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother finishing that thought,’ Argaol interjected curtly. ‘For someone who likes spewing them as much as you do, your repertoire of insults is surprisingly short and boring. And’ – he held up an authoritative finger – ‘as I recall, you were assigned to obey Evenhands, which protection most certainly falls under. And I was hired to do the same. No one’s violating any sacred oaths of red ink here.’

  Her glare turned violent, face contorting with the audible grinding of teeth as she levelled a bronze finger at him.

  ‘Don’t you dare speak of oaths like you know any beyond your own to coin, you chicken-legged, cowardly, purse-fornicating, wheel-raping, hairless eater of broken meats!’

  ‘Uh … all right.’ Argaol rose up, scratched the back of his head. ‘That one I haven’t heard before, I’ll grant you.’ Rather than anger, it was with a furrow-browed curiosity that he cast his gaze at the Serrant. ‘So … what’s really on your mind?’

  The Serrant turned her bronze shoulder to him. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘To you, doorknobs are complicated.’

  ‘Why would you be interested?’

  ‘Perverse fascination is not interest.’

  She stared at him for a moment, expression teetering between appalled and murderous. Like two panes of glass grinding against each other, her face cracked in short order and revealed a look that Argaol had not yet seen on her normally stolid, firm-browed face.

  Fear.

  ‘I worry,’ she said, ‘about the adventurers.’

  Argaol blinked. ‘Do they owe you money?’

  Her face screwed up. ‘Ah, no.’

  ‘So …’

  ‘Well, just one of them, really.’

  ‘Which one?’

  Quillian stared into the waters lapping at the dock. ‘I shouldn’t say.’

  ‘Asper, then.’

  ‘What?’ Her head snapped back up with a look of alarm on her face.

  ‘Don’t look so damned shocked,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘You think you’re the first woman to worry after another woman? It was either her or the shict.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘It’s not the shict, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t think so,’ he replied. ‘That would have been far, far too interesting to hope for.’ He lay back down upon the dock, folding his arms behind his head. ‘Makes sense, though; the priestess is the only decent one amongst them.’

  ‘Then you share my concern.’

  ‘Not especially, no. Sebast is due to meet with them any day now. From then, he brings them back to us, they collect their pay and you get to be content that a woman who thinks you’re a fanatical lunatic is safe.’

  ‘But she’s …’ Quillian paused, looking a little more alarmed. ‘Wait, did she tell you she thinks I’m a fanatical lunatic?’

  ‘I’m assuming she thinks it. It’s sort of your thing.’

  ‘My thing is atonement through service to the clergy,’ the Serrant snapped. ‘If I am zealous in this pursuit, it’s only because I’m truly repentant, truly devoted.’

  ‘Well, wait for her to come back and you can show her your thing yourself. The trip from Teji to Destiny takes only a week or so.’

  ‘So you say,’ Quillian said, folding her arms. ‘But Teji is part of the Reaching Isles.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘They’re not called that because they’re convenient. They’ve been lawless and beyond the grasp of Toha’s navy for ages.’

  ‘What military force can’t solve, gold can. Teji’s a trading outpost. It’s always been a trading outpost. It’ll always be a trading outpost. No pirate is going to attack it if they can save themselves the energy by trading.’

  ‘Given that we only barely held off Rashodd when you swore you could deal with him and his brigands, I trust you’ll see why I’m not confident in your opinion on pirate thought processes.’ She frowned, staring out to the distant horizon. ‘Have you heard any news, then? From either Teji or Sebast?’

  ‘None,’ Argaol said. ‘But he’ll get the job done.’

  ‘If he was going to,’ Quillian muttered, ‘why would the Lord Emissary send a heathen after him?’

  ‘Ask him,’ Argaol muttered, closing his eyes as he dangled his leg back over the edge. ‘Confess your sinful thoughts about the priestess while you’re at it. I’m not interested anymore.’

  The next part was fairly routine: the moment of frustrated silence, the flurry of grunts as she sought to come up with a retort and, finding none, the rattle of metal as she reached for her sword. He didn’t bother to open his eyes, even when he heard the steel slide back into its sheath and the heavy, burdened
slam of her feet as she skulked down the dock.

  He had just begun to get settled, ready to entice a curious fish with the dark flesh of his big toe, when the footsteps began to get louder.

  ‘I told you,’ Argaol said with a sigh, ‘I’m not—’

  ‘You are Argaol.’

  The voice was deep, resonant, full of presumed authority. He cracked one lid open.

  The other shot up like a crossbow bolt.

  There was no doubting the man for a wizard: the long coat with many pockets and heavy book hanging from his belt left no room for doubt. But the size of the man, his broad shoulders and healthy frame, contradicted any impression he had ever had of the faithless magic-users. Whereas the other wizards he had known were thin and sickly, the tan vigour of this one, a Djaalman, he thought, suggested at least normal vitality.

  Then again, he reminded himself, you’ve only known the one.

  Apparently unwilling to wait for a reply, the man turned his head, atop which sat a rather impressive-looking hat, to the massive three-masted ship not far away. He squinted a pair of blue eyes at the bold black lettering on its hull.

  ‘That is the Riptide,’ he said.

  ‘You can read,’ Argaol replied, his shock fading and general contempt seeping back in. ‘I’m thrilled for you, really. Run along home and tell your mother.’

  ‘The priest told me to seek you out. We are to leave for Port Yonder at once.’

  ‘So I hear,’ Argaol muttered, easing back. He made a gesture in the general direction of the city. ‘The crew’s out on leave. They’ll be back tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I will go out and find them,’ the man said sharply. ‘Be ready to leave when I return. My duties demand a swift departure.’

  ‘I have duties of my own,’ the captain replied coolly. ‘Chief among which is catching my lunch today.’

  He wiggled his toe and added, silently, As well as making a point that I won’t be cowed by any overzealous bookworm. Too late, Argaol tried to remember if mind-reading was a wizard trick.

  ‘You’re not a man that visits Cier’Djaal much, are you?’

  ‘I’ve been once or twice.’