“Yes.”
“You... you can’t. Nobody—”
Malern spat at her. “I choose death. It is my right.”
Alysa couldn’t bring herself to cut her sister’s throat, and that’s when Garvinger had her brought to his operating table and the surgeon swap her heart for a bag attached to her chest with a tube. “One way or another,” he had stated, “you will take part, Malern. You will be one of us.”
It was night-time when she came out again. Excited witnesses crowded the square, staring and laughing. What would the madwoman do next? Their voices tumbled around her as she staggered blinking amongst them.
“She’s not so high and mighty now!” one woman said from a floating cushion. “We only use magic because we have to!”
Malern thought about releasing her hold on the bag, but she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of watching her fall in front of them. Instead, she trudged homeward, past the crumbling façades of empty houses where whole families had been turned into magic.
The first thing she noticed, even before opening the front door, was the empty cage in the window. Poor Rodrig had found his rest. She paused there, digesting the implications. It was only now that Malern understood Garvinger’s plan for her.
“Executed, but alive”—those had been his wishes. Nobody chooses death and nobody leaves and nobody ever refuses to take part. She had broken all three of these laws, but the last had hurt the citizens the most for it proved their evil was a choice. If she could live without destroying others, why couldn’t they?
This was why they had watched her go home so attentively, so eagerly. They knew she would be forced now to bathe her sister and restore her own heart. If she refused, if she stopped pumping and lay down to die, Alysa, who had no witch for her window, would be a vagabond when the sun rose again. Somebody else would claim her if Malern did not.
Malern closed the door behind her. “You will pump my heart, sister,” she said, handing over the bag.
Alysa nodded, already wearing her best clothing for the Spring. The fear that had twisted her was gone, and she spoke of the love she bore Malern and apologized for her betrayal. “I’ll be a good witch for you, sister. As long as I can.”
“I could kill you instead, Alysa, if you want.” She took down their father’s knife from above the fireplace. “They would burst in here to find us both dead.”
Instead, an hour before dawn, the sisters emerged to find the entire population of Kalegwyn waiting for them. They were all here but the Old Ones, the ones who had used the most magic in their lives, had pushed right to the front. Berkram had turned himself into a tiny winged fairy, buzzing about their ears. Erlokel swum through cobble and stone or floated lazily on her back as they passed. And Garvinger, who never wasted magic, who would live forever, led the whole procession on foot.
Nobody spoke. They kept pace with the sisters all the way to the Emperor’s Spring—a bubbling pool of water, actually, surrounded on three sides by walls of solid jade.
Malern almost fainted when she forgot to pump her heart. Alysa couldn’t help her now, for her hands had been ritually bound to her torso. The chill crept up their legs as the pair of them waded into the pool together for the second time.
“Do you ask for death, Alysa, Hroklyn’s daughter?”
“No, sister.” Somebody had used a spell to amplify their voices. Every eye was on them, sparkling, encouraging.
“I wish to speak,” said Malern.
“Just be quick about it!” said Garvinger, but others wanted to hear what she had to say.
“Look at us,” she said. “There can’t be more than a few thousand faces here. Has anyone done a count? Half the houses are empty. Families I knew as a child are gone and others, like mine, are running out of pasture.
“What do you think will happen next? Some of you know already, and you are too clever to speak of it openly, but I am not. We still have rules about who may bathe whom, but a time is coming when the strong will raid the weak for witches, when—”
“Enough!” shouted Garvinger. “The sun is rising!”
The other Old Ones agreed loudly. They knew where she was going already. They knew. So, she shrugged and put her arm around Alysa’s trembling shoulders while the crowd edged closer and fairy Berkram clapped his tiny hands.
“I can’t,” said Malern.
“You refuse?”
“No, Garvinger. With the heart like this....” She held up the long, awkward tube, “I need a hand.”
“Ah!” he splashed forward to help her, but when he leaned down towards Alysa, he found the knife of Malern’s father at his left eye-ball.
“Should I kill you?” she asked.
“Of course not!”
He had refused an honest offer of death, so she kicked the legs from under him, and with Alysa’s help—whose arms had never been properly tied—she shoved him under the freezing, bubbling water of the Emperor’s Spring.
“What have you done?” he cried, when she allowed him back up. The very act of bathing him had made Garvinger her witch. No warts grew on his face yet, and it would be months before his wits would desert him and his body would hunch enough to fit comfortably in a cage. The crowd milled about in horror and confusion. But Malern knew that the clever ones would soon marshal their magic to destroy the lawbreakers. She would have time to command one spell of Garvinger and one spell only.
“Obey,” she said to him.
She could see him resisting, but he couldn’t help himself. “I... I obey.” Garvinger the Great sobbed like a child. Still, he opened his mouth and sounds of power emerged.
* * *
An instant later, the two sisters found themselves a day’s travel from Kalegwyn, with the sun rising above them.
Malern forgot to pump her heart for a moment, such was the strange beauty of the outside world. A single perfect line separated flat desert from rolling, wooded hills. Birds sang beyond the border. Flowers hung over the edge, but no bees would cross to visit them.
Alysa cried out in delight and sprang over the line to drink from a gurgling stream with cupped hands. Her silken dress turned to sack-cloth. Her golden ear-rings were simple stone again, but still, she was beautiful, freed at last from the weight of terror. She looked back. “Won’t you cross, sister? They’ll be flying after us, you know?” And then, she noticed the bag in Malern’s fist. “Why didn’t you get Garvinger to give you a new heart first?”
Malern shook her head. “There was no time, and regardless, the heart would have disappeared as soon as I crossed the border.”
“Oh, oh! But... I will pump your bag for you as long as I live! I swear it!”
Malern smiled, keeping the sadness out of it. She had never realized what a beautiful place the world could be. “I can manage for now, sister. Listen. Run on ahead and find us a...” what was it called? “...a road.”
Alysa didn’t need to be asked twice, springing off among the trees. She hadn’t realized that Malern’s bag was magic too. She would come running back in a panic as soon as she did.
So I’d better be quick!
Malern found it hard to step over the line. Nobody chooses death. Not really. But some lucky few can pick a place to fall and spend eternity. Onto mossy grass. Next to a stand of lavender where ecstatic bees bring life.
Copyright © 2011 Peadar Ó Guilín
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Peadar Ó Guilín is the author of two novels, The Inferior and The Deserter, both of which have appeared in numerous foreign language translations. His shorter fiction has been published by Weird Tales and Black Gate, amongst many others, and has been podcast by Pseudopod. Peadar lives in Ireland, where, as you read this, it is probably raining.
Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies
THE GOD THIEVES
by Derek Künsken
Mateo del Monte Feltro was with his young daughter Luciana, praying to the god who would not fight, when an intelligence agent from the Bank of
Saint George entered his house. After the fever took his wife and sons, Mateo had converted the west room into a chapel to the emaciated god nailed to the cross. Icons and amulets to other gods, he disposed of with respect. Though the gods who fought were unreasoning, the superstition that he might offend them was ingrained.
The agent was followed by two others and Vicenzo Selvaggi, Chief of Staff to the Master of the Intelligence Guild. Mateo removed his cap. Signor Selvaggi was an ascetic prodigy of magic, surgery, theo-taxonomy and theo-ecology. The Guild did not risk his genius on missions, and Mateo did not think him to be in the habit of visiting damaged operatives. Agents whispered that Signor Selvaggi put strange things into his skull, giving him access to magics and esoteric insights unmatched by other augments. The latest rumor, for what it was worth, alleged that he carried a pair of fetal gryphon brains in his skull. Monstrous.
Luciana hid behind Mateo. He rested a gentle hand against her cheek.
“Don Mateo,” Signor Selvaggi said, with a voice as light as a castrati’s. “I am returning you to active status.”
“The board said I would not be recalled until my injuries had healed.”
“I am not so convinced as your surgeons that your…spiritual injuries prevent you from serving Genoa,” Signor Selvaggi said. “A man who follows two paths arrives nowhere.”
“My following the Christ does not interfere with my service to the Bank and Genoa. The Christ may have something to teach us.”
“Christ exists, but no engine will make him do anything useful.”
“His powers may be subtle,” Mateo said.
“Our strategic military needs are not. Venice has acquired a new theo-military asset. It is from the first circle.”
Mateo’s hands felt cold. He exhaled slowly, years of training keeping expression from his face, movement from his stance.
“I cannot give you the details here,” Signor Selvaggi said. “Come to the Bank.”
Mateo’s stomach hollowed. First-circle. Probably every available operative was being recalled, no matter their condition.
He knelt and put a hand on Luciana’s shoulder. Aging spies at least were the best liars. What tore at his innards never sounded in his voice.
“I must go for a trip, Luciana. I may be some time, but I will bring you back a present.”
“You don’t need to bring me a present, papa. You can stay if you want.” He saw her trying to be brave, but tears collected at the edges of her eyes.
He hugged her and felt her hands make little fists around the sides of his shirt. He let her go, replaced his smile, and gently freed his shirt from her fingers. He could not look at her anymore without putting himself further under Signor Selvaggi’s thumb. He rose and threw a tabard over his doublet and followed Signor Selvaggi into sun-stained, puddled streets.
Venice outpaced Genoa in the maritime trade with the Levant and Constantinople, but Genoa controlled the movement of capital and credit with the Bank of Saint George. Neither held an upper hand militarily. Where the Venetians could scour the Levant and Mediterranean for new gods to harness, the vast wealth of Genoa could attract knowledge of divine weapons from as far away as China, India, and beyond the Sahara. A perilous balance. Much running but no movement. A new first-circle asset changed everything. It would leave Genoa a smoking ruin.
The Bank of Saint George came into view, a massive structure of brick and column work, a solid block of competence and wealth. They entered, passing layers of well-paid Mantuan condottieri with cross-bows and swords. At the lowest sub-basement, beneath even the vaults, two dour-faced Bank of Saint George marines met them before a high wooden door and a man-sized set of bronze scales, based on Egyptian magic.
The marines saluted, examined Mateo’s license to carry an augment, and motioned him onto the Anubis scale. Mateo stepped onto one of the pans. It thumped against the wool padding beneath. On the other one, the marine set a luminescent feather of copper. He switched one feather for another from a collection of them in a blue velvet case until Mateo balanced against two copper feathers. Mateo weighed two souls. The marine saluted and repeated the process with Signor Selvaggi. The Anubis scale balanced with three feathers. It was true! Monstrous.
Past the door, Signor Selvaggi led Mateo a short distance to a curtain of light stretching across the corridor. Mateo had only been this deep into the Bank on three other occasions, none of them pleasant. He stepped through the barrier into stomach-tipping eeriness. They were no longer in Genoa, or anywhere within the celestial spheres. Light traveled poorly here. Guttering lamps were blots of light without reference to the world.
They walked past laboratories with furnaces, crucibles and flasks, and others where strange expiring animals were kept. In a large office, Signor Selvaggi indicated a table flanked by two antique chairs festooned with Greek-styled icons: Juno, Ceres, Christ, Poseidon, Vulcan. Surely taken in the sack of Constantinople, when the fourth crusade had turned the mindless goddess Freya on Genoa’s allies. A trophy of cunning.
Mateo sat gingerly. Behind the desk, eight inches of glass protected the room from the sanguine haze beyond— the slowly thumping heart of a god. The Guild’s alchemists and philosophers were not only capable of implanting the brains of beasts into the skulls of men, but they’d co-opted the humoral immunity of a god and planted their headquarters inside its invulnerable body.
Geniuses or parasites. Cunning.
“What is the mission, Signor?”
“The Venetians have unearthed ancient texts about an Assyrian god called Enlil,” Signor Selvaggi said. “From the first circle. Fully weaponizable. They are constructing an Enlil engine. You will steal the plans. They are being kept below the chambers of the Council of Ten in Venice.”
”But how? No one has ever penetrated the Armory of Venice,” Mateo said. There was no more secure place in the world, except for the Bank of Saint George.
“Not with normal magics,” Signor Selvaggi said.
Despite himself, Mateo leaned forward.
So did Signor Selvaggi. “I have a dragon augment for you, Don Mateo.”
Mateo sat back abruptly. “Not possible.”
An augment’s brain had to fit inside a man’s skull. Wyverns and basilisks had small brains. Despite this, they still had to be so lobotomized that nearly nothing of their personality was left to run the magic that operatives needed for espionage. A dragon’s brain was as large as a pony’s.
“I’ve cut everything from it,” Selvaggi whispered. “Appetite. Humoral systems. Motor nerves. Taste and smell centers. All that remain are the mapping cortex, the processing lobe, and the seat of the soul.” Mateo must have looked doubtful. Selvaggi leaned closer. “There’s more. It’s a hatchling. A twelfth the size of an adult.” He quivered with excitement.
“How? Did you take it by force?”
Esoteric beasts were dangerous, even as disembodied brains. Mateo wouldn’t want to be trapped in his own skull with one that didn’t want to be there. The Intelligence Guild usually acquired brains from ancient beasts willing to sacrifice the flesh to hide from mortality.
“This is no normal dragon,” Selvaggi said. “It had been abandoned. Its egg had cracked. A mold infected it. Covered its scales.”
Mateo pitied the creature abandoned by parents. He couldn’t bear the thought of his own daughter possibly becoming an orphan.
“The power of this augment is like nothing we have ever seen,” Selvaggi said. “It comes from the land of the Mongols, through the Portuguese. It knows all our magics and the magics of the Mongols.”
“It won’t prevent the Venetians from putting an arrow in me, or something worse,” Mateo countered, “before I get anywhere near the Armory.”
“The Intelligence Guild is not a safe trade at any time, but the cunning agent can exploit his advantages.”
“Why me? There are better agents.”
Selvaggi snorted. “Younger perhaps, but you are far more experienced. And only you have been able to unleash the
full power of an augment.”
“I’m not the same man I was, Signor. I don’t know if my soul can do it anymore.”
Selvaggi’s face stiffened. “I will be frank with you, Don Mateo. I don’t care about your soul. If this is about your Christ, you’d best make some decisions. We don’t have anyone else to send in. I don’t think anyone else could handle a dragon augment. So either Don Mateo takes the assignment, or Genoa is leveled.”
Mateo’s mouth dried. “Signor Selvaggi, there is no way to survive this mission.”
“You will see,” Selvaggi said. “This augment is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. An Apollo burst is a trifle for him. He can change your shape. His brain is not just one brain. His consciousness rides a series of small brains. He can decipher codes in moments. He can emit epiphany pulses under field conditions.”
Mateo hid his astonishment with effort. This was too much power. “I still cannot enter the Palazzo Ducale,” he said. “The Venetians can use an Anubis scale as well as we can.”
“Hatchlings have small souls. The souls do not acquire the experience they need for growth for some time.” Selvaggi smiled. “And what I did to its brain, I’ve done to its soul.”
“You lobotomized a soul?” Mateo asked in horror.
“Parts of the soul are required; others are not,” Selvaggi said, waving a hand. “The remains of its soul weigh almost nothing. And I know what to cut from yours.”
“Mine?”
“I will trim small parts of it. With the dragon brain in your skull, you’ll weigh only one soul, the same as a normal man. The Anubis scales can blow in the wind for all that they will detect your augment and its magic!”
Mateo rose, retreating. “I have offered my life to Genoa, over and over. But my soul comes from God!”
Selvaggi stabbed a finger at him. “Your soul exists to wield augments to fight the enemies of Genoa. Decide your loyalties now, Don Mateo.”
The breath in him was thin and insufficient, and no more would come. In his mind, the emaciated god on his cross stood on one pan of the scales and all of Genoa on the other. Luciana on the other.
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