by J. M. Frey
“I hope you’re not saying this is our fault, too,” Kintyre groans, struggling to his feet. “I’ve had enough crow to eat today.”
The Deal-Maker screams again, unimpressed with his gallows humor and witty banter. She raises her hands above her in claws, lightning crackling between the spires of her fingers. Kintyre dodges to the side, keeping Pip—who is still looking around with wide-eyed confusion, her head dipping and lolling—out of the line of fire.
Then, suddenly, before she can loose the fire in her hands at Kintyre, Wyndam’s leg swings up in a tight, powerful circle. His calf lands squarely against her gut, and the Deal-Maker lets out a great “oof!” The lightning splashes against the gravel at her feet when the kick folds her in half and tumbles her right back off the Desk. The rain gentles, but the storm above boils on.
Wyndam—clever, agile, fierce Wyndam—uses the momentum of the motion and rolls back off the desk as well, landing with his feet on either side of the Deal-Maker’s shoulders. In a flash, his curved sword is pressed against her neck hard enough to draw a pearl of aquamarine blood. Alis is pressed against his side, tucked in safe with his other arm, looking wind-blown and wide-mouthed with surprise.
And then she giggles. “Yah!” Alis says, wiggling with joy.
Well, it seems my daughter is a bit of a thrill-seeker. I have flashes of her climbing too-tall trees at age seven, riding too-fast horses at age twelve, kissing too-wrong people at age sixteen, flying atop too-flaming phoenixes at twenty. Writer, preserve me. And my nerves.
“Wow,” Bevel says, coming around the desk cautiously, still aiming at the Deal-Maker. “What did Pip call that? Right, that was some seriously impressive Kung Fu shit right there.”
Wyndam nods once, not taking his eyes from his captive.
I come up to his other side, lay my sword against the Deal-Maker’s throat, and nod. Wyndam backs off, jostling Alis on his hip until she is secured better in his grip. Alis is clearly fed up with being manhandled, and she squirms and shouts, trying to get down. Wyndam puts her on the ground and snags her back by the back of her dress when she tries to move, holding her in place like a package on a string, but giving her space to wriggle to her heart’s content.
Bevel stands on one of the Deal-Maker’s wrists, and I on the other, watching to see what her next play will be.
Neris liquefied and escaped downward through the loose gravel, but this Deal-Maker seems either genuinely trapped here, or for other reasons either cannot, or is not ready to retreat.
“I am defeated,” Solinde spits. Suiting words to action, she actually turns her head and spits upon my blade. Disgusting.
“And you expect me to use you ill?” I challenge, because I am sorely tempted to do just that. Or kill her. For the crime of harming my child and wife, I would gladly kill her. Even more so for the horrors she has inflicted on the rest of the people of this world. For Lanaea. For the pain that Lanaea’s passing causes her father, and Anne, and Thoma. Caused Wyndam.
For all that, I would gladly snuff out this monster.
But I am no monster myself, and will not allow myself to become one.
“Run me through!” the Deal-Maker taunts. “Run me through, and release me from my misery.”
“What by the Writer’s calluses do you have to be miserable about?” Bevel shouts, exasperated. “You are an all-powerful, nearly immortal creature literally dripping with magic! What could possibly be making you miserable?”
“My life is not my own!” Solinde says. She moves to tear at her hair, but I am wary, and will not allow her the opportunity to overpower me through a performance of being distraught. “I may make no Deals for myself! I may make no choices! You cannot comprehend the agony of being tugged about by the invisible hand of fate with no recourse, no escape.”
The truth of her agony strikes me like a palm slapped against my sternum with martial force.
“I think you’ll f-f-find I very well can,” I say, sucking desperately at the air. The Spirit scoffs and chews on her disbelief. “I am n-not patronizing you,” I rush to reassure.
“Then what?” the Spirit sneers. “Do you wish to Deal? Will you force upon me a trade? Perhaps the life that I no longer want in exchange for your petty desires?”
Behind me, I can hear Kintyre shift, hear the click of Foesmiter’s sheath against his buckles. I turn my head just enough to watch as he plunges his free hand behind the vines and down my wife’s shirt.
“Oi!” I shout, but then Kintyre straightens, holding the phial of blood that Pip had been storing in her bra.
“We can with this,” he says. “We can make you do any Deal we want, no matter how imbalanced.”
The Deal-Maker’s confession sparks an idea in me. “But it ne-needn’t be imba-balanced,” I say hastily. “What if you could choose?” I ask. “If you c-could m-make a Deal for yourself, what would you ask for?”
The creature on the ground ceases her writhing and stares up at me with black eyes as wide as tea saucers and a mouth that gapes. “You . . . why would you ask that of me?”
“I want to know,” I say, even as behind me, Kintyre and Bevel shout their displeasure at the question.
The Deal-Maker goes quiet, draws into herself in a thoughtful manner that I have seen no other person do outside of my wife.
It is, I realize, that defense mechanism of the traumatized. A cold anger surfaces in me, at the men who have turned these vibrant people into fearful ones, into people stuck forever in the war of their minds, in the battlefield of what was done to them, in the crossfire of the trauma they faced and the world as it really is, not as it is perceived through their fear-hemmed glasses. The creature expects me to harm her, to rescind my interest, perhaps even use the knowledge as a weapon against her. To flay her with her own admission.
“If you tell me, I will do my best to make it a reality,” I say, trying hard to modulate my tone into that of someone sincere and trustworthy, for all that I have a blade at her throat. “And with the power of the phial of blood, you may be sure that I have the means to make a big enough Deal. Provided,” I add, when a thoughtful gleam sparks in her gaze, “that it is a Deal that will harm no others.”
“And what do you wish in return, then?” the Deal-Maker sneers at me. “What will you force me to deliver, with my own blood?”
I thought it would be harder to say, really. I thought the struggle would be more profound, that the desire would pull me in two directions. But here, now, in the very place where I first made the same choice once before, with my wife bound to the Desk that Never Rots, and my child screaming in her cousin’s arms, with every muscle aching, sweat beading my brow and blood in my eyes, my hand groaning against my shaking sword, it is easy.
So easy.
I feel a calm settle over me like a weighted blanket, reassuring, and safe.
“Send us home.”
Behind me, my brother gasps, and Bevel shouts, “What?” I hear their feet in the loose stone, scuffling, losing their defensive stances in their surprise. I should feel guilty for startling them, for not telling them before I told this stranger, this antagonist, that I have made up my mind, finally.
I love Hain. But I cannot live here. I cannot.
Not with my family’s happiness at stake. Not as the brother of the hero. Not when we are disposable, harm-able for the sake of the plot. I will not raise my child in a place where I will fear, every moment of every day, that someone will try to get to Kintyre through her.
Letting the Deal-Maker up seems a foolish thing to do, but I do so anyway, in a show of good faith. Wyndam unsheathes his knife and moves to free Pip, but the Deal-Maker flings out a hand toward him and says, coldly, “Not yet. You cannot have my leverage until I am satisfied that I will not be double-crossed.” The lightning above our heads crackles ominously, warningly.
Wyndam stops and wavers on the spot, unwilling to risk Alis. Pip grunts and yanks at her bonds, annoyed.
The Deal-Maker darts forward, and before I am awar
e of it, she is cupping my chin between her thumb and forefinger, pinching. Her flesh is cold, clammy, like that of a fresh-caught fish left to dry out in the bottom of a boat. But there is a pinch, a pain, a pull in her grip that is not physical. It feels like hooks stabbed through the flesh of my lungs, pulling them aside, revealing my heart.
“You are so noble,” she hisses, her face inches from my own, and this close, I can see that her teeth are pointed, her tongue black. “You are so trustworthy. Why do you think that everyone’s heart will be as honest as yours?”
“Because I have to believe it,” I say, honestly, and it is a very odd feeling, to be speaking with her fingers on my chin. To be staring bleak madness in the face and being calmly truthful. “I have to believe that villains are only villains because their wishes oppose those of the protagonist. And if, and when, their wishes are fulfilled, in a peaceable way, they cease to be villainous.”
“And if I am truly nothing but an unfathomable evil?” the Deal-Maker taunts. But her eyes flick across my face, searching for . . . lies? Duplicity? She licks her lips, suddenly human in her shaking fear and hope. Little tells that betray her nerves. Make her understandable.
I study her eyes, her expression, looking for the lie in her words. Looking for the desperation, the anger. “And a-a-are you?” My voice trembles in my throat.
The Deal-Maker blinks, clearly not expecting to be asked this question. Then she shakes her head and grins wryly. “Perhaps,” she admits. “Perhaps not. Perhaps I am just an angry, thwarted woman, as you say. But perhaps I truly wish the ruin of this world. Will you take that chance?”
Around me, my companions, my family, raise their voices in a shout of:
“No, don’t do it!”
And, “Are you barking mad? End it!”
And two voiceless grunts.
“I think I am prepared to do so.” I straighten my posture, and lower my sword. “I will give you what you want, and you will send Alis, Pip, and I back to where we came from. Back to the Writer’s world.”
It seems like the whole world pauses and holds its breath.
There is a long, silent moment as the Deal-Maker assesses my honesty, my conviction. And then, slowly, softly, she begins to laugh.
“Oh. Oh, but you are a fool,” she says, and though she is attempting to make light, I can hear the misery in her voice. “And I am more a fool for believing you. A wish that powerful? Even with that phial of blood, even with the excess magic it will grant me, I cannot do so strong a Deal without the true weight of your desire behind it.”
She points, with her free hand, at Wyndam. “Taking his Words and his voice required but a paltry amount of magic, and in exchange, I was able to call down three! A Reader, a half-breed, and you. And do you know why it worked?” She laughs again when I attempt to shake my head. “Because Wyndam Turn wanted it. More than anything else in the world, he wanted you here so he could go adventuring with his father. He is a selfish, reckless boy, but his desires hold power.”
“That’s not true!” Bevel snarls, defending the lad, the son of his heart, if not his loins. “Maybe once, but Wyndam is not a child, and he is not a reckless boy.”
Wyndam colors under this praise, startled by Bevel’s open pride in him. Kintyre reaches out with the hand that is not still wrapped around Foesmiter and touches Bevel’s arm. It is a soft, tender gesture, speaking of gratitude and love.
“The boy’s intention is not the question here,” the Deal-Maker says with a scoff and a small shake of my chin to pull my attention back to her. “You offer me a Deal, Forsyth Turn, but what you ask of me is a large thing, and I am unconvinced that you carry enough desperation for the Deal to be well struck, for me to be able to complete it. You lack the conviction.”
“I want to go home,” I repeat, firm, girding myself and throwing every ounce of conviction into my voice that I am able to muster. “I do.”
“I do not believe you,” the Deal-Maker chides, and fear stabs at my breast. I don’t understand it. Why would I fear this Deal-Maker witch scouring my heart of hearts? I have nothing to hide; I have no regrets. I am content, and yet . . . something small, some kernel of resentment glimmers, unexamined, in the far corner of the treasure chest of my heart, and the Deal-Maker’s dark shadow swoops in and grasps it in her maw. “Do you honestly and genuinely wish to return to a world where you are unknown and unappreciated? Where you are maybe even unwanted?”
Behind her, Pip shakes her head futilely, mouthing against the gag, pulling at her bonds.
“Here, you were Shadow Hand,” the Deal-Maker taunts. “Here, you were lordling, and could have, in time, risen above the paltry country seat, earned a city title of your own and a noble wife. You could have done your bloodline proud for once. Outshone your irresponsible, witless oaf of an elder brother with your reform and politics.”
“Those were my dreams, I will admit that. But I have achieved them, albeit in another realm. What care I about titles in a world where there are none? There, I have love, and a wife, and a daughter!”
“And no meaning,” the Deal-Maker hisses.
I do not stagger back at this verbal blow, but it is a near thing.
“Meaning . . .” I echo, resettling my grip around the hilt of my sword, and, not for the first time, nor probably the last, I wish that I had Smoke with me instead. “Meaning does not come from one’s employment, but how one loves. And is loved.”
“And yet . . .” the Deal-Maker sneers.
I try to speak, to rebut, but I find my voice has fled. I have nothing to say, and I feel utterly gutted. These fears I barely even understood I possessed, these hurts and worries that I carried and pushed down, crushed and compacted until they had formed this dazzling diamond of hurt, are now exposed to glitter and grieve in the daylight.
My mouth flaps. My voice withers. My lungs burn for the next breath, which I cannot seem to take for fear of the words it would be used to form. Over the Deal-Maker’s shoulder, Pip’s face is white, her freckles standing out in horrified abundance.
“And you,” the Deal-Maker says, turning now, putting her back to me, my distress, and my impotent inability to defend myself. Fear fills Pip’s eyes now, fear of the creature before her . . . No. No.
Not of the creature. But of her power. Her truths.
“And you, Reader . . . what of the deepest wish in your heart of hearts?” the Spirit asks, voice like silk and sin.
It is not fear of the Deal-Maker I see in my wife’s gaze.
It is fear of what the Deal-Maker is about to say.
Please, Pip’s eyes communicate to me. Please. I’m so sorry.
The Deal-Maker grins in impish delight. “You cannot tell me that there is not a part of you that regrets it. A part of you, however small, that wishes you had never held out your hand and invited the useless younger son of an equally useless lord into your life.”
Oh. Writer. Oh, Writer. No. No.
Is it true?
It can’t be true.
Pip is weeping, eyes wide and cheeks red above her gag, tears staining the cloth in blooming gunshots of saltwater.
“Your love was so new, duckie,” the Deal-Maker hisses. “You had suffered so much, and you had only really loved one another for one day. And yet, you invited him into your life, accepted care of him, made him your burden, and why?” The Deal-Maker reaches out, talons trembling, and digs her fingers into Pip’s greasy nest of hair, her fingertips pressing against Pip’s skull. The Deal-Maker’s eyes flutter shut, and Pip stiffens, her own eyes rolling up in her head, her whole body shaking.
“Stop!” I beg. I plead. “You’re hurting her! Stop!”
But the Deal-Maker pays me no heed. She reaches into Pip’s mind and drags. “Because you felt guilty for leading him on? Because he was nice, and nice guys so often finish last?” the Deal-Maker asks, her voice taking on the cadence of my wife’s: “He’s a bore, isn’t he? You have to teach him so much—the world, the language, how to make dinner and make love? Virg
ins are such a pain in the ass.” She says it with my wife’s inflection, her voice taking on more and more of Pip’s verbal tics as the Spirit delves deeper into her heart. Pip convulses under her hand.
“That’s not . . .” I begin, but then stop, because these are the truths she has pulled from my wife’s heart, and I will not invalidate her fears, not now, not here. Not when the last thing Pip needs to hear is me condescending to her.
“What does it matter to you?” Bevel cuts in, his voice filled with equal parts bafflement and anger. “So what? So they both have a secret part of them that is terrified of being committed to one another? So what? What Pair doesn’t have fears and concerns? That doesn’t make Forssy’s desire any less true.”
“Yeah,” Kintyre adds. “No one’s perfect.”
It’s the strangest thing to hear my brother say, and despite the tension of the situation, I cannot help the single guffaw that crawls out of my chest.
“And this is what you believe?” the Deal-Maker sneers, rounding on me again. I am happy to be the center of her attention, so long as Pip and Alis are not. “Can you tell me truly, and honestly, that this is the Deal you wish to make with me? Knowing what you now know?”
“Why are you doing this?” I choke. “Why are you . . . I was going to Deal with you! I don’t understand!”
“You are a fool,” the Deal-Maker repeats. “And a naive one, at that. You believe a villain will cease to be so if they get what they want? Pah! And what if what I want is at odds with what you want. After all, you have always striven for his death!”
“What is the point of all this?” Bevel bellows. “Why do we keep going in circles? We said we’d give you what you want!”
“And you lie!” Solinde shouts back. “For what I want, you will never grant! Others, perhaps, but not Kintyre Turn! Not his accomplices, his compatriots, his spawn!”
“You haven’t even told us what you want, though!” Kintyre says, and he must shout it, for a great wind has begun to stir. A dread so complete that I cannot even draw breath settles in my guts.
The Deal-Maker is going to call up the storm again. She is going to summon down the cloud churning above us, as she did at the Library, and she is going to flee. Pip shouts again, and the Deal-Maker laughs.