The Jack of Ruin

by Stephen Merlino

  Harric nodded. He felt his shoulders relaxing with the banter. “All right. You can call me kid.”

  “Back to your girlfriend. She’ll find out. All your so-called friends will. And none of them will accept it. Not Sir Willard, not even Ambassador Brolli—yeah, I know their names because I’ve been watching you. And you’ll have to give them up, kid. Once you’re my master, cutting ties is the first thing you do. Price of heroes. Which brings us to our pact.”

  Harric gestured for Fink to slow down. “You don’t understand. It’s because you are new to this land, and because all your masters have been Iberg, on the continent.”

  “I’ve learned a few things about this backward land since I was brought here.”

  “I’m sure you have. But one thing you’ve missed is that we in this backward, uncivilized, and barbaric island kingdom allow no slavery.” Steel certainties girded his heart now, and he could hear the steadiness in his own voice. Hooking a thumb under his belt, he said, “This is a bastard belt. Thirty years ago, it would mark me as a slave. Lucky for me, our Queen abolished slavery, so today I’m free. But I live every day with people who treat me like I still deserve to be a slave, and who want to toss our Queen and bring back slavery. So freedom is everything to me. I’ll never be master or slave. Never. So you and I are here to find a mutually satisfactory alternative.”

  Fink stared, blank eyes unreadable. His head cocked slightly to one side as if he were uncertain he’d heard correctly. “No slavery.” A black tongue slid out over the forest of needles and retreated. The imp glanced over his shoulder as if he feared someone listened.

  “Besides,” Harric said, “master in this life, slave in the next is a shit deal. I might live thirty years as master, and spend eternity a slave.”

  “But for that thirty years, you’d have power other mortals couldn’t dream of.”

  Harric waved it way. “Freedom is power.”

  A hiss rose in Fink’s throat. “No master, no slave? Then no pact. That’s what he wants, that’s what he gets. Just as soon as he gives me back the nexus stone he stole from my previous master, I’ll be on my way.” A taloned hand extended toward the stone in Harric’s shirt.

  Harric leaned away, one hand on the stone. “Don’t be so—”

  “And I’ll let your mother out of her hole too, so things go back to the way they were when I found you. I’m sure you two will work something out. She seems reasonable.”

  Fink knew he had most of the cards. But Harric had certainty. He knew beyond any doubt what he would not do—what he would die for—and that was a power in its own right. It put him beyond negotiation on that topic, and Fink seemed to realize it. But instead of knocking Harric from the cliff, the imp appeared frozen, uncertain, and in the hesitation, Harric sensed his chance.

  “You act like I demanded your head on a plate, Fink. But I’m offering you something precious. I’m offering you what the Queen gave me. Freedom. You and I could be equals. Call it partners.”

  Fink flinched as if Harric had jabbed him with a stick. His bald head cringed back on its skinny neck and swiveled about as if he were looking for spies. “Hush it, kid! It’s a sin for me to even think of that. If my sisters or the Black Circle back in the Compact got word I was unbound, they’d catch me and feed me to a harrow. You have to understand something. The only reason I’m on this backward, moons-forsaken island is because I’m being punished. I’m on probation, see? They banished me to this magic-less rock to serve a banished magus. It was my chance at redemption. If I got this right, I could maybe return to Ibergia, where magic is everywhere and things make sense.”

  “So…?”

  “So that all ended when the good Ambassador Brolli killed my master and you stole my nexus stone. Thanks to that, my chance at redemption is spoiled and I’m probably doomed, and my only chance is to get another blood-soul pact with you before they notice.”

  “Or freedom.”

  Fink flapped his hand and croaked, “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  “I know freedom. It has its own power.”

  “Blood-soul pact is the only power I know. It’s that or nothing.”

  Harric nodded, but the card player in him sensed a bluff. Something in the imp seemed deeply uncertain. Even desperate. “All right. You’re scared. I understand. I freed a slave girl once, and she reacted the same way at first, pissed off and paranoid because all she knew was fear and punishment—and maybe you’re like that. But you’re in Arkendia now, and our queen freed our slaves, including bastards like me, and I’ve sworn to fight on her behalf. In fact,” he said, following his instincts to call Fink’s bluff, “here—take your stone!” He tossed the witch-stone to Fink. “If it feeds on slavery, I don’t want it.”

  Fink caught the stone. His face froze.

  Harric crossed his arms, trying to look indifferent. “It’s yours, Fink. I’ll take it back, but only as partners, only if you give it as an equal.”

  Fink lowered his head and stared from narrowed white eyes. “You understand what this means, kid? I’ll take the oculus back, too.” He extended a hooked talon toward the teardrop window at the top of Harric’s mind. “That means no more third eye into the spirit world. Back to being blind. That what you want?”

  “Of course not. I want to partner with you. I want to learn from you and see more about the Unseen. I want to use its power to protect my queen. But it’s better to be free and blind.”

  Fink had frozen again. After moments of agonizing silence, the imp slowly drew himself up and lifted the witch-stone in one hand and drew his arm back to toss it to Harric. But it never came. His arm froze, mid-gesture, as if someone had grabbed it. Fink grimaced. With only his arm apparently frozen and cocked to throw, the rest of him began to shake.

  “What’s wrong?” Harric asked.

  Fink stared feverishly at the stone in his talons, as if straining against some invisible external force. The more he struggled to defy it, the more violent his trembling. Finally, he stopped and retreated, gasping from the effort. He glanced about, eyes wide with fear or surprise. “I can’t do it,” he said. “They won’t let me.”

  “They?”

  “The Black Circle. They put a compulsion on me to prevent me from giving it away without a pact. Don’t think I don’t want it, kid. I tried to give it to you. There has to be a blood-soul pact. It’s the only way.”

  “But I had it without a pact before—”

  “You stole it before.”

  A blade of panic stabbed under Harric’s breastbone. He’d won the bluff, but lost the only card he had, and lost the game—lost the stone he needed to protect his queen. And now Fink couldn’t return it without a pact.

  Unless Fink were double-bluffing. How would Harric know if he’d faked the compulsion against returning the stone?

  Fink hunched beside him, a rack of bones and hooks and blank white eyes, bony shoulders slumped in defeat, and Harric began to laugh. It was a low, voiceless laugh, under his breath, and it came from a growing sense that he had no idea whatsoever about the rules of the game he was playing. A laugh born of absurdity.

  “Something funny?” Fink croaked.

  “Yes. What you said. If this were an impit tale, this would be the part where the feckless fool, desperate for the power to protect everything he loves, and full of pity for the poor outcast imp, agrees to a blood pact.”

  Fink hissed. “Suck yourself.”

  “How’s it done?”

  “Unless you’re a contortionist, it can’t be done. That’s the point.”

  “I mean the blood-soul pact. How’s it done?”

  Fink’s lip curled. “You’ve had your little laugh. I don’t much like it.”

  “No, I want to know. How do you do the blood pact? Humor me. I’m feeling feckless.”

  Fink’s eyes narrowed. He crawled to Harric’s side, talons clicking on stone, and stood up to his full height, which was a little over Harric’s belt. Reaching up, he extended one hooked
claw and laid it to the middle of Harric’s forehead, precisely the way he’d created Harric’s oculus weeks before.

  Harric flinched.

  “You want to know or not?” Fink said.

  “Sorry. Just reflex.”

  Harric stood still as the talon pricked and burned and then slashed downward. Wincing, he dabbed his fingers in a trickle of blood before it reached his eyes. “Ow.”

  The hedge of needles glittered in the moonlight. “No pain, no pact.” Fink stepped back and drew the talon down his own bald forehead, opening a rift in the skin. No blood emerged. Beyond lay only what seemed a gap of deeper black that made the tiny hairs of Harric’s body stand on end.

  “Next, you dab your finger and place it on my wound.” Fink’s gaze grew intent, his childlike body tensed. “I pronounce the agreement. You remove your finger, and it’s sealed.”

  “Formal contract language?”

  “Of course.”

  Harric nodded. “All right. Your compulsion prevents you from giving me the nexus without a blood-soul pact. Let’s try this.” He dabbed a finger on his forehead and reached toward the imp.

  “What are you doing, kid?” The imp stepped back.

  “Just let me try something, and keep your mouth shut. Let’s see if I can speak the words of the agreement.”

  Fink’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

  So it isn’t a bluff. There really is a compulsion. And he really wants his freedom.

  Fink glanced about as Harric extended his finger, but held still as he placed it across the ghastly nothing of Fink’s wound.

  “I, Harric, make this pact in blood with Finkoklokos Marn, signifying our agreement to enter in equal partnership…” Harric raised his eyebrows as if to ask, “How am I doing? That sound formal enough?” but Fink only stared back, eyes wide, tiny body petrified.

  “A term,” Fink croaked. “It has to have a term.”

  “…till such time as either should decide to nullify the agreement…”

  Fink’s black tongue flicked across his teeth. “And I take back the stone and oculus—” he blurted.

  “…at which time the stone and oculus shall return to Fink…”

  Harric raised his eyebrows again, asking, “Anything else?”

  Fink’s expression transformed, hairless eyebrows riding high on his leathery forehead. Whether it was an expression of hope, hunger, or fear, Harric couldn’t tell. “And you’ll feed me,” Fink said.

  “What? Are you a pet?”

  “You have to feed me. Say it.”

  “This is a partnership of equals, remember? And I don’t require you to feed me, so…”

  Harric removed his finger, and a tiny curl of smoke rose from the wound on Fink’s forehead. Fink’s eyes widened and his face contorted in anger, then went slack as he ran a finger over the smooth, unbroken skin of his forehead. The wound was gone.

  His voice came out in an almost breathless whisper. “That worked?”

  Harric’s heart drummed against his ribcage. “Check and see.” He extended his hand, palm up, to receive the stone. Fink licked his teeth and extended his trembling hand over Harric’s. When his talons opened freely, the stone dropped into Harric’s grasp, and Fink’s brows shot up in surprise.

  Relief washed over Harric like cool water after long heat. He clasped the stone to his chest, and it felt cool and smooth and right in his hand. Triumph welled and he felt like shouting. He’d played it right. He’d trusted the three virtues of the jack, freed another slave, and won back the stone. And now Fink would teach him the ways of the Unseen to help preserve the Queen.

  “I’m free,” Fink whispered. He seemed to stare into nothing, though it was never easy to tell what he was looking at, since the white orbs had no pupils. Then he twitched, as if snapping out of a waking dream, and a sly grin split his face. He hacked out something that might have been a laugh and looked straight at Harric. “You freed me.”

  An unpleasant shiver slid up Harric’s spine. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Fink laid a finger across his mouth, as if to say, Hush. It’s our secret.

  And vanished.

  Harric looked up and down the empty ledge. “Fink?”

  A breeze blew up the valley, bringing with it the smell of blood from the boulder field below. Through his oculus, he risked a glance up and down the ledge, but found no sign of Fink in the Unseen.

  “See you tomorrow night?”

  A cold, slimy river stone of doubt settled in Harric’s stomach. Annoyed, he stood and shook it off. He’d freed an impit from its chains. It was a good thing because slavery was evil. He pondered his inexplicable discomfort as he walked back along the ledge, one hand trailing against the rough cliff face. Before he passed above the outer wall, he put his finger on the source of it: the problem was that he knew what it meant to free a person, but he knew almost nothing of the Unseen or Fink. So if he were honest with himself, he had to admit he had no idea what it meant to free an impit, and what he’d just done to save his own soul.

  Even the Iberg do not embrace all magic unequivocally…even they forbid traffic with the Unseen Moon—calling it the Damned Moon, the Dead Moon, the Dark Moon, the Black Moon—and condemning to drowning those who carry its dark stone…

  —From Notes from Abroad, by Sir Martis Wise

  4

  Black Moon Interlude

  On a crag above the fort, in a grotto of stone hemmed in with trees so gnarled and silvered with age that they might be mistaken for a trio of Pit Crones, Fink groveled before his sisters. Wind hissed through the branches, and the trees creaked with mocking laughter.

  “THE COUNCIL HAS CONSIDERED YOUR STATUS,” said Zire, her voice a grating sub-bass like a slab sliding on bedrock. She manifested above him as a pillar of black smoke traced with threads of silent lightning. Missy and Sic swayed to either side, skeletal shapes coiled in shadow.

  “THEY CONCLUDE THAT YOU FAILED TO PROTECT YOUR MASTER, GREMIO. THAT YOU ALLOWED HIM TO BE SLAIN, AND YOU ALLOWED HIS NEXUS STONE TO BE STOLEN.”

  “That isn’t true!” Fink said.

  “YOU WERE WATCHED.”

  “If I was watched, then someone knows Gremio slew himself! He disobeyed orders. He was to avoid combat, but he got greedy, thinking he’d capture the Kwendi secret for himself, and what’d he do? Got clobbered, that’s what, and the nexus was stolen the second he dropped it—”

  Sic moved, white bones in cloaking shadow. “Gremio is the second master to die in your charge.” Her voice was a breath of wind among stones.

  “I got the stone back! I got the kid.”

  Sic fell silent. Missy whispered something.

  “WE KNOW THAT YOU INITIATED THE YOUNG THIEF,” said Zire. “THE OCULUS YOU GAVE HIM WAS NOT SANCTIONED AND WOULD NEVER BE SANCTIONED. DO YOU CLAIM YOU HAVE SECURED HIM IN A BLOOD-SOUL PACT?”

  “Of course I have,” said Fink, tugging at his nose. “I have a responsibility for that nexus.”

  The lightning in Zire’s smoke intensified. “FIRST AN UNSANCTIONED OCULUS, NOW AN UNSANCTIONED MASTER. YOUR NEW MASTER MUST BE DESTROYED. THEN WE WILL TAKE YOU TO THE BLACK CIRCLE TO BE CONSUMED.”

  Before Fink could speak, a clawed hand reached from the smoke to seize him, as if she’d consume him then and there.

  He squeaked and hopped backward. “Are you insane? I just got an inside track to the secret of the Kwendi magic! You need me! Mother needs me!”

  Zire halted her advance, and Missy turned her skeletal head to Zire. “He speaks truth,” said Missy, in a voice like mournful owl.

  “Missy understands,” Fink said, gaining confidence in Zire’s silence. “Initiating Harric means we’re in. That oculus means he needs me and he has to trust me—so as long as he’s with the Kwendi, I’m with the Kwendi. And you know where they’re going? Nowhere less than the Kwendi’s secret city. So don’t speak to me of ‘unsanctioned initiation.’ That oculus is our key to the secret of the Kwendi magic.”

&nbs
p; The sisters stood in stunned silence. He had their attention now, because this matter went to the highest and most urgent of Mother’s schemes—higher than anyone present ever reached.

  Sic’s voice slanted in from the side, an echo of wind in a chimney. “This is a high claim. Mother will know of it, and we will return with her will. If she grants your life, know this: if you fail to acquire the secret to the Kwendi magic, you will be consumed.”

  “I WILL CONSUME HIM MYSELF,” said Zire.

  “Right,” said Fink. “Only, no, you won’t, Zire, because when this is over, Mommy’s going to reach down to weak, little, untrustworthy, demoted outcast Fink and lift him on high to sit at her side at the very center of her web. And she’ll grant me a noble form—something real sleek, like a pillar of fire—and then I’ll demote your sorry carcass for being an insufferable obstruction to greatness and send you scampering to fetch me treats.”

  Zire rose, expanding above him like a colossus rising from its knees, a juggernaut of billowing rage. Missy and Sic stepped back, and Fink’s impit heart fluttered.

  Now I’ve done it.

  He timed his leap to avoid the blow, springing up with a desperate flap of his wings.

  But in that moment, the three sisters vanished, and he saw his mistake. The air collapsed around the space they’d occupied. A deafening clap resounded in the grotto, and the wind of their vanishment plucked Fink sideways from the air and dashed him against a tree.

  He crumpled among the stones as sisterly laughter echoed in his skull.

  Spitting curses, he rose and tested his wings. He tested his limbs. Nothing broken.

  As he fled the scene, he allowed himself a secret smile. The kid’s trick had worked. He’d told them he had a new master, but in fact he was free, and his sisters couldn’t tell the difference.

  “Henceforth let it be known that those without fathers in Arkendia shall be as all free men and women, and no longer beholden to masters or to the belts that once marked them slaves.”

  —Royal Proclamation, issued by Her Majesty shortly after her ascension speech. Her advisors credited the proclamation as the impetus for assassination plots that year.