The Jack of Souls

by Merlino, Stephen

  His eyebrows rose at the fury in her bloodshot eyes, and he began to chuckle. “How could I have been so blind not to see it before? I’ve finally found something you can’t control. Magic! I must fight magic with magic!”

  “You leave me no choice.” Her eyes rolled back in her head as the vision took hold.

  “Stop it, Mother.”

  Her jaw went slack. She collapsed to her knees and fell on her back as if a giant invisible hand pinned her like a bug.

  “Your doom approaches!” she gasped. “It comes apace! I see it before me! Oh! Flesh and blood from the very court you will one day destroy! It is woven in the sky!”

  “Shut up!” he shouted. “You lie. You always lie. And I don’t care what’s woven anywhere. I don’t care about your dooms! I’ll make my own damned future!”

  Grabbing the heavy carpetbag of tricks from the bottom of the closet, he heaved it almost savagely at her feet. “My Proof will destroy your doom!”

  But the bag merely thumped on the floor where she’d been.

  He was alone and shouting at the air again.

  *

  Harric stood in the market in the back of his grain cart, bag of tricks at his feet, as the first emigrant train poured through the south gate of Gallows Ferry. Its herd of peasants led the procession, staring and stunned from the terrifying journey across the wild river, and up the Hanging Road across the face of the Godswall. Plainly they found Gallows Ferry no more comforting than the road had been; it must have seemed to them a mere hanging village crowded onto a wide ledge on the road.

  A family at the front of the procession halted when the road plunged into the morning gloom of the Crack behind the inn. It must have reminded them of the treacherous canyons they had traversed in the scablands, only this one was artificial, made by the back of the inn on one side and the cliff face on the other. By the expressions on this family’s faces, however, it was clear they’d prefer the dangers of sand cats and scorpions in the scablands to what they saw ahead in the Crack: an alley lined with frontier hucksters and peddlers in a kind of hawker’s gauntlet.

  A bolder family shouldered past the bewildered family, faces set, to be swallowed by the gloom, and as they trudged between the first stalls, the gauntlet of hawkers erupted.

  “Fresh butter! Queen’s prices!”

  “Mend your shoes! Hard roads ahead!”

  “Witches on the road! Protect your children! Get your witch glass here!”

  To that Harric added his cry of, “Feed grain! Buy now! No grazing left on the road!”

  His cart stood right in the middle of the market, with its nose tucked under the back porch of the inn. The rest of the merchants had been so delighted to see him alive that morning they’d given him the prime spot. Not only was it the narrowest point in the market, where the porch pinched the road and slowed the passing emigrants, it was also the most entertaining place in the Crack. By midday, the porch attracted revelers who watched the drama of emigrants and merchants like hecklers at a stage play. Best of all, he was safe from Lyla’s master there, as the lord couldn’t act against him in such a public place.

  Harric studied the mass of peasants as it slid by, a brown river stinking of unwashed bodies and last night’s garlic. In their eyes he saw worry and mistrust. Dozens of families trudged past in this caravan, likely a whole village being transplanted to the Free Lands. But they were not free peasants of the East Isle. Each bore a blot of orange paint in their hair, marking them the property of a West Isle lord.

  Harric’s jaw tightened. Among the families walked a giant and giantess who were clearly the product of some ancient Westie breeding project. He’d seen the sort before: pinched skulls with unnaturally huge mouths and tiny eyes too close together. The giant’s eyes stayed fixed on the mud, as if ashamed to meet a gaze; the giantess gripped his hand and glared at everyone she passed.

  “Welcome to the Not-so-Free Lands,” Harric muttered. He understood the reasons why the Queen had welcomed Westies to settle the north, but he hated that political necessity. If he could achieve his Proof that day at the expense of every Westie lord that passed, it would bring an added sweetness to the day.

  Soon a mounted lord emerged through the gate, attended by two retainers. Orange accents in their clothing and trappings declared the lord to be a gentleman of low rank and master of the orange-marked slaves. At the sight of him, Harric felt a spark of anxiety in his belly. His death might come with any such lord. “Flesh and blood from the court,” she had pronounced in her latest doom. Though few actual courtiers came through, many visited the court for one reason or another, so that left a lot of possibilities. His death could come in the form of an unwanted duel from a drunken lord or from a simple fall on his neck when a courtier’s carriage jostled his cart. How could he defend against that?

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on slowing his breathing to calm his heart. Block out the fear, or you’ll make a mistake and fulfill her stupid doom for her. Just relax and enjoy the game of cons.

  Harric opened his eyes and studied his first mark. The lord was no older than Harric. He carried himself with none of the easy confidence of one well traveled or educated in court, but instead wore haughtiness as armor: his glance a sneer, his laugh too loud, as one ill at ease off his own estate. Around his neck he wore numerous witch charms, marking him as superstitious as the peasants he led.

  An easy mark, yet the sight of the man opened a gulf of dread in Harric’s gut, as if he were the one out of place.

  A simple Bait and Switch will do, he decided. Nothing fancy. Play it safe.

  He lifted a large but wilted paint-flower from his bag of tricks. The edges of the crimson petals overflowed both hands as he held the flower to his nose and tested its scent. Pungent. Not unpleasant. Still strong enough to drive off flies, and its familiar scent gave him a swell of confidence as he raised it above his head. He laid it carefully on his crown so the fringe of petals drooped below his brow like a bowl-cut jester’s wig, and stood waiting for the lord.

  “Well I’ll be a horse’s pizzle,” said a voice behind him. “You live!”

  Harric looked back to see one of the middle-aged yeomen who had been drinking and playing cards on the porch for the past two days. He and his mates had bought Harric drinks while they played a complex drinking game that took its cues from the market: when the tinker clanged his pots, someone drank; when a horse pissed, another drank; when Harric sold an ass-lily to a Westie, everyone drained their cups. A pulse of dread in Harric. The man and his comrades knew too much of Harric’s games. In the last few days he’d openly shown off some of his cons, to the immense amusement of the revelers. Since he was going to die anyway, why not have a little fun? But now that he’d decided on his Proof, he wished he hadn’t so freely discarded his cover. The yeomen backed him, but they were normally raging drunk by noon, and to them it was all a game; if they blabbed around the wrong person—Rudy, for instance, or some aggrieved Westie lord—Harric could be hung as a thief.

  “Heard a hell of a racket last night upstairs. Figured they’d come for ye, but the fog so thick no one could see their hand in front of their face. Broke our hearts,” the yeoman said, laying a hand to his breast. “Weren’t nothing we could do. But you live! No one expected that.”

  Harric forced a smile. “It’s a little awkward. But it isn’t over yet. Not till sunset.”

  The yeoman raised one of Mags’s tall wine cups to his lips. “Me and the boys did our best to make certain there wouldn’t be a drop of your wine left, like you said. The cup you see before you is the last.” He sipped it as if husbanding the last of a very fine vintage. “You gonna throw another party tonight?”

  Harric nodded, anxiously aware that the orange lord floated nearer in the river of peasants. “If I live past sunset, you can expect one twice as big.” He said it with a note of finality, but the yeoman leaned over the porch rail and beckoned to Harric with a conspiratorial grin. “You gonna sell an ass-lily to this orange-bl
ood Westie? Me and the boys love that! No Westie ever cared much for bastards or for bastard freedom in the north.”

  “And we don’t care much for Westies bringing slaves to the Free Lands.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  The orange lord reined in before Harric’s cart and stared at Harric’s head ornament with unrestrained contempt.

  “Would Your Lordship care to buy grain?” said Harric, returning his gaze as if it were perfectly normal to wear a drooping flower on one’s head in Gallows Ferry.

  “Bastard, there is a plant on your head.”

  “Yes, Your Lordship. As you can see, it keeps the flies off nicely.”

  The lord’s mirth transformed to interest. “A paint-flower! I thought them rare in the north.”

  “Your lordship is wise in the ways of plants.”

  The lord’s eyes flashed to the green and black of Harric’s bastard belt. Scorn and envy glinted in his gaze. “I must have that flower, bastard. You will sell it for five silver queens.”

  “Ten queens, Your Lordship. I set my own price for things that are mine. On this isle, a bastard is free.”

  He never tired of saying those words to Westies.

  The lord flushed, but hid his irritation behind a clipped laugh. “Ten queens, then. Worth twenty to be rid of the flies on this stinking road. Every slave in the Isles has shit on it.”

  One of the grooms paid, and Harric produced a bud as big as his hand from the bottom of his bag of cons. It looked very much like a paint-flower might look when closed, and since ass-lilies grew only in the north, the man would see no difference.

  The lord lifted it to his nose and recoiled. “It’s the very crack of a hog!”

  The yeoman choked and coughed behind Harric. Wine had shot from his nose.

  The lord studied him, eyes narrowed, as the yeoman sputtered apologies.

  “The scent changes when it opens,” Harric explained. “That’s when it repels the flies. Just keep it in the sun on your hat till then, and soak it in water each night so it outlasts the week.”

  The lord examined it skeptically. “The petals are brown. Paint-flowers are red.”

  “They turn red once they open, my lord.”

  “No. I’ll take the one on your head.”

  Harric brightened. “Same price, of course.” He leaned forward so the petals fell away from his forehead. Gently slipping the edge of his hand beneath them, he lifted it free of his head. One of the petals fell off, but he scooped it up and placed it on top with a flourish. “There you are, Your Lordship. Not as fresh, but treat it kindly, and it should last a good couple days.”

  The lord frowned. Without Harric’s hair to support the petals, they drooped like the head of a threadbare mop. “How dare you offer me such rubbish.” He waved off the tired flower, and tossed the fresh bud back to Harric. “I will take the bud. Give me a pin for it.”

  Harric made a show of suppressing his disappointment. “But this flower is already open, Your Lordship—”

  “Do you take me for a fool?”

  “Yes,” the yeoman muttered.

  “No, Your Lordship,” said Harric, as one of the lord’s retainers shot the yeoman a look. The lord’s eyes caught the retainer’s look and followed his glare to the yeoman, but Harric handed up the bud with a pin, diverting his attention. The next moment the lord rode off with it wagging on his hat.

  Harric breathed a sigh of relief, and kicked himself for letting the yeoman see too much the day before.

  The yeoman laughed until he wept. “Every fly in the country will find him when it opens. It’ll be a week before he knows he’s been had.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Harric, and his look of blank innocence made the man laugh even harder. The laughter was good. It kept the anxiety at bay.

  One down, he thought. Nineteen to go.

  With luck, maybe the yeoman and his crew would pass out before they blew his cover.

  *

  By noon the porch rails dripped with revelers, and the market boomed with merriment. The yeoman and his mates were still going strong, and when they told newcomers of Harric’s sunset doom, everyone bought Harric drinks of apple wine.

  “To your doom!” they toasted. “May it be a gentle one!”

  Harric drank.

  When a squire discharged a long-barreled spitfire over the crowd, one cried, “Spitfire! All drink!” and Harric joined in another.

  Not an hour went by in which he didn’t con at least one well-born Westie. Lyla appeared once on the porch to shake out a rug and empty a chamber pot. She managed to give Harric a conspiratorial nod before the head maid called her name and she hurried back inside. Caris never resurfaced, however, which worried Harric. After their adventure in the fog, she’d probably fled to the stables and curled up in a ball at the back of a stall. He longed to check on her, coax her back to her feet before Rudy spotted her and used it to prove her imbecility, but Harric dared not interrupt the Proof. It was just as likely she’d taken Rag for a ride up the Hanging Road. He hoped so.

  Caris’s absence also came as a relief, however, since he couldn’t pull cons in her presence. Her ideas of nobility and honor were about as rigid as his were loose, which was why he hadn’t yet dared to explain to her the true nature of his childhood training. He’d only told her part of the truth: that his mother had him trained to be a squire. The fact that he only learned enough squiring to make a convincing cover for his real arts was something he dreaded might end their friendship.

  By late afternoon he scored his eighteenth and nineteenth cons, the last upon a balding Westie squire who rode off with a reduction of goat piss to rub in his scalp for new hair. With that he’d matched his mother’s record, and with one more he’d have his Proof. But two hours passed after that without a suitable lord or lady passing through. Several lords passed, but they appeared to be from court; when he saw these, he held his breath and let them pass without engaging.

  During those hours, too, the servants of Lyla’s former master found him. The lord’s men were easy to spot in their saffron-colored liveries. Four of them took stations on the porch, watching and waiting for Harric to try to leave. Harric’s stomach flopped over inside him.

  Worry about them later, he tutored himself. Concentrate on nineteen.

  The inn’s shadow crept steadily up the cliff wall, marking the downward path of the sun in the west, and still no suitable marks appeared. When the inn and its shadow finally reached an equal height, Harric knew the sun touched the horizon, and he had little time left. To get his twentieth con, he’d have to attempt a courtier.

  “Carriage!” a reveler called, pointing to the gate. “Drink!”

  A fine carriage trundled through the south gate, brass tokens flashing on the breasts of the lead horses. A knot of doubt twisted Harric’s stomach, as he recognized the tokens as licenses admitting carriages into the court of the Queen.

  Harric muttered a silent curse. “You think it’s my doom you send in that carriage, don’t you, Mother? Well, you’re wrong. It’s my Proof.”

  “Sir Bastard!” The yeoman leaned across the porch rail to offer a cup of frothing apple wine. “This your magic number? We must toast!”

  Harric bowed to the yeoman, never taking his eyes from the carriage. He waved off the wine. “Keep it for after,” he said. “For this I’ll need my wits.”

  Red Moon rising, full and woode,

  He bleeds fell Molly, drinks her Blood,

  On every moon, he drinks again,

  An ageless, wound-less, strength of ten.

  —From “Immortality Becomes Him,” a Sir Willard ballad circa early reign of Chasia

  4

  Of Debt & Hexes

  Sir Willard followed the road down a winding canyon toward the river, herding the ponies and the ambassador before him, still concealed beneath his blanket.

  If they hadn’t taken a wrong turn into one of the dead-end alleys of the scablands, they should be nearin
g the Gallows Ferry crossing, where their flight would be over. Once there, he’d board a ferry, cross the river, and force the ferrymen to tie up for the night, stranding Sir Green on the opposite shore until morning. With his crossbow-happy pursuers off his tail, Willard could trade for fresh horses in Gallows Ferry, and still leave with a big enough lead to shake his pursuers for good.

  Let’s see you catch me then, Sir Green.

  Relief settled in his mind. Brolli would finally be safe, and hope for a treaty with his people would be restored. Moreover, Willard needn’t drink the Blood that would save him—but enslave him—once again, and shatter his oath to Anna.

  He grunted, puffing on a roll of ragleaf. Don’t kid yourself, old man. Something’s bound to go sideways on us. More likely it all ends on the bottom of the river.

  From a blind corner, they emerged at the head of a narrow, steep-walled valley that dropped between bluffs to the river and a graveled beach, two stone-throws below him. A wooden ferry dock jutted from the middle of the beach into the current. Beyond the dock and the wide river, the Godswall soared into the blue sky, a curtain of granite capped with sun-bright peaks of white.

  He reined in sharply, surprised to see hundreds of emigrants filling the valley below him and obstructing the road all the way to the water. They were mostly simple folk, with their animals; they’d squatted or lain down on the ground in exhaustion, waiting their turn for a ferry.

  The nearest travelers looked up at Willard in surprise, not ten paces away. Then their eyes widened in recognition and horror.

  “Phyros!” a man screamed. A mule caught Molly’s scent and kicked free of its handler to flee up the side of the gully. In the time it took to suck a breath and yell, the crowd exploded, screaming and fleeing. Goats bolted up the rocks; an ox snapped its tether and ran bellowing for the water, knocking people sideways. Some picked themselves up and fled in its wake, others scrambled up the bluffs to hide in the rocks. Mothers huddled their children for fear of trampling.