Daygo's Fury

by John F. O' Sullivan

  There was something mystique about it, something hidden. Everyone paraded around the streets, majestic in their debauchery, in their celebration of life. There were no living remnants left of the war of the beasts, no old grey beards to tell the tale, no one within a hundred years of it, no one even that had been told an eyewitness account. It was a dead thing, part of a past that was mysterious and unlikely. Many didn’t believe the tales. They thought them something that parents used to frighten their children at night-time. There were conspiracy theories behind them: that it was an invention of the Church of Levitas to manifest power, using it as a fear of real punishment within the world unless people lived as they told them; or that it was a tool used by the kings and monarchies, giving them a rightful claim to power and legitimizing their rule. Racquel had even heard it whispered that in Darwin the truth was known, that it was all an extravagant lie. But the slums were full of such rumours and suspicion, where many of the tellers of the tales secretly didn’t believe what they told but enjoyed the rapt attention of their audience.

  But on this day, regardless of people’s thoughts, the heroes of the past, true or false, were honoured and toasted. There was a celebration, city wide. The streets of the slums were without rules. Madness took hold. A place that was dangerous by nature became unpredictable and utterly deadly. Liam seemed to revel in it, feeling at home in the madness. He had told her that Calum and he used to love festival days and that the takings were so high they would last them for weeks afterwards. But today he wasn’t on the take. He was out to celebrate with everyone else, with her.

  She shivered as bad memories assaulted her mind, the days spent praying and hoping, drip feeding his unconscious form water, waiting but seeing no sign of change, panicky, expecting Deaglan or Ultan or anyone to come around the corner of the alleyway and finish him off and take her … to do as they desired. She had wept with relief when he first opened his eyes. His mouth had twitched in an attempted smile and her heart had lurched with guilt and depth and gratitude. She desperately did all that she could for him; running to the market and the well for food and water, spending all his coin, telling him that she had already eaten while her skin stretched across bone. She had tried to steal from vendors but didn’t have the knack for avoiding their wary eyes. After she was caught a second time and punched across the face so that bright lights spun through her vision, she gave up.

  He was slow, so slow in recovering. They ran out of coin by the end of the week, and he insisted that they move. It had taken all day but they crossed the Great Road and made it across to the riverfront, Racquel under his arm, lending all the strength she could muster to him. Even so, they had to stop often, Liam too weak to continue, Racquel pretending that she was fine. It had been a hellish journey added to by the gnawing in her stomach. By the time they found a place to shelter, they both collapsed with fatigue and fell into an exhausted sleep.

  The next day, strangely, Liam seemed improved. Racquel had expected the journey to hinder his recovery but it seemed to do the opposite. He seemed revived and upbeat to have left their old district behind. He was able to travel with her as she hunted for food. He taught her and instructed her as to what to do and how to avoid notice, and she had moderate success while he sat at the side of the road begging, too weak to contribute anything but his knowledge.

  They survived that first month, barely. But in their survival was growth and improvement. Racquel learned from Liam’s vast knowledge of slum survival, and Liam gained in strength, every day getting a little closer to his old self, until he was able to partner with Racquel. Together they re-enacted old plays perfected by Liam and Calum. One day he brought her a knife and taught her how to use it, where to aim for, and more than anything else, never to hesitate. He said that the only advantage they had was the hesitation of their opponent. They were caught off guard by their size and age, or made complacent by it. That is what they had to pounce on. He told her that she had to be more ruthless than them but then seemed to hesitate and trailed off. Racquel let the conversation die. She was uncomfortable with it, though she sensed that what he said was only true. She doubted herself. How could she not hesitate? How could she cut a man or a boy? How could she hope to win?

  A while later, Liam started leaving on his own during the main trading hours of the day. He told her he wanted to investigate something with the gang and that it would be better for him to be on his own. Soon after, he began returning with coin, and the stakes grew larger and larger. Finally it seemed that they might do more than barely survive, the terrible gloom and fear started to lift from them. Perhaps they would be okay, perhaps they would survive. Before it almost felt as though they were doing it for show, as though both of them knew that really it was all for nothing, that they were done, that it was only a matter of time. They were attempting survival only because they didn’t know what else to do, or how else to behave.

  Liam was vague about his trips away. Eventually, Racquel stopped asking, happy that whatever he was doing was saving them, happy that he could fill his stomach again and recover some of the life that she had stolen from him.

  One day she realised, like a cool breeze had suddenly swept the mist from her mind, that he had had a plan for survival all along. A hundred looks over that first month, sometimes with a faraway glaze, sometimes inwards, as though scouring his soul, sometimes frowning after the merchants walking the streets, took on a whole new meaning to her. She had taken them for melancholic, hopeless looks, doomed and lost, frowning after the merchants’ wealth and their ease of life, at everything they had that he never would. And she had made herself all the more desperately determined at what she thought was his despair. She promised again and again, frowning and inwardly shouting herself to sleep every night with it, refusing and battling against her own despair, that she would not let him down, that she would keep trying, that she would help him recover and give him back the life that she had taken from him, that he had given up for her. She needed to be doubly determined for both of them.

  But in that moment, she had realised that he wasn’t despairing, he was planning, he was thinking and when he frowned after those merchants, he wasn’t resentful of what they had but studious of it, taking in every detail and learning from it. He would even drift after them from time to time, watching to see what business would they perform and where.

  She knew then that he was not going to see the gang or working for them. That somehow the coin that he returned with was theirs, as was the blood. She closed her eyes against the thought, feeling a familiar pressure in her chest. How could she judge him for it? How could she hold herself above it? He just … he knew what they had to do and he did it. She was the dead weight now that she had promised she would not be. Her head hung low, sadly, feeling a weight of responsibility drag at her.

  But then she opened her eyes and saw him approach. He noticed her at the same time and his face split into a wide smile and her heart leapt, instantly filling her with joy and reassurance. He lifted a large wine bottle in his hand and shook it at her. She laughed as he tipped it towards his lips and drank deeply, making his way through the crowd towards her.

  She put a hand on his shoulder as he came alongside her and leaned into him, reaching for the bottle in his hand. He smiled as he handed it to her. She lifted it to her lips and took a long drink, growing used to its bitter flavour. She loved the happy release that it gave her now, when she was safe by his side. She could laugh and be jolly, hidden away, in a soft mist, from all the torments of her life and turmoil of her mind.

  “So you managed to get one!” she gasped as she handed him back the bottle.

  “Ya. When do I not?”

  “Never!” she smiled, looking into his face. He looked well in his new cloak. His face was clean from dirt, thin and handsome, his black hair parted.

  “I got some of this too!” he fished a wooden box of face paints from his pocket. “Four colours,” he smiled as he reached into it, tracing the dust with his finger. She
grabbed his hand.

  “It needs water to work!” she turned from him and ducked under the railing. Climbing down the bank to the river’s edge, she dipped both hands wrist deep into the cool water. She splashed some onto her face and then climbed back up the bank, her wet hands carefully upheld from the dirt.

  “Here,” she said as she stood up from under the railing. She put both of her cold hands onto his face.

  “Oi,” he said, pulling back his head slightly. She laughed and pressed her hands back on his cheeks.

  “Now you’re wet too.” She reached a finger into the dusty paint, and they both started to draw across one another’s faces, giggling and laughing as they did so. Racquel’s finger traced black in a wide arc around his forehead, over his temple, down to his jaw and along its fine edge to his chin, then slowly up to his lower lip. She brushed her finger softly on his chin, enjoying his touch as he rubbed the paint into her skin with equal tenderness. “Finished!” she said finally.

  “Just one more … There!” He lifted his hand with a flourish.

  “What am I?”

  “What am I?” he laughed back.

  “Me first!”

  “You’re a Vavrian Princess!”

  Racquel clapped.

  “An ugly one!” Liam added, laughing as he examined his work.

  “Well, you’re an even uglier Seption overlord!”

  Liam laughed again. “There was no such thing as a Seption overlord!”

  “How do ye know?”

  He shrugged. “Just always thought that was a story.”

  “What about the beasts?”

  “They’re real!”

  “How do ye know that?”

  He shrugged again. She laughed at him. They leaned close and drank more wine. They were comfortable with each other’s touch now, aware of the other’s body and knowing it, relishing the freedom that it gave them. They turned and walked down the boardwalk together, sharing from the bottle and watching the entertainment as they passed. Racquel occasionally leaned into him, their hands brushing together as she did so and her mind wondered to when that freedom stemmed.

  For a long time after Liam had saved her, they had been too focused on bare survival and too beaten by hunger and hardship to consider anything else. It was close to two months afterwards that they started to notice one another again, when Liam was bringing in regular income and they had found their house to live in, when they finally had full stomachs every day and were able to wash themselves and clean their clothes in the makeshift bath that Racquel had built to collect rainwater. They had started to look at one another. Their gazes and glances grew shy. Racquel didn’t know which one of them started it, but all of a sudden it seemed to be the only thing that occupied her mind. When she was away from him, her thoughts began to wander towards loose things that he said or when he laughed happily at something she did, or when he made her laugh. She started to look expectantly towards him when they were alone in their house. She became more aware of him as she sat close, of every touch and contact. One day as she sat beside him, their arms gently touching, her leg an inch from his, she had looked up into his eyes and tilted her face towards his. She didn’t look away and waited. He had glanced away for a moment and then back and all of a sudden his mouth was on hers. His movement had been swift, as though he feared going slowly, as though he was afraid that she would change her mind. Their kiss had been short and passionate, different from the one they had shared before. They had smiled sheepishly at each other afterwards.

  They didn’t kiss the next night but the night after that. And soon every evening, when they found themselves alone in the house, after working through the day at the different markets, they would embrace, wrapping their arms around one another, their mouths and tongues meeting. His hands started to roam over her body and she ran hers through his hair or over his back, clinging to him tightly. As they pushed together, she sometimes felt a hard protrusion against her. At first she had thought it his knife, but as he shifted shyly away she realised what it was. She started to press tighter against him, searching for that hardness and pressing against it, her arousal heightened by his.

  She allowed his hands free rein as they clasped around her breasts or slid down to her hips or over her bottom. His lust for her made her moan softly into his mouth and she dared her own hands to move. She grasped at the protrusion from his loins in excitement and curiosity, and she heard his gasp in return. Then one day they found themselves on the floor and he was raising the skirt of her dress, seeking what was underneath. She watched him as he did so, gasping in anticipated pleasure. As he freed her undergarments, she helped him to free his own. But their passion had been halted by awkwardness and embarrassment as he tried and failed to enter her. On the third attempt he finally succeeded, to her relief, but then pain lanced through her and after the second or third thrust she asked him to stop.

  She had wished then that they had never gone so far. Over the following days there was a distance between them; an awkwardness over what had happened. She felt that it was her fault. A few days later, as they lay beside each other, she decided to try again. This time, as he mounted her, it was easier. She remembered how he gasped in pleasure and the frantic movements of him on top of her. She was inhabited by him, taken by him, and she hungered for more. She had felt his spasm as he finished inside her. Slowing to a stop, his weight had collapsed down onto her, his moist, panting breath warm on the nape of her neck. She had wanted more, some sort of release of her own, but even so she was intoxicated by their closeness, by the bond she felt with him. Her arms had wrapped around his back and she had kissed the side of his face and he had kissed hers.

  She sighed as she pushed her mind on, hoping to cool the now familiar warmth between her legs. They had been together many times since. She relished bringing him pleasure and joy and the shy lust that came into his eyes when he looked at her in the privacy of their own little room.

  His arm slid from her shoulders as they walked down the boardwalk, side by side, his eyes, as always, alert to the crowd. She always felt safe with him, knowing that he would spot the first signs of danger. They stayed close as they walked and drank, and before long she felt hazily drunk.

  As they strode through the revellers of the streets they occasionally joined in when spontaneous dancing sprung forth. They linked arms and spun in circles. Racquel saw a loose, drunken joy come into Liam’s face, like what she had seen in him sometimes before, but then it disappeared in an instant, all of a sudden his face went blank, and his eyes, vividly red, seemed to hold depths of confusion.

  They found a bonfire and stopped to stand in front of it. Staring into the flames, wavering, slightly drunk, arm in arm as revellers danced around them. Racquel looked across at Liam and noticed that his eyes were lost in the flames, staring deep into their depths. His expression seemed worried as the red light shone, reflected in his eyes; the flames licking upwards, orange, towards his eyebrows, behind them, as though they would burn the inner recesses of his mind.

  ******

  The streets were a mix of bright, flickering light, brightly illuminating and creating dancing shadows on top of the base, greyish glow dispensed from the full moon and stars in the clear night sky. The remembrance festival was always held on a full moon. Flaming torches were placed haphazardly along the river boardwalk and intermingled about the streets, bonfires shone brightly, lighting everything for metres around.

  Much of the fuel for the bonfires scattered throughout the slums had been dragged to street corners from collapsed and abandoned buildings, helping, in a strange way, to clear the slums of excess rubble.

  Lecklan stopped at one such bonfire as he came onto the river’s boardwalk. The flashing flames gave the indication of a hellish feast.

  Men and women danced around the fire, half-naked, to the jumbled, discordant mass of noise from pretend musicians, strumming, blowing and beating their various instruments. Their exposed flesh was painted from head to toe, their hai
r displayed in reckless and lavish styles. Bright flying embers joined the fray, floating upwards and drifting down amongst the outlandish citizens from centuries past.

  Lecklan’s mind was on the meeting he had attended earlier that day. It was strange for the gang to be conducting such business on this day but Connia had clearly had enough. Profits were down, merchants were starting to refuse to enter the district, and someone was undermining the gang’s authority, specifically targeting merchants who were wearing the seal of approval of the gang. Something had to be done, and Lecklan was the man entrusted to bring the perpetrator to justice.

  Connia was the head of the gang east of the Great Road. He was a squat, heavyset man with bushy eyebrows and dark brown hair. His round face belied his cantankerous nature and so Lecklan had to sit and listen as he raved about the mysterious merchant killer. Lecklan had heard previously the reports of the dead merchants; it was the talk of the streets and so he was not altogether surprised that this was the reason for the unexpected meeting.

  Lecklan had thought the numbers exaggerated, had believed that too many deaths were being attributed to the one killer, but Connia dispelled that notion from him. The same scene every time, he said, with few viable witnesses. Discovered on a quiet street or alleyway with their bodyguards, only yards apart. Their possessions taken, the soil stained red, throats cut. Rarely had they any other wound, they never seemed to see it coming. Often the bodyguard had no weapon drawn.

  Lecklan looked across the bonfire. There was a boy and a girl there in their mid-teens. His eyes drew first to the girl, to the untainted, unspoiled beauty there and thoughts of taking it. Some said that it was a phantom, or a beast, as though a beast could be loose in a city without anyone knowing, as though it would steal coin to buy food in a store, that’s if they even existed in the first place. Some people were such fools. Lecklan smiled wryly; all the easier to play on their irrational fears, to exploit them for it.