Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  “No, Osman,” yet another man said. “We have never been confused about you.” The man didn’t look at Dom as he spoke. He calmly packed tobacco into a pipe with his fat thumb.

  “So you are all convinced?” Dom asked. “When did we last see each other?”

  “Far away from here. Across the land and sea, in another world. Decades ago,” the first man said.

  “My son is about as old as you look now. We last saw you before he was born,” a second man said.

  “At least you have a son,” another old man said. “I am cursed with all daughters.”

  “So you haven’t seen me for decades,” Dom said, “and somehow in all that time I haven’t aged at all?”

  “If anything, you look younger now,” the first old man said.

  “How do you explain that? Wouldn’t it be more logical to assume that I’m not the person you think you remember? Doesn’t it make you doubt yourselves when I’m clearly so much younger than you?”

  The fourth man of the group remained silent until this question. When he opened his mouth, the other men all held their replies and turned to hear his wisdom.

  “When you left us,” the fourth man said. “When you sailed off and left us to die, we cursed you from the shore. Tell me that you don’t remember that curse. We said, ‘We curse you, Osman. You will die by our hands.’ You replied, ‘I will never die. I am the Providential.’ So, no. Your apparent age does not make me doubt myself. Your apparent age only serves to convince me more.”

  The other men nodded and agreed with the fourth man.

  Dom grew frustrated with old men. They were intractable in their impossible beliefs.

  “So you swore to kill me?” Dom asked. “You swore that I would die by your hands?”

  “Yes,” the first man said.

  “Then do it,” Dom said. “This is your chance. I’m right here. I am here before you, the man who will never die.” His voice rose as Dom pushed up from his chair. Dom almost felt like he was seeing himself from over his shoulder, as if this was one of the distant memories he had of himself in the forest. Suddenly, something occurred to Dom—the words leaving his mouth tasted bitter and chewy. These were not words of the language that Denpa taught him. These were older words, thick and unmusical. These words came from a tongue that Dom had long since forgotten, and he’d been speaking them with these four old men the entire time. Somehow, despite all these thoughts coursing through his head, Dom kept speaking. “So fulfill your curse now, if you dare. Come and kill Osman, the Providential. Let your rage fill your old hands and bring them to my throat. Or perhaps my hands will find your neck, old man.”

  The crowded cafe had fallen silent. All eyes looked to Dom, who lorded over the four small men with his arms raised and his eyes blazing with the challenge.

  The man closest to Dom spoke. “My hands are too old and tired to make good on our curse.”

  Dom looked to the first man—the man he’d met in the tobacconist—and raised his eyebrows. “And you?”

  “Wait,” the man closest to Dom said. “My hands are too tired, but my knife is spry.” The man barely moved. If he rose from his chair at all, Dom didn’t see it. All he saw was a flash of sleeve and then he felt the sharp steel pressing into his side. Bells jingled as the man stabbed. The old man pulled the blade back and thrust it again and again before Dom stumbled away.

  “Let’s see you survive that, Osman.”

  The old men cackled.

  Dom crashed through a table. Cups and plates shattered as they hit the floor. Patrons pushed out of Dom’s way. A young waiter came to Dom’s aid and propped him up to help him outside.

  A phrase of musical gibberish came from the waiter’s mouth. Dom cast a glance back over his shoulder. The old men were still sitting at their table as if nothing had happened. Then Dom turned his focus to the waiter’s lips. The language of the young waiter—the language of Denpa—suddenly made sense to Dom once more.

  “Are you okay, sir?” the waiter asked.

  Dom held his hand to his side where the blade had pierced. Dom dropped to his knees on the street.

  “I don’t know,” Dom said.

  He pulled his hand from his side, expecting to find a river of blood. Three clean holes opened in his new suit, and a trickle of coins fell out.

  “Sir! Your money,” the waiter said. He held out his hands to catch the coins.

  Dom kept looking back towards the cafe to see if the old men were coming, but he couldn’t see them anymore. They were too far back in cafe. Dom pulled up his jacket and shirt and removed the coin purse, strapped to his side. More coins fell from the purse and clattered to the street. Beggar children appeared from doorways, alleys, and from under tables, like water running downhill. They dove into the street and gathered up Dom’s spilling money.

  Under his shirt, Dom probed his side. He found a damp spot. Dom ran.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Back at his hotel, Dom disrobed to inspect his injury. Only the tip of the knife had penetrated the bag of coins and found Dom’s skin. He cleaned the dried blood and made a bandage from his ruined shirt.

  Dom put on a fresh suit, and meditated. He left his room in the early afternoon, picking his way through the shadows. He found his way to a perfume shop across the street from the tobacconist. An old man left the tobacco shop. It was the man who claimed to be cursed with all daughters. As the man limped down the hill, Dom made a hasty purchase and tucked the perfume into his bag.

  It was easy to follow the old man. He moved so slowly that Dom could shop and browse at different vendors and still match the man’s pace. The old man stopped at a fountain and washed his hands in the water. He turned down a residential street and Dom stalked after him.

  Now, Dom had nowhere to hide. There were only houses here—no vendors or shoppers to disguise Dom’s spying. Dom walked as slowly as he could, but he still inched up on the old man.

  The old man turned left down an alley as Dom caught up.

  Dom tapped him on the shoulder.

  The old man made a startled noise and turned slowly, moving his whole body around instead of turning his head.

  “What will it take?” Dom asked.

  “Pardon?” the man asked. His eyes grew wide as he recognized Dom.

  Dom forced his tongue into that old language. He couldn’t think of the words, but when he let them come, they spilled from his mouth. “What will it take to satisfy the debt between us?”

  The old man’s eyes grew wider still, like they would never stop opening farther. His pupils were cloudy, but recognition was spread across his whole face. The old man’s mouth slipped open, revealing a bottom jaw of rotted teeth and a gray, scarred tongue.

  “Tell me,” Dom said. He reached for the man to steady him, but the old man stumbled backwards. He fell. It wasn’t a violent crash to the ground. The old man seemed to crumple until he landed in a heap in the alley.

  Dom shot forward to help him up. When he knelt by his side, Dom already sensed it was too late. He checked the old man’s wrist to be sure. The old man had perished.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Dom: Do you see now why I thought to call Denpa’s death a murder?

  Malcolm: No. This sounds like an accident, just like Denpa.

  Dom: We’ll see if your opinion changes.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Dom turned and ran to the end of the alley. He established his composure by the time he reached the street. He turned the opposite direction from the way he’d come and ventured down the residential street at a brisk walk. He looked at the sky and tried to appear lost in thought. In truth, he waited for a hand to clamp on his shoulder, and for someone to accuse him of murder.

  By circling left, he meant to lose himself in the busy markets so he could wind his way back to the hotel. He never expected to stumble on yet another of the four old men. In fact, lost in his guilt, Dom might never have recognized the shuffling old man across the street except for the fact that the man recogn
ized him. When he saw Dom coming towards him, the man stopped, turned, and lunged for a staircase that led down to a public square.

  “Wait!” Dom shouted. He jogged across the street and reached the head of the stairs just as the first screams rang out from below. Dom stopped at the top stair and gaped down at the scene. The old man—this was the one who had stabbed Dom’s coins—was curled at the foot of the long stone staircase, surrounded by a crowd.

  Dom ran.

  He knew that running was just drawing attention to himself, but he couldn’t still his own legs. People stopped to watch him sprint by.

  Dom ran up the hill and turned west. He ran through neighborhoods until his legs grew too tired to do anything more than walk. He turned back downhill, towards the river, as the houses thinned and he walked between fields of rice and vegetables.

  When he ran out of road, he found himself at the muddy bank of the river, upstream of the city. Dom sat and shivered in his sweaty clothes.

  The sun began to set and a cold wind blew down the river.

  Dom pushed to his feet. His legs bunched and cramped as Dom trudged along the river, back towards his hotel.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Pemba spotted Dom crossing through the lobby and he followed Dom to his room.

  “You’re a mess! What have you done to your beautiful suit?” Pemba asked.

  Dom didn’t answer. He stripped his clothes.

  “Dom. Tell me what happened.” Pemba picked up Dom’s muddy pants and began to fold them. Dom tore them from his hands and stuffed them into a cotton bag.

  “Dom, stop,” Pemba said.

  Dom dropped his bag and collapsed to the floor. He cradled his head in his hands. Pemba knelt next to Dom and placed his hand on his shoulder.

  “I just wanted to talk to them. I wanted to try to make amends.”

  “Who? Who do you owe amends?”

  “The old men,” Dom said. “They said I was Osman and I left them to die on the desert peninsula.”

  “What? When was this?”

  “Decades ago. Before you were born,” Dom said.

  “Dom, you’re not that much older than me. How could you have left anyone to die when you were an infant?”

  “It’s hard to understand,” Dom said.

  “No, it’s perfectly easy to understand. It was a scam. Those men were trying to extort you for money over something you didn’t do.”

  “They didn’t ask me for money.”

  “Yes, that’s the worst kind. They don’t ask you for money. They make you think it’s your idea to pay them off. Trust me, Dom. I’ve seen this kind of scam a million times. You have nothing to fear. You’re the victim.”

  “They knew things.”

  “Nothing more than guesses and deduction.”

  “They called me Providential, and they spoke in my old tongue. They spoke in a language that I didn’t know I still remembered. I spoke in it too. And this,” Dom said. He unwrapped the shirt strapped around his midsection. A small spot of blood stained the cloth. Dom picked at the crusted blood on his skin.

  “What happened?”

  “One of them stabbed me.”

  “Dear lord!” Pemba said. “We have to get you to the authorities. I was wrong. These men are dangerous.”

  “I can’t go to the authorities,” Dom said.

  “Why not? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “The man who did this is...” Dom said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “dead.”

  “What? Dom, you must tell me everything.”

  Dom took in a big, hitching breath and told the story from the beginning. Pemba had heard the original story about the tobacconist, but Dom told it again, so Pemba could hear it fresh. By the time he finished, Pemba sat next to him on the floor and mirrored his pose, with his head cradled in his hands.

  “Sounds like there were a lot of witnesses in the cafe who heard you threaten the man.”

  “He stabbed me!”

  “Do they know that? You said you were in the corner. Did anyone see this man stab you?”

  “I don’t know. Only the waiter helped me to the street.”

  “Did anyone see you near either of the dead men?”

  “Not the first one, but some of the people at the bottom of the stairs saw me.”

  “How far away? Could they recognize you?”

  “I can picture them, so probably.”

  “Okay,” Pemba said. “We’ll need to get you out of the city without arousing suspicion. You still have something decent to wear? Get changed and I’ll arrange for transport.”

  Pemba got up and moved towards the door. Dom still sat, staring at the floor.

  “Dom, get up.”

  “Yes,” Dom said.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Dom cleaned himself up, changed into his last good suit, and waited. Hours passed and worry settled into Dom’s gut. He watched the sunset through the window as his brain swirled with fear for his friend.

  Pemba returned with a small bag just as Dom resolved to go search for him. Pemba walked Dom to the lobby and talked in his ear.

  “A carriage is waiting for us outside. We’ll take that east through the manufacturing district. One of the barges will take you downriver to the next town and I’ll arrange for a nice passenger vessel to pick you up there. From there, you won’t arouse any curiosity.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “I have meetings scheduled. I’d be missed. I’ll come as far as the barge and then I’ll come back. Besides, we’re checked in here under my name. We wouldn’t want our flight connected with the deaths.”

  “Okay,” Dom said.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Outside, an elegant horse waited to pull their cart through the city. Pemba showed Dom into the carriage and tipped the driver extra to carry them down the less-traveled streets to their destination. Pemba pulled the curtains. They sat in the dark as the carriage began to move. Dom’s stomach made a slow, sick flip.

  “How did you arrange for the barge to take me away?”

  “I know the captain, and the man who contracted him,” Pemba said. “They were more than happy to have me in their debt.”

  “And the remainder of the trip?”

  “I’ll have to pay for the rest of the voyage. It will be pricey, but you have money. What’s the point in having it, if you don’t spend it?”

  “I feel terrible that I’m leaving Diki again without saying goodbye.”

  “Would you rather wait until morning?”

  “No,” Dom said. “But we were supposed to have dinner with her.”

  “I sent word,” Pemba said. “I’m sure she was happy to have the extra time for her course work.”

  The carriage jerked to a stop. Pemba nudged the curtain for a peek and then turned to Dom. “I’m going to see why we stopped. Don’t get out.”

  Before he could reach for the door, someone banged an insistent knock from the outside.

  “No! Let me go out alone. It could be agents of the old men.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Pemba said. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  Pemba pushed open the door and a hand grabbed him. In a dark instant, Pemba was gone and the door was slammed shut again. Dom scrambled across the seat and tried to follow. The door was locked. The carriage jerked forward again.

  Dom threw aside the rear curtain and saw an empty street. He banged on the ceiling. The driver didn’t respond. He threw his shoulder against the door, but couldn’t generate enough force inside the small cabin. As the carriage jostled down the dark street, Dom stretched himself across the interior, pressing his hands against the wall and his feet against the door. He gritted his teeth and growled, expending all of his strength. The door snapped and flew open. Dom crashed to the floor and then dove out into the night.

  He tucked into a ball before hitting the ground.

  Up the street, he saw his carriage and two others come to a stop with a clatter of hooves. Men shouted and dropped from the sid
es. Dom sprinted down a dark alley as the men gave chase.

  Dom jumped over walls and sprinted across small courtyards, hoping to find a dark corner where he could hide. Behind him, he heard the men shouting to each other as they fanned out and searched the night. All around, dogs barked and lights came on inside the closely-grouped houses.

  Dom turned uphill—away from the river and the barges—hoping to throw off the pursuers. The shouts grew further away and Dom tried to shift from his panic to a stealthier escape. He cursed himself for every hard footfall.

  A heavy shove from the darkness knocked Dom into a wall. Powerful arms gripped him and a loud voice summoned help. Dom struggled to get free, but soon the two arms holding him down became four, then six. A rough sack was pulled over his head. His arms were looped behind his back and bound at the wrists.

  Dom fought and screamed as a dozen hands lifted him and threw him in the back of a cart. He bit at the hand muffling his mouth and he felt more bags being pulled over the first. Dom struggled for breath through the rough cloth as tight rope was wound around his head, pulling the sack into his mouth. Dom grew still. He focused on remaining conscious with the limited oxygen available. Despite his efforts, he felt the world receding.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Dom woke on the floor of a small room. Candles burned in wall-mounted holders. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made from the same tan stone. Dom’s right eye was blurry and his eyelid felt tight. He tried to straighten his legs. As he did, he felt his arms being pulled back and a loop tightening around his neck. Dom bent backwards to relieve the pressure.

  A door opened behind him, and Dom heard someone shuffle their slow feet into the room. The door slammed shut once more.

  “Are you awake, Osman?” the old, grating voice asked. Dom recognized the voice of the old man from the tobacconist. He spoke the local tongue. “Or should I call you Dom, or Torma, or Constantine, or the father of Diki? It seems that you have plenty of names.”