The Night Parade

by Scott Ciencin

  “As you wish,” Tamara said, taking Krystin’s and Ord’s palms and sharing blood with them. As Krystin and the last Harper shook off the sudden, numbing effects of sleep, they dragged themselves to their feet and stood beside Myrmeen, whose hand was outstretched to catch the rain.

  Krystin touched Myrmeen’s arm. “The Devlaines.”

  “Don’t bother,” Tamara said. “The Devlaines are dead. Doppelgangers have taken their place.”

  Somehow, Krystin was not surprised to learn that Lord Sixx had lied and that he had murdered her adopted parents. What shocked her, however, was her own lack of emotion at the news that they were dead. She felt very little for these people, her memories of them hazy and indistinct. It would strike her later, she was certain of that. For now, her mind seemed willing to protect her from the shock.

  “Bellophat,” Myrmeen said absently.

  Vizier Bellophat promised us sustenance.

  She had heard those words on the black ship that had been smuggling inhuman cargo into the city’s port. She remembered the monstrosity that could twist its body into instruments and produce sounds she had never heard before.

  “We killed Bellophat,” Myrmeen said, “drowned him.”

  “Not all of our kind need air to breathe,” Tamara said. “You inconvenienced us, that’s all.”

  “The children,” Krystin said insistently.

  “Yes,” Tamara agreed, “they are the most vulnerable. The only chance you have to save them is by killing Bellophat. If you silence his music, the people will wake and take arms against my kind. It is the only chance humans have this night. The festival is overdue, and Calimport will be gutted much worse than during the last storm.”

  “Which had not been a storm,” Myrmeen said, wondering if the rain she felt also was an illusion. Thunder clapped and lightning crackled over the water.

  “I still don’t understand,” Myrmeen said as she heard the music grow even louder. “Why are you helping us?”

  “For selfish reasons,” Tamara said. With those words she turned and leapt toward a nearby wall, which she scaled and vanished over before Myrmeen could ask her question a second time.

  Myrmeen looked at the child who might have been her daughter had circumstances been different, and the young man who had been thrust into a life he had not chosen for himself, and said, “We have to end this if we can.”

  Krystin and Ord nodded in agreement, and together they ran toward the music, the sounds of the storm and the encompassing fingers of rain closing over them as they disappeared into the night.

  Twenty-One

  “That you are my son disgusts me.”

  Alden McGregor tried to keep his own revulsion at bay as he stared at the red-skinned man who had spoken. The man’s flesh appeared to have been flayed, leaving only bare muscle and tissue. Alden could tell that the man before him in the darkened chamber once had been a beautiful physical specimen that had literally been turned inside out and stitched back together. He wore a black leather tunic, stitched up the front, his arms and legs exposed. Rubies adorned his waist sash and the bands around his arms and thighs. His eyes were sky blue.

  He was Magistrate Dymas, he explained, Lord of the Dance. When he performed, his motions could cause even the casual observer to experience vertigo and lose all motor functions. The nightmares he could provoke began with the fulfillment of fantasies and ended with the most humiliating of disappointments. The feeling of loss after even one such dream could drive a person to suicide.

  The elegance of his movements were balanced by the crudeness of his appearance, speech, and manner. Although he was intelligent and educated, his speech often lapsed into the gutter slang of his youth. He was like an animal who fiercely labored to maintain a civilized appearance. Alden loathed him.

  “These is my powers,” Dymas said. “What’s yours? You’re a dog. You hunt and sniff and follow the scent of blood. You ain’t one of us. You’re fodder. I weren’t happy when your mother died, but at least she didn’t see the wretch you are!”

  Holding back his tears, Alden looked away from the man who claimed to be his father. Dymas moved with unbelievable speed and agility, leaping to his son’s side and kneeling beside the boy as Alden recovered from the slight dizziness he felt after watching Dymas in motion.

  “I want to see Pieraccinni,” Alden said firmly.

  “That old woman has hawked you enough. Don’t you mention his name.”

  Furiously whirling on the flayed man, Alden shouted, “Pieraccinni was there for me. Where were you?”

  Dymas laughed. “You call yourself his, but you ratted on the pig when you knew he was one of us. I bet you weren’t pleased none to learn you wasn’t exactly much better.” He frowned. “Come on now, boy. Admit it. Ain’t you happier knowing your blood ain’t tainted with humanity?”

  To the night people, humans were monsters, Alden knew.

  Dymas’s features softened. “Ah. You never seen the lands of your people. Our kingdoms make this world look like nothing. If I could take you there, you wouldn’t act like this at the thought of your true sire. You’d be happy with what you are. You would, you know.”

  Raising his misshapen hands before him, Alden found he no longer could hold back his tears. His gentle hands, which had caressed the soft flanks of a dozen women, now would tear bloody gashes in their skin. He was becoming more of an animal with every hour.

  “If it was such a paradise, why leave?” Alden asked.

  “We didn’t have no choice,” Dymas said ruefully. “The prey we had ate for as long as we could remember was dying off. All we could do was eat off each other or find new worlds with new prey. There was somethin’ of a war. All this energy was released. The sages said our reality was torn. Doors opened, gateways to other realms, like this one. Most of us fought the new order. I mean, it would’ve bred the hunter from us, would’ve made us less than we are. We left our homes for these new worlds. We’ve been quiet, secret like, you know, but we’ve grown. Don’t fool yourself, we’ve—”

  “What is the apparatus?” Alden said, interrupting.

  Dymas smiled. “That you’ll know tonight.”

  Alden thought of the scene he had witnessed at the cavernous retreat, the plans Tamara and Zeal had made to betray Lord Sixx. He had kept his silence. Staring into the flayed man’s deceptively soft eyes, Alden said, “I look forward to that, father. I do.”

  “Maybe there’s hope for you,” Dymas said as he took the young man in an embrace that startled Alden.

  “Yes,” Alden said as he looked out over his father’s shoulder, his red eyes blazing, his sharp teeth grinding. “Perhaps there is, after all.”

  From outside he heard the sound of thunder and the siren’s call of Bellophat’s music, which raised a longing in his heart that sickened him. A familiar scent came to him suddenly, one that he had not expected to breathe ever again.

  Krystin was nearby.

  The proximity of her blood made him tremble. Overwhelmed by new and terrible desires, he clutched at his father, praying that he would be able to keep his inhuman needs under control long enough for Krystin to escape.

  Myrmeen, Krystin, and Ord could tell they were getting close. They had taken shelter beneath an overhang of a warehouse overlooking the docks. The music overpowered the thunder and the driving, insistent strumming of the rain. They had passed dozens of men and women who wandered about entranced, and Myrmeen wondered if Calimport would become a city of sleepwalkers; even the dour men of the city guard had succumbed to Bellophat’s sweet music, their eyes squeezed shut, smiles of transcendence on their faces. In the harbor, ships had floated toward the docks and crashed, the men on board falling over like dolls on an unsteady surface. The survivors calmly drifted into the water, many approaching shore, where they were drawn by the music.

  Myrmeen could feel the intoxicating lure of Bellophat’s call. She took Krystin’s hand and said, “I’m betting there will be no guards with Bellophat. No one is expecting a figh
t. I want you to stay here.”

  “That’s suicide,” Krystin said.

  “No,” Myrmeen said, Tamara’s blood causing a swelling of confidence within her breast. “I can do this alone.”

  “If there’s no risk, why not let us come with you?” Ord said as he felt his own need for action rise.

  Krystin touched Myrmeen’s arm. “You said you would never doubt my abilities in a fight again. You said—”

  “Just shut up and wait, all right?” Myrmeen screamed, her rage bringing her to the verge of embracing an all-too-familiar sensation: The last time she had experienced such a killing frenzy, such a taste of ecstasy, of blind animal release with no human guilt and no human feelings to bar her from her pleasure, had been the time she had slipped on Shandower’s gauntlet and felt the apparatus’s magic surge through her.

  Myrmeen bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. She shuddered as she fought the impulse to run screaming through the streets, killing anything that moved in her way.

  “It’s not just Tamara’s blood,” she said softly. “Bellophat’s music affects the night people, too. It helps release what’s in their hearts.”

  And what’s in ours, Krystin thought, frightened by what she saw in Myrmeen’s eyes.

  “Please,” Myrmeen begged, “I don’t want you to see me like this. Let me go alone.”

  Krystin backed away.

  “Protect her, Ord!” Myrmeen cried. He nodded. Unable to contain her murderous desire any longer, Myrmeen bolted from them, her boots splashing through rapidly forming puddles as she hurtled through the streets and vanished.

  Ord touched Krystin’s shoulder. She looked up and saw that not all the moisture on his face had come from the steady flow of the rain.

  “They’re gone,” he said, “all of them.”

  Krystin knew that Ord finally was allowing himself to feel the grief he had been denying over his parents’ deaths. She wondered if perhaps Tamara’s blood and the call of Bellophat’s music had pried loose his buried emotions. For whatever reason, he had begun to cry.

  Krystin felt a strength and compassion in her heart that was bold and true. She reached up and smoothed away the tear that was drifting past his cheek, then took Ord in her arms. They held each other, Ord whispering that he was sorry, so very sorry, for the things he had said and done, and Krystin’s words echoed his. The rain lessened slightly and they became aware that they were no longer alone.

  “A Harper and his slut,” a voice called.

  Krystin whirled to see a horribly wounded man standing before her on the street. The glow of lanterns created pools of light on the cobbled street where rainwater had gathered. The maze of buildings surrounding them suddenly felt tight and claustrophobic. Staring at the man who was lighted from behind by an overhead lantern, Krystin saw that he was not wounded, but had been burned or flayed.

  “Time to come out and play, my son,” Dymas called.

  Ord spun and stared straight up as he heard the scrape of claws on the fragile roof beneath which they had taken shelter. Krystin clutched at his arm as the roof was torn in half. Above, the creature that had been Alden McGregor looked down at them and licked its lips.

  Krystin had time only to scream as Alden leapt.

  Several blocks away, Myrmeen crouched in an alley, where she had forced her berserker’s rage under control. These are not the thoughts of a rational woman, she had repeated in her mind until she was able to think clearly. The irony of the statement that brought her under control was not lost on her; these were hardly normal, rational circumstances. At the end of the alley she saw people gathering and realized that she had come close to one of the many outdoor shopping pavilions. Naturally, this is where the greatest concentration of people would be found in the city at night.

  From her vantage she saw the crowd grow thick, obscuring her view of the street. A couple walked past her in the alley, another pair of somnambulists, and Myrmeen cursed her dulled senses; she had not even heard their approach. Falling in behind them, walking slowly and sluggishly so as not to attract attention, Myrmeen reached the mouth of the alley. The sight before her registered with a dull, aching shock. People lined both sides of the street. Lines of human spectators stretched as far as she could see in either direction. Others went about the business of destroying the many stands and shops in the street. They swung hammers and axes with a fervor that was a marked contrast to the glazed stares of the other humans. Details of men and woman cleared away the wreckage.

  “The Parade is coming,” a small boy whispered, “the parade of spectacle and wonder.”

  “The beautiful ones are coming,” a man said in a wistful voice, as if he were reliving his happiest memory.

  Beside the man, a woman said, “The men will be so handsome. They are brave and strong.”

  “The women lovely, lovelier than words can say.”

  “I cannot wait,” the woman said, and she sighed wickedly. “Bring them on. Bring them on now.”

  “Yes, let us admire them. Let us love them. Let us bathe in their splendor. Bring them on.”

  “Bring them on,” another man added, and soon the chant was taken up by the entire crowd. The human voices blocked out the steady drizzle that soaked them. Many had left their homes wearing the thinnest of night dresses or nothing at all. By morning, they would be left with pneumonia or worse. Myrmeen stripped off her cloak and covered a naked, shivering girl with the soft fur.

  When the woman rose, she was surprised to see movement from the end of the street. Even from a distance she could tell she was looking at a vast cavalcade of monstrosities. The Night Parade was about to fulfill the promise of its name. Myrmeen was entirely certain that if she stood rooted to where she stood, she would see Lord Sixx leading the procession, the box containing the apparatus held in his hands. Already she could make out various members of the group breaking off and surging into the appreciative audience that greeted them with whoops and cheers, laughter and applause, love and acceptance.

  Myrmeen turned and ran down the alley. She had to find Bellophat. She had to stop the music and force the people to wake up before the parade reached its conclusion and the monsters began their night of destruction and murder, a night they had waited years to enjoy. Letting the music guide her, she traveled through a maze of streets until she finally came across a deserted plaza lined with trees at the far end and marked by a closed wrought iron gate. She stood before the Plaza of Divine Truth, an open-air temple erected to the glory of Bhaelros, the god of storms and destruction known in Arabel and elsewhere in the realms as Talos. The temple’s fortified walls were four feet thick and, traditionally, guards were posted at every corner and gate. Tonight, however, the temple was deserted.

  Myrmeen had been here as a youth and knew that the plaza was divided into three interlocking courtyards. If she could have seen the plaza from the air, she would have seen three hollow squares with doorways in the north walls of the middle and bottom courtyards and a gate at the plaza’s base.

  The storm grew worse as Myrmeen scaled the first gate and leapt into the spacious, open area of the Inner Plaza, as the first court was known. She landed in a roll. A handful of human corpses had been propped in the far corner of the open space—the missing guardsmen, Myrmeen concluded. Before her, the middle gate and the far gate beyond it had been left wide open. Myrmeen drew the sword that the night people had given her and entered the second court, the Initiates’ Plaza. Carefully checking her blind areas to either side and behind her, Myrmeen slipped around the wall and saw the beautifully sculpted shrines, eight in all, to her far left and right flanks. She glanced upward to check the walls, concerned that Bellophat might have guards or followers such as those she had glimpsed in the black ship. She feared that his worshipers might leap down at her, tearing her to pieces that would comfortably fit in the massive jaws lining Bellophat’s stomach. Lightning struck a nearby tree, adding much needed illumination.

  The second court was deserted, the walls secure.
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  Slowly she approached the final gate, which led into the Chosen Plaza, the third and last court, where those willing to make the proper donation could kneel at the altar built before Bhaelros’s idol. A wall set twenty-five feet inside the Chosen Plaza blocked her view of the statue, as it would for all nonpaying callers. She peeked around the edge of the gateway, saw nothing unusual, and chose to go right. She stayed close to the stone wall and followed it another twenty feet before she reached the end and peered around its side. Sitting upon the space that once had contained the idol to Bhaelros—a god that would have been pleased with the strength and intensity of the storm wrapped around Calimport this night—was Vizier Bellophat’s sprawling mass.

  The monster did not look up. Bellophat’s eyes were shut as it concentrated solely on its craft. It was as enraptured by its own music as the entire populace of the city had been. Myrmeen surrendered to the call of blood, allowing the berserker’s rage she had been repressing to take control of her. She raced toward the seemingly helpless monstrosity. Suddenly, a dozen smaller creatures left their waiting shadows and converged on her. She was ten feet from Bellophat when they brought her down without any apparent exertion. Myrmeen screamed as she was overcome by the pack of abominations. Before her, Vizier Bellophat opened one lazy red eye, smiled, then closed it again.

  Moments after Myrmeen had left Krystin and the young Harper, Magistrate Dymas and his son, Alden McGregor, had revealed themselves. They knew that by attacking the humans they would forfeit their chance to be a part of the grand procession, but Dymas was convinced that bringing his master the beating heart of a Harper would help cement his recent return to favor with Lord Sixx. He had thought of his years of exile, and the memories had spurred him on.

  Alden crouched above Krystin’s and Ord’s heads. He was more monstrous than either of them had ever seen him. He leapt down and landed a few feet ahead of the humans, raising his claws in his father’s direction. Despite his inhuman appearance, Alden was recognizable as having been the young, charming, flaxen-haired youth who had helped the humans inflict destruction on the night people.