by Marc Secchia
“I missed my appointment earlier. Can you still see me?”
Sakal called, “I’m just leaving, master!” He must have heard our voices, for his head popped around the corner to take in the young Mahira. His burshingling was deep, but when he rose I could have sworn I saw a disapproving look swiftly erased off his lips. “Mahira. A most agreeable eventide to you.”
She nodded.
“It’s my day off tomorrow, master, may I–”
“Indeed. As you never fail to remind me.”
His grin showed strong white teeth. “Diary keeping is hardly your strong point, master.”
“Huh!” muttered Tomira. “I would not let a mere servant talk back to me.”
Sakal bobbed his fedora at us and scuttled off.
I accepted her expensive linen burnoose and tossed it neatly upon a rack. “He’s a grouchy old tygar, but he serves me well.”
When she saw the garment land safe, Tomira sniffed. “I would have him jatha-whipped to an inch of his life. Impertinent commoner!” And she vanished behind the modesty screen with a tart waggle of her sallinen-clad hips.
I cleared my throat. “So, Mahira, how may I serve you this eventide?”
“You may examine me.”
Helpfully and right on cue, my mind supplied an image of her undressing back there. “For what?” Leaping tygars, Arlak! “I mean, what seems to be amiss?”
“The great El Shashi cannot tell at a glance?”
“The great El Shashi cannot read minds.” And in Mata’s name, why not? I was awed anew by the potential of my powers. Indeed, our conversation had spawned a swarm of lewd ideas that flitted about my imagination like torflies settling on a rancid bit of meat. Pesky. Persistent. Hard to ignore. “Is it the same problem as last …? As I recall–”
“Must you twitter so, you silly lyom? Attend me at once!”
Tomira was abed, the sheet drawn to a prurient height beneath her chin. Her subtle curves were in no way diminished by the fabric. How do the Roymerians put it? Nothing excites more than modesty soon unveiled?
No mind, I lifted the sheet’s edge and slid my right hand beneath.
How simple it would be to arouse her. My skills, my knowledge–a simple act of volition could warm her flesh and make it thrill to my command. Yet something stayed my hand. Perhaps I was too long in the Matabond of love. Perhaps I valued the anna with Rubiny far more than some casual dalliance. Titillation, but not enough temptation. Perhaps, closer to the mark, because I knew the action would be selfish …
My temples throbbed with a migraine. Gods, she was beautiful. I had license to touch an elegant young woman where doubtless a thousand men could only dream of it.
But was it worth the Wurm? No.
Tomira made a soft noise, the kind of sound a woman makes in the depths of passion. My knees almost buckled. I had to support my weight against the table with my other hand. Then I realised that she was chuckling–and her mirth mushroomed into self-indulgent, scornful laughter.
“Enjoying yourself?” Her hand clutched mine. “Not so fast.”
“I–uh …”
“That’s very enjoyable, but you’re looking in the wrong place.” My face turned the colour of a sliced beetroot. “Try up here.”
A momentary touch upon her belly, truly told, and relief turned my bones to water. No problem, Mata be praised … this I could handle. “Ahem! Mahira, I believe congratulations are–”
Tomira barked a word better suited to a farm labourer than a young woman of station. Then she bit her lip. “Get rid of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me–get rid of it.”
I squared my shoulders. “I do not do abortions.”
Her voice became flat–curiously flat. “Let me spell it out so that we understand each other. Do as I bid, or the baby becomes yours.”
“Don’t be silly,” I began, then stopped dead in my traces, blinking. Tomira could cause a great deal of trouble. Indeed, she could get me strung up outside the town gate. I had no illusions her wealth could buy credible witnesses. There had been an affair. Worse, a rape. She could spin it a hundred ways. Rubiny would believe my side of the story–wouldn’t she? No girlish ploy could drive us apart.
I wet my lips. “I can’t do abortions. I cannot and will not kill innocents, Mahira. Not for any price.”
“Then pleasure me,” she offered, with a brilliant smile. “I know you desire me. I have seen the way you look at me. Am I not young, and beautiful, and desirable? Claim the whelp for your own. Come–I invite you once more.”
Whelp? Get rid of it? She made me sick. “Mahira, I love my wife and my family more than life itself.” At her shrug, I flared as viciously as I could twist the words, “I am flattered, but unavailable for casual intercourse with an immature, delusional adolescent. Mahira.”
“She advised you would make it difficult for me,” Tomira said, as if speaking to herself. “Why, had you seduced me, that would have summoned the Wurm, would it not, El Shashi? And had you aborted the child, that too would have summoned the Wurm.”
“Nethespawn!” I swore.
In the gloaming, Tomira’s dark eyes seemed hollowed out, becoming black windows into an abyss of devouring need. Her face changed subtly. “And I need your Wurm, El Shashi! I need it now!”
My despairing scream shattered the walls of my mind.
Chapter 14: The Plague-Rider
‘On the first Levantday of Highsun, Anna Teryak 1375, between sundown and sunup, Bralitak Crossing was levelled by a grief-crazed El Shashi, who repeatedly ran the Wurm across the town in hope of slaying the woman known as Jyla. That he lost his mind after the loss of his wife and family, is clear. That he planned the destruction of the town is by no means certain …’
Lorimi the Historian: Nethe Unbound, The Essential El Shashi (65th Scrolleaf)
Lorimi is too generous.
Truly told, Rubiny left me that day. But I did not lose my mind.
To this makh I recall the wording of her letter, its simplicity, and her love for me mingled with deep hurt that flowed between the graciously scripted lines. Jyla had stopped at our house that morning, shortly after I departed for the athocarium. Whatever she said or did, truly told, it put the fear of the Alldark Hounds at Rubiny’s heels. She took flight with barely a bag of clothing between her and the children.
When I arrived home, the house was as still as if death had entered to defile it. Echoes, rather than answering voices. Father of four and husband to Rubiny o’Telmak one instant, the next … dear sweet Mata! How was I to know I would not see them again for an anna over thirty hence? In my heart I already feared the worst. The moment I drew the door shut behind me and spied the letter–I knew. My hands shook so violently I had to lay the sheet of scrolleaf on the work-smoothed tabletop in order to read it, before sinking to the cold stone floor with that precious, life-crushing scrap clutched to my chest. I felt bewildered, forlorn, so sore heart-struck I felt I should never rise again.
Then I knew rage. Jyla had stolen my very dearest from me. I wanted her to pay, pay, pay. My family had been violated. It was a killing rage.
I summoned the Wurm.
Mata forgive me. I sought to make myself younger. Given an act of such deliberate selfishness and vanity, I knew my purpose could not fail. I was convinced Jyla was still somewhere in town and I would use the Wurm to flush her out, eat her whole, consign her corpse to the ravages of the swarming worms and insects …
Ay. Mata forgive me. Mata preserve the innocents I murdered that day.
But this was merely the first sip of hate’s bitter flagon. A deeper, bitterer draught than I could ever have imagined.
I could not eat. Miserably, I pushed porridge around my bowl with a spoon and tried to force a few lumps down my throat. It had been a week, and the wound in my heart was so huge and raw that I felt passers-by could see right inside.
Sherya, our flame-haired, tempestuous teenager. Quiet Lailla, dark and gentle, the image
of her father. Jerom, our boy, the joker of the family–always teasing his sisters. Dear little Illia, just three anna old. Rubiny, ah, Rubiny, my beloved!
Lost. Wrenched away.
And what had I done? Over and over and over again, I made the Wurm chase me through Bralitak Crossing until there was hardly a stone left piled atop another across the length and breadth of town. Ay, the madness had come upon me for a time, I will grant it–but after that passed, and I realised Jyla was nowhere to be found … what then? Nought but a bloody revenge. Rage enacted, the sting of remorse felt far too late. I healed myself on the run. And I began to sense a strange power in the Wurm, as though my efforts only strengthened it, and I wondered dully if, somehow, Jyla was able to feed off the magical power of her Wurm. Was that her intent?
All this was due to Jyla’s nefarious handiwork. Mistress of my pain, author of my sorrow–a litany which had become the message-drum of my life.
In the deepest darkness of the previous night, as I debated the slaying knife, its tip resting upon my breast, and beheld my fingers curling about its bone handle, I vowed to kill her. I was too much a coward to kill myself. Weak and selfish the vessel. Well had she chosen. But why me? Why had our fates crossed? Why grant me this talent and steal my entire life in the bargain?
A woman once told me that my healing ability–that part of Arlak named El Shashi–made me a God in my own right. Now, this makh, I would have given anything to be just an ordinary man. I would have thrown her so-called gift right back in Jyla’s face. Why, why, why, had I not foreseen this day? Jyla had not forgotten! But I had.
Tears splashed upon my untouched breakfast. I could not keep from crying.
I hunched down and hoped my neighbours crowded around the inn’s long trestle tables would not notice. Petty men with petty concerns. Was my pain invisible to them?
“Bralitak Crossing.”
I glanced at the bearded man next to me. His friend said: “Have you heard? ‘Tis the plague.”
“Ulim’s balls!”
“Ay, and his nethers. Best pray you it doesn’t spread.”
I dropped my spoon. Jerked to my feet. “What about the plague?” I cried. “Tell me!”
The man made a calming gesture. “Peace, stranger. I’ll tell you when you–”
“Now! Tell me now!”
He wiped my spittle off his cheek. “You demented numbwit! Mind your manners!”
“I’m sorry–”
“Look, if I tell you will you belly off, you crazy shadworm?” At my nod, he said, “Story is that Bralitak Crossing was destroyed by some Nethespawned monster. This fellow–an Eldrik Warlock–ran through town and the monster came after, gobbling up the earth. Where the bastard Eldrik came from–”
“I heard it eats houses!” put in the fellow across the table from us.
“Shut yer gobhole! I’m telling the story–”
“And I’ll shut your other hole …”
“–anyways, this monster is big enough to flatten the place.”
“Question is, why destroy a dung-strewn fleapit like Bralitak Crossing?”
“Cursed Eldrik!”
“That’s my birthplace you’re talking about!”
“Wasn’t that the Warlock’s bunged-up–”
I slammed my fist down upon the table, making the cutlery leap about and bowls smash upon the floor. “What about the plague?”
The bearded man reluctantly turned his attention away from the impending fistfight. “Black-boil plague, stranger. They say the pyres have been lit since Glimday last and the bodies are piled to the heavens. You can smell the stench from ten trins.”
But he was already talking to my back.
Black-boil plague. The third day after exposure, the skin breaks out in distinctive black boils the size and consistency of a pea. The boils burn as if the red-hot brand of Nethe was pressed to the flesh. A high fever develops. The limbs and joints swell up, often to grotesque proportions, making the sufferer unable to move or to walk or even to shift position upon their bedroll for dint of the pain. After the fourth day the boils begin to burst and thereafter weep a blackish-green pus, accompanied by such a stench of putrefying rot that the athocary must shield his nose and mouth with a cloth steeped in solibas oil. The lungs fill with a foul, sticky sputum. No cough will loosen it. The victim drowns in his own fluids.
I had made myself young again, but youth was no aid. I rode as the wind blasting from the storehouses of the four corners of the world, but the plague spread faster by far. The Gods themselves had deserted that land, buried it beneath the sifting grey ashes of the roaring funeral pyres, and abandoned its inhabitants to their despair and affliction. And I wondered what the victims thought when I materialised like some ghastly wraith out of the clouds of smoke and leaned down from my tall grey stallion, stolen from behind a furrier’s shop, to grant the saving touch? Some cried, some cursed; many were too weak to take notice.
Fires. Bodies. Families sprawled in their rude huts, dead. Bloated corpses rotting where they lay, shunned even by the rats and other vermin. Whole villages wiped off the map. I stumbled hollow-eyed through a charnel-house of unending horrors. From village to village I plied my trade. Makh after makh after makh I drove myself until I collapsed unconscious from the desperate, doomed attempt to save just one more life–for all of these lives were held upon the scrolleaf of my account with Mata, for a reckoning of the days and deeds of El Shashi. Survival was my all. Penance was the coin of my survival.
Could I blame Jyla? No. This was my doing, mine alone. The selfish actions of a selfish man. The tollgates of Nethe overflowed in the blood of the innocent and the guilty alike. This plague was no respecter of age, gender, or station. I had no breath left to curse the Gods.
Only my own stupidity.
Chapter 15: Searching
Hither, thither,
I am a speck of mortal dust,
Blowing in the winds of nether-Nethe foul,
Hither, thither,
And who remembers mere dust?
P’dáronï of Armittal, I am that I am nothing: Collected Poems, Scrolleaf the Third
Truly told, I had once thought the world’s vastness a fact so self-evident, that I would not burden my speech with its mention. But during the four anna I searched for my family, in high places and low, rivers and plains, hills and deserts and forests, it was driven home to me with quoph-destroying monotony how I crawled like some pathetic beetle across the vast tapestry of the world. No trace of Rubiny did I find the length and breadth of Brephat, Elbarath, Chazurn, Lorimere, Hakooi, or Roymere. I walked the long leagues and more. Eleven pairs of boots I wore to rags. No weather was foul enough to halt me, not even the blizzards of Alldark Week, nor were the mountains impassable, and no place was too remote to feel my footsteps. In every village, town, and hamlet, I made my enquiries without success. My family may as well have been consumed by Ulim’s Hounds for all I discovered.
I wondered many times if Jyla had kidnapped them–but I concluded she would not have hesitated to use my family against me. Ah, dear Mata! How the bitterness devoured my quoph! It stole my life, my love, my ability even to think and feel and function. It left me no man, but a ravaged husk.
Worst were the silences. Unbearable silences. Inured as I was over the anna to the sounds of small voices in the house, to feet rushing hither and thither, to laughter and bickering, to crying, to story-times beside the fireplace … ah, mark my words, each long, silent eventide spent in my own company nigh destroyed me. How I missed them! How I loved them! As it had been to lose my parents so unexpectedly, so I discovered anew a most exquisite form of torture.
Its name? Loneliness.
How much more would Mata steal from me? Over and over again I prayed, “Take my life, I beg you!”
Loneliness drove me to the brink. Deep did I drink of the long cups of despair. Twice, thrice, in moments of drunken foolery and grim sobriety, I tried to kill myself, but to no avail, for in my cowardice I was unable to go
through with it. There were voices, dark whisperers, which invaded my head after the makh of eventide with their lies and poisons. ‘Freak,’ they hissed. ‘You are a freak and a murderer. She left you for another man. She couldn’t stand it any longer. You deserve your fate. You deserve every burden of guilt, every makh of pain. Child-killer.’ Not since the Lymarian border war had I felt Ulim’s sinister legions so close, so entwined about my being. Had a yammarik prayed a thousand times protection over my quoph, yet still would I have welcomed their succubus kisses.
Denied even the release of death, I became as a dead man.
One curious thing I observed, however, was the way that stories spread. I began to hear about myself here and there. Ulules were putting together the pieces of my life in new ways–often mistaken ways–but the story of El Shashi began to assume a life and a character of its own. Through volition not my own, I lived on, and my legend came to be cased in rune and leaf, to be imagined and embellished by others–a slow spread similar to a river wearing at its channel, unnoticeably slow but inexorable.
I have never breathed legend. But my legend nearly killed me.
The good citizens of Limka Vale in Brephat had heard the tales of Bralitak Crossing and the Plague-Rider from a passing ulule, added the two together, and drawn the correct conclusion. After I cured a man of palsy, by way of thanks they drove me out of the village with whips and clubs and left me to rot in a roadside ditch.
At length, the incessant meanderings of my search brought me back to Telmak Lodge. Here I would seek word. Her father had to know something of Rubiny.
Solk Inn, a half-league north of Telmak Lodge on the Inba Road, had a none-too-scurrilous reputation and served for my chosen meeting-place. I had seldom tarried there, for I mark Telmak Lodge held other attractions.
Built in the ancient Roymere hexogi style around a great central hearth, the inn had a low-beamed jalkwood interior that lent itself to cloistered tables and private conversations. Smoky lamps rested upon each table. The hearth roared heartily, for the season was deep into Rains and the shadows of Alldark Week would soon shroud the land. A sweating drudge slowly rotated a suckling porker on a spit above the leaping flames. Fat hissed and sizzled upon the coals. The sweet scent, savoury-thick from floor to rafter, did little to stir my appetite–though the ancient house salcat, a monster standing fully mid-thigh to a man and tygar-crossed in all likelihood, was purring up a respectable thunderstorm as it paced back and forth, yellow eyes slit against the sallow spill of lamplight.