Arcane

by Nathan Shumate

  For countless hours, Irene sits in the heart of the storm, chanting the blessings of the Mother. Her left eye sees the lightning, forked tongues—tridents—reclaiming the heavens. All around her booms the thunder, the footsteps of the One who walks again the heights of Mount Saos. And her heart rejoices.

  Then feeling returns in her left arm; pins and needles prickle upwards from her fingers to her forearm, then into her chest. Her heart is too small, too fragile to bear the presence of the Eternal. It breaks. Irene’s grip on her stick tightens. She clenches her jaw. Not yet. Her work is not done yet. She hasn’t honored her pledge. She hasn’t saved her people. She hasn’t kissed her son one last time. She hasn’t—

  ***

  Drifting in and out of consciousness, Irene becomes distantly aware of her bed under her burning back, of Merope’s hands cleaning her, of her son talking to her.

  “…Winds have calmed…”

  Her heart aches, each beat a struggle.

  “…Ship from Constantinople… this morning… good news.”

  Theodorus strokes her hand. Her fingers refuse her silent plea to caress him back.

  “…Commander Nikephoros Phokas… victory in Crete.”

  Her chest burns, as though she’s swimming underwater.

  “…No need for ships and men. The captain has left…”

  And good riddance. Despite the pain, her weary face manages a smile.

  “Mother? Mother, did you hear me?”

  Hands grab her shoulders and shake her, but Irene sinks deeper underwater—no, not underwater but into the luminous haze of her left eye. Then her vision clears, and she finds herself standing on an endless shore, the pebbles warm and moist under her bare feet. The waters stretch far and wide, and mist clouds the horizon. A boat awaits at the distance. When she starts walking, her body doesn’t hurt.

  The ferryman stands on the stern of the boat with the three-headed dog on its figurehead. Is this Charon, clad in the long black cloak that hides his features? One fleshless hand holds the tiller, the other reaches out to her, palm up, requesting the fare.

  Irene looks down, to her naked body. She has nothing to trade for passage—no coin, not even her walking stick. Despair washes over her. Will she be cursed to roam the western shore until the world’s breaking?

  The ferryman grunts, and his fleshless grip around the tiller tightens. Lightning cracks over Acheron, and the ferryman recoils. A mighty tail splashes the waters, and the Goddess rises. Three times the height of a man, she towers over Charon’s boat, the trident in her left hand…

  Her right hand beckons, welcomes her servant. She picks Irene up, onto her scaly breast. Through the luminous mist, Irene hears the chants of her sisters.

  Blessed be our Lady of the Crossroads, Madonna Mermaid, Mistress of all things great and small.

  BENEATH THE ARCH OF KNIVES

  James Lecky

  Nothing grew, for there was nothing more to grow.

  No one built, for the impulse to construct had long since passed.

  No one loved, for love was just a word in the Latter Days.

  No one sang, for music was as lost as love in PameMurias, least of the Shining Cities of Old Earth.

  Instead, her citizens contented themselves with their nightly parades—for above all, the men and women of PameMurias delighted in colour and spectacle. Gaudy as razorbirds they were—and as spiteful—filling the streets during the few brief hours from sundown to sunrise with a vibrant cacophony of robes and masks, designed to enhance rather than conceal, calling to each other in high, supercilious tones. In PameMurias, they fought their duels with words rather than blades, with rejoinders, insults and ripostes no less sharp than the rapiers carried by the bravos of other cities.

  By dawn, the streets lay empty save for those who had chosen to die under the hard radiation of the Malignant Sun. For, often, it was fatal to be unfashionable in PameMurias and the pain of death was easier to bear than the agony of public humiliation.

  When the harsh day came, few of the citizens of that exalted city deigned to leave their homes, and those that dared—furtive lovers, thieves and the like—used the sunlight to cover their movements in same way that others might use darkness. Swathed and masked they traversed its streets, flitting from shade to shade, rarely acknowledging the presence of other wayfarers even if chance should find them side by side.

  Alone of all the cities of Old Earth, PameMurias stood too much in the sun. Her spires and archways were scoured by it, her broad cobbled streets scorched by it, and her citizens hardened by it.

  Only the clattering of mutant storks disturbed the stillness, calling endlessly to each other in clattering codes. Huge, ugly things they were, taller than a man, with multi-faceted eyes and razored beaks, their plumage white as bone, all colour long since bleached out of them.

  It was on such a day, indistinguishable from a thousand others under the light of the Malignant Sun, that Ossoro Volante chose to kill his great rival, Churel Lobishomen, for in the Latter Days such deeds were done with no more thought than a man might give to eating, sleeping or breathing

  Their enmity was a long-standing one. Each man considered himself a supreme wit, and each delighted in his ability to drive men and women to sun-drenched death through the power of words alone. But of late it seemed to Ossoro Volante that his own verbal barbs and precise bon mots were going increasingly unnoticed. The talk he overheard in the fashionable squares only served to reinforce his fears:

  “Did you hear what Lobishomen said to Dio Cortega last night? He was so distraught he stood on the eastern wall to welcome the sunrise all the quicker.”

  “I heard that Mistress Birion stood at the Serpent Gate, naked except for a mask because Lobishomen criticised her headdress.”

  “He is, without doubt, the greatest wit of our time.”

  So naturally, Churel Lobishomen had to die. But not with words, for words bounced from the ego of Churel Lobishomen like pebbles from armour; rather, Volante chose an iron morningstar from his collection of antique weapons and went into the streets clad in black, with a simple brass mask covering his features.

  It had been many years since Ossoro Volante had walked through the daylight hours of PameMurias, and as soon as he entered his courtyard the heat struck him with the force of a mailed fist. He was not a young man, this Volante, nor was he a slim one, but his resolve was strong and his hatred of Lobishomen even stronger.

  However, by the time he had walked the short distance from his villa to St. Ustrel’s Cathedral and its whitewashed square with sculptured trees he had already begun to fade. The morningstar was heavy in his hand, the metal so hot that it had begun to sear his skin despite the binding on its handle and the heavy gauntlets he wore.

  He settled himself in the scant shade of a marble orange tree and took a flask of brandy from beneath his robe. The liquid was fiercely hot but revived him somewhat.

  As he drank he became aware that he was not alone.

  A figure lay slumped in the middle of the square, a man to judge by the mask: finely wrought silver, delicate as paper, inlaid with precious stones and with beard and moustache picked out in purple lapis lazuli. His robes were of vermilion fur trimmed with sable at high collar, voluminous cuff and pleated hem.

  The exposed hands were scorched and weeping, and as Volante watched, his interest mild at best, it seemed to him that he could almost hear the man sizzle.

  Another casualty of Churel Lobishomen’s ruthless tongue, he thought. And rightly so, for the man’s attire was at least a week out of fashion. No one, simply no one, wore lapis lazuli, purple or otherwise. And the vermilion robes, which seven days ago would have been regarded as the height of good taste, were now fit only for an impoverished nomad chief.

  “We should ever devote ourselves to new fashions while laughing at the old,” he said to himself, a little louder than he had intended to.

  “Volante? Is that you?” The voice was a pained whisper, but carried despite the cla
tter of storks from the bell tower of St. Ustrel’s.

  “Do I know you, sir?” He recognised the voice, but tradition dictated that he did not acknowledge it.

  The robed figure stirred and half-sat. “Indeed you do, Ossoro Volante. It is I, Niverad Durant.”

  “My dear fellow. How does the day find you?” He injected a subtle note of surprise in his voice.

  “Broiled, I fear.”

  “And yet you know that the current trend is for roasts?”

  Niverad Durant bowed his head. “Out of step, even in death.”

  “So it would seem.” Volante allowed himself a little smile. Perhaps he had not been responsible for Durant’s current condition but he could, at least, administer the final blows.

  “Where do you travel?” Durant asked, polite despite his pain, recognising the importance of the social contract even in circumstances such as these.

  “Here… there,” Volante replied, his answer and tone deliberately diffident. It did not occur to him to aid the dying man in any way, for it was neither customary nor fashionable to involve oneself in the immolation of another.

  “An urgent appointment, perhaps?”

  “Urgent enough.” Disregarding the heat and the glare and the brandy coursing through his veins, Ossoro Volante stood. Durant’s conversation was already beginning to bore him and he wished that the man would have the good grace to expire. Yet Durant was oblivious to his lack of etiquette and continued to speak.

  “I blame myself, of course—had I been a shade quicker with my response I would not be in this position. But I fear I may be the first man in the history of the world to die from carriage wit.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “The response one thinks of when in the carriage home.”

  “I am fully aware of the term ‘carriage wit,’” Volante said. “I mean explain how you could have avoided this situation.” Niverad Durant, for all his qualities—none of which Ossoro Volante could recall at the present moment—could hardly have been regarded as a humorist. Perhaps the savagery of the sun and the nearness of death had addled his mind.

  “Ah, you would have been proud of me, Ossoro,” Durant told him, his voice little more than a croak. “Had I but spoken them at the time, my words would have driven Churel Lobishomen into the arms of the Malignant Sun.” His head sagged forward onto his breast and he was silent once more.

  Volante knew that proper decorum dictated that he leave the unfortunate Durant to his fate—and under any other circumstance he would have done so without a second thought—but the man’s raving had intrigued him. Could Durant have indeed formulated a riposte capable of destroying even Churel Lobishomen?

  “Tell me, my dear friend,” Volante said, his tone pleasant and companionable. “What might you have said to achieve such an outcome?”

  Durant did not reply. He did not even stir.

  “Do you live, Durant?”

  Volante cursed softly, damning the gods of PameMurias for their fickle ways. They had offered him a weapon against Churel Lobishomen and then equally as swiftly had taken it away from him.

  Or so they thought, for Ossoro Volante was not a man to accept defeat quite so lightly. He took another deep draught from his flask and then launched himself into the burning square.

  The sun beat down on him with relentless force, scalding his limbs despite his heavy robes. Fresh gouts of sweat broke out on his face and stung his eyes but he forced himself onward.

  Without ceremony he grasped Durant’s collar and began to drag him back towards the marble trees. It was hardly an elegant scene and even the storks of St. Ustrel’s ceased their chatter to watch it.

  By the time they reached the trees Volante’s breath came in great, ragged gasps and his brain felt as if it were being boiled in his skull. His exertions had cost him greatly in both pain and dignity, but a few minutes’ rest and another large mouthful of hot brandy restored his strength so that he was able to turn his attention to the motionless Durant.

  The man still lived, though his pulse was faint and his breathing shallow. The silver mask had adhered itself to his skin and removing it proved to be a difficult and bloody business, but at last Volante was able to peel it away from Durant’s face.

  Niverad Durant had never been the most handsome of men—his features were soft and doughy—but his time in the sun had robbed him of whatever good looks he might have possessed, reducing his complexion to the colour of a boiled lobster, with blisters adorning cheeks and forehead.

  His eyes flickered, then opened.

  “My dear Ossoro,” he whispered. “This is most unbecoming of you.”

  “What were you going to say?” Volante asked. “What are the words that will drive Churel Lobishomen to his death?”

  Durant’s lips moved but no sound emerged.

  “Speak up, damn you!”

  Volante pressed his ear close to the dying man’s mouth and with the last of his strength Niverad Durant spoke a few soft words. Then he breathed no more.

  Ossoro Volante knelt there beside the scorched corpse. A tiny laugh, high and girlish, escaped from under his mask. He continued to titter as he walked away from the square, back to his cool, dusty manse, the sound totally alien to the daylight hours of PameMurias.

  When he had gone, the storks took wing from their bell tower and perched upon the limbs of the marble trees, eyeing the mortal remains of Niverad Durant with epicurean delight. They would eat well today.

  ***

  At nightfall, Ossoro Volante—suitably refreshed and revived—stepped from his courtyard into the welcoming darkness of the streets. He was dressed from head to toe in grey velvet with a matching hooded cloak draped around his shoulders. Only his three-faced masque-de-venise displayed any colour.

  And what colours they were. The faces were xanthous, not merely vulgar yellow, and their cheeks glowed with a healthy blush, the lips bright crimson—one smiling, one frowning and the third set in a neutral line—the high-arched eyebrows picked out in blue sapphire. The flesh of his chin, daringly exposed, was delicately painted with thin gold and silver leaf, the designs intricate as a Gordian knot and painstakingly applied.

  In his right hand he carried a white carnation, imported from the fabled gardens of Cardinal Kirill in PameGlorias, and in his left he carried a thin walking stick that concealed a blade of engraved steel. One way or another, his rivalry with Churel Lobishomen would end tonight.

  St. Ustrel’s Square was alive with colour. Stilt walkers paraded through the marble trees, jugglers and clowns cavorted through the crowds, fire-eaters sent huge blossoms of flame into the cool night air. Puppeteers in striped booths re-enacted the myths and legends of the Latter Days. Cloth and wood knights clashed with cloth and wood dragons. Periot romanced Columbine, their doomed love delighting the cynical and inhumane audience who applauded every setback and twist of capricious fate. The Four Cities War was fought again by grim-faced marionettes, bright red ribbons fluttering to represent the rivers of blood that had once been spilled.

  Ossoro Volante ignored it all.

  Outwardly calm, his heart beat furiously in his chest, his eyes scanned the crowds for any sign of his hated rival though he forced himself to walk in his usual manner, cane held just so, footsteps dainty upon the flagstones.

  And there, holding court beneath the Arch of Knives, he found him.

  He wore green breeches and an orange tunic, a white sash wrapped around his wasp’s waist. A matching tasseled cap of green, white and orange perched upon his head and the mask he wore, a demon’s face of carved ebony, had been fashioned to expose his grey eyes and full, wet lips.

  As ever, a crowd had gathered around Churel Lobishomen: little vultures, eager for what ever droll scraps fell from his mouth, huddled close to the most dangerous predator in the hope that he would not see them lurking in his own shadow.

  One of them, an emaciated lick-spittle named Koln Jhakin—dressed in periwinkle silk with gloves and a domino mask of the same colou
r—noticed Volante and discreetly nudged Churel Lobishomen’s elbow.

  Lobishomen turned, smoothly as a ghost, casting his gaze around the crowd, encapsulating everyone and no one, daring some fool to catch his eye. He did not linger on Ossoro Volante for longer than half a heartbeat—there must be honour amongst predators, after all—yet something compelled him look once more at the man in grey velvet.

  And to find their gazes locked. In that brief moment the challenge was offered and accepted, and the duel commenced.

  “My good friend Master Volante,” Lobishomen said, his voice as smooth as his movements. “It is a great pleasure to see you. And will be an even greater pleasure to see you go.”

  “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be out of sight of you, Master Lobishomen.” His words, amplified by the great sounding board of the Arch, carried easily through the nearby streets.

  A little gasp from those standing closest, echoed back through the crowd shaking the very air through which it passed.

  “It has begun,” the wordless whisper said. “At last it has begun.” They had waited, these patient, cruel folk, and now they gathered from every part of the city, all other entertainment abandoned.

  “Ah, Volante, you are the very antidote to conversation.”

  “Only if the words you speak are poisoned.”

  The crowd made no further sound beyond that first whisper, none of the usual superficial excitement that might accompany a duel in far-off Glorias or Murias or Valdas. This was no mere spectacle for bravos and their ladies. Instead they listened, feeling every word, every syllable that cut the warm evening air.

  They clustered around the Arch of Knives, hung from its ramparts, leaned from delicate balconies on the Rue Flussier, huddled on the steps at Vogelin Walk. Their eyes followed every move of the two men who stood beneath the great archway, their lips moved in mute synchroneity as though they could steal a little of their power through simple imitation.

  “My dear Ossoro, how tragic it must be to be born with the gift of speech but not the gift of wit.”