Prisoner of Fate

by Tony Shillitoe

  He’d witnessed the privileged ministering to the destitute in the city on street corners, trying to attract them into the temples to become part of the evergrowing Jarudhan faithful, but finding them in the old docks disturbed him. Something was amiss. And then he saw one disciple moving amongst the people, distributing small pinches of purple powder to the upturned palms. Euphoria. Why are the priests giving out doses of the drug? he puzzled.

  He crept from the scene and headed for the streets that led into the Foundry Quarter where his sister waited in their tiny home, hoping that she was safe in his absence, but the vision of the Jarudhan acolytes leading the most miserable poor in the city in a session of drug-induced prayer troubled him, and he carried an irritating burden of conscience from a dead and mad old man.

  ‘Interesting news, Your Eminence,’ Word announced as he sat in a plush, dark-blue chair in Seer Scripture’s private chamber.

  ‘Go on,’ Scripture grumbled, looking up from a manuscript he was proofing concerning Seer Creator’s experiments.

  ‘Rumour is that an old irritation has been cured,’ said Word.

  Scripture’s eyebrows knitted in irritation. ‘Forego the riddles, Word. I’m a busy man and it’s late.’

  Word smiled wanly and said, ‘An old inmate of the Bog Pit died yesterday.’

  ‘Sunlight?’ Scripture asked, suddenly interested.

  ‘The same,’ Word confirmed.

  ‘This is an absolute?’ Scripture insisted. Word nodded. Scripture put down his autoscribe and smiled. ‘Jarudha’s work is done then.’

  ‘It took a long time,’ Word complained. ‘You said that he wouldn’t last a year in there. He lasted seventeen years.’

  Scripture’s smile faded as he crossed the chamber from his desk and sank into a second blue chair beside Word. ‘Patience is essential in understanding how Jarudha works. Consider it as both a test of our faith that our former colleague should live so long and an example of the strength Jarudha gives to all of us who walk the righteous path.’

  ‘There is still the matter of the artefact,’ Word reminded Scripture. ‘Sunlight never revealed where it was hidden after its theft from the old palace museum.’

  ‘The artefact is lost. We are the only ones who knew of its existence and knowledge of its whereabouts died with Sunlight.’

  ‘Can we be sure about that?’

  Scripture met and held Word’s gaze. ‘I will tell you something that must never leave this room. Swear on your love for Jarudha that you will never speak of what you hear from me.’ Word’s eyebrows rose. ‘Swear it,’ Scripture insisted.

  ‘I swear by my love for Jarudha,’ Word answered.

  ‘So swearing, you understand that your soul is forfeit should you speak of this matter ever again?’

  Scripture’s intensity surprised Word. ‘I know the teachings, Your Eminence,’ he replied with deliberate formality.

  A smile fleeted across Scripture’s lips at Word’s response. He took a deep breath, made the holy sign of the circle and said, ‘My confession may damn my own soul, but my task in this worldly existence is to fulfil what my predecessors have put in motion. I act as Vision would have acted and Diamond before him. Not for myself but for Jarudha’s Paradise have I perjured my soul, and I do this knowing that what I might lose my brethren will gain.’ Again he made the holy sign, and clasped his hands on his lap. ‘Sunlight did not steal the artefact. It was stolen and destroyed under my order.’

  Word stared, waiting for Scripture to explain. When no explanation followed he asked, ‘Sunlight was not guilty of heresy?’

  Scripture shook his head, annoyed. ‘Of course he was guilty of heresy. He was tampering with the one item that could prevent Jarudha’s servants from cleansing this world of evil. Remember what he argued? Did he not say that we should study the artefact more thoroughly?’

  ‘I don’t remember what he said,’ Word replied. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘The records have been kept,’ Scripture said firmly. ‘If your memory needs refreshing you can read what he said.’

  ‘I thought we burned all of his writing and research.’

  ‘His work, yes, but not our records of his heresy,’ Scripture explained.

  ‘So who stole the artefact?’

  ‘It was carefully arranged,’ Scripture replied. ‘Some matters must remain for me to bear in silence.’

  Word nodded, saying, ‘And I am freer for not knowing.’ He sighed and met Scripture’s intense stare. ‘I have no memory of what has been said, Your Eminence,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Perhaps for this you will still walk in Paradise for serving Jarudha so selflessly.’

  ‘It is my constant prayer,’ said Scripture quietly.

  ‘Impossible! How could you get out of that place? No one gets out,’ the dark-haired young man exclaimed.

  Seeing disbelief on the faces of his three friends Chase considered how he would tell his tale of escape. Mentioning the old Seer probably wouldn’t add to the credibility of what he had done. ‘I pretended to be dead,’ he said, and related the events as they happened thereafter. He showed them the cuts and abrasions along his arms, chest and neck, and the bruising on his face.

  ‘You’re telling us that you swam all the way across the harbour from the Bog Pit, through the sharks?’ the dark-haired young man asked incredulously.

  Chase looked Hammer squarely in the eyes and said, ‘Yes. That’s what I’m telling you.’

  ‘You’re full of shit!’ Tiny, a mousy-haired individual, declared. ‘And that calls for another drink!’

  ‘My round,’ said the third young man, a slim, elegant youth named Fingers, and he rose to push through the revellers to the bar.

  ‘So officially you’re dead,’ said Hammer. ‘They can’t arrest you now because you don’t exist.’

  ‘Business should improve dramatically,’ Tiny suggested.

  A sudden outburst of song flooded the tavern, swallowing the conversation, so Chase quaffed the dregs of his ale and joined in on the chorus. ‘Cos she was my lady, my fair budding rose, and I was a rover a-roving away!’

  When the song was done, Hammer asked, ‘Seen your sister?’

  ‘She wasn’t home when I got there. She’s at work. I got cleaned up, found some clothes and came looking for a drink.’

  ‘Wise man,’ said Tiny. ‘Does it taste better now that you’re dead?’

  ‘Better than ever!’ Chase declared, as Fingers returned with four foaming mugs of ale clutched in his hands.

  ‘Is it as bad as they say?’ asked Hammer.

  ‘The Bog Pit?’ Chase asked. ‘Worse. Think of the slimiest place you’ve ever been in, fill it with dying and desperate men, take away any rules and you get half the idea of what it’s like.’

  ‘Sounds like my house,’ said Fingers. ‘When my old man comes home drunk and gets stuck into everyone, it’s a bloody hell to be in.’

  ‘Is that why you come down here for a drink?’ asked Hammer.

  ‘Yes, indeed!’ Fingers replied and lifted his mug to toast the idea.

  Chase staggered out of the Gum and Wattle tavern with his three companions after they’d spent their money and they stood in the middle of the narrow lane in the brief pale moonlight, singing the strains of the last ballad that had been boisterously butchered inside. ‘I can’t pay any of you back, you know,’ Chase apologised as they finished singing. ‘I just got out of the Bog Pit.’

  ‘Bloody poor excuse, mate,’ Tiny slurred. ‘Bloody poor excuse.’

  ‘It’s on your promise-note,’ Hammer said, and then unexpectedly sank to his knees, adding, ‘I think the ground just got up from under me.’

  ‘You’re drunk, you drunken sod,’ Tiny said, as he helped Fingers lift Hammer to his feet.

  ‘Where you going?’ Fingers asked, looking at Chase. ‘Home?’

  ‘You can stay at my place,’ Tiny offered.

  ‘No. I’ll find Passion. I’ll surprise her.’

  ‘You’ll surprise her if she’s wo
rking on a customer!’ Hammer blurted, but his following attempt to laugh at his own wit ended with him spewing against the wall of a house.

  ‘You’re a filthy dog!’ Tiny yelled, and started laughing. ‘Filthy, dirty, mongrel flea-riddled piece of shit!’

  Chase laughed at his friends’ drunken antics as he headed towards the Main Way. The streets were dark and quiet, but when he emerged onto the wider Main Way, he saw there were at least some citizens who didn’t hold with the daylight hours for work and night for sleeping. The ale, throbbing pain from a host of his injuries and his exhaustion were befuddling him, but he would find his sister and he would finally feel like he’d made it home.

  ‘Come and listen to The Word of Jarudha with your brothers.’

  Chase blinked and focussed on the smiling face of a Jarudhan acolyte above his yellow robe. ‘I don’t have any brothers,’ he protested.

  ‘Everyone is your brother,’ the acolyte told him as he took Chase by the arm. ‘Even I am your brother.’

  ‘Let go.’ Chase shrugged out of his grip. ‘I’m not a believer.’

  ‘Then you need to hear The Word, my brother.’

  Too much alcohol, Chase told himself, as he stepped around the acolyte. The Perfect Pleasures and his sister were only a few paces away.

  ‘Let me light your way,’ the acolyte offered and a small sphere of light appeared in the acolyte’s outstretched left hand. ‘The light of Jarudha can save you.’

  ‘Piss off,’ Chase grunted. ‘I don’t believe, all right? Keep your cheap magic tricks.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the acolyte, opening his right hand to reveal a small leather pouch, ‘perhaps you would like to share the soothing taste of enlightenment.’

  Chase saw the drug pouch and hesitated.

  He hadn’t had a dose of euphoria for more than a week and he felt the temptation rise. But then he remembered what he was doing, stormed away from the acolyte and pushed between two men standing in the night shadows of a dark building as he headed for the brothel. He was stopped at the door by a brutishly built dark-skinned man who stood a head taller than him.

  ‘Wahim!’ Chase protested. ‘It’s me, Chase.’

  The brothel bouncer pulled Chase closer and stared. ‘I’ll be buggered. You’re supposed to be in the Bog Pit.’

  ‘Is Passion working?’

  Wahim released the young man. ‘Just went home,’ he said. ‘How in Jarudha’s name did you get out of the Bog Pit?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it, but not now. I’ve got to see Passion.’

  Wahim grinned. ‘You do that. She’s a good girl and you should be looking after her.’

  ‘I will,’ Chase replied as he turned to leave. Then he asked, ‘What’s with all the acolytes?’

  Wahim shook his head. ‘They’ve suddenly come out of the woodwork these past three days and they’re everywhere, trying to talk to people about Jarudha. They’ve even knocked on our door.’

  ‘It was better when they minded their own business,’ Chase noted dryly. ‘I bet this is some attempt to get money out of the poor.’

  Wahim laughed. ‘Wasting their time with us then, eh?’

  ‘Can’t even save money let alone a soul,’ Chase quipped. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘Good to see you back,’ Wahim said as Chase turned to go. ‘And I want to hear about your adventure!’ he called to the young man’s disappearing back.

  The tiny cottages in Workers Lane were dark as always at that time early in the morning because most of them housed men and their families who relied on factory jobs in the Foundry Quarter and work started just before dawn every day of the week. A solitary white dog trotted towards Chase, growling, but when Chase hissed, ‘Get out, One-eye!’ the dog sidled out of his path and silently watched him go by. He reached his home, knowing the green door would be bolted, and climbed up the facade onto the roof.

  The cottages were two and three-roomed constructions crammed together with barely space for a skinny person to squeeze between, entry confined to doors at the front and back, but Chase had a third entry that he’d made through the slab roof which he used whenever he arrived home late and Passion was asleep. He lifted the slab trapdoor and slid into the building, swinging down from the rafters and landing on the wooden floor of the tiny main room with the soft agility of a practised thief. He stopped to listen, aware that he was still a little drunk from his session with his friends, but when he was satisfied that the cottage was silent he crept to the entrance of his sister’s bedroom and listened. Soft breathing told him that she and her son were asleep. He smiled, stifled a burp and headed for his bedroom, happy to be home. In a few days he’d visit the old man’s granddaughter to quieten his conscience. For now he needed to rest his aching and battered body.

  PART THREE

  ‘Fate. Destiny. What is meant to be. We have a constant fascination to know our future, our reason for existing, what awaits us in times to come. What is more fascinating is that we can never really predict what will happen. The homeless man today can be the emperor tomorrow. The wise man now might be the blind man tomorrow. It’s a mystery we are given and that’s why it is fascinating to be alive.’

  FROM PRINCE INHERITOR’S DIARY

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Misty rain drifted across the flickering yellow streetlight while she hung in the night shadows outside the Magpie and Maid tavern, waiting, shivering. As she pulled her wet leather hood tighter, the tavern door swung open and three figures spilled into the street, drunken voices bellowing distorted lyrics of a bawdy ballad. ‘The Miller’s daughter’s smile was wide, but her legs were even wider…’ Swift knew the lyrics. Every drunken man in Port of Joy sang the song as an integral part of the drinking ritual. ‘And happy were the many men who put their length inside her.’ The three companions clung to each other as if afraid that letting go would mean being lost forever as they staggered into the darkness, singing discordant refrains to the empty street.

  Swift slid her left hand from her warm thin glove and wiped a cold raindrop from her nose before replacing the glove. As she stared at a lit window on the first storey of the tavern, a shadow crossed the thin beige curtain and a slender arm—a girl’s arm—emerged to close the window shutter. Swift glanced behind into the black alleyway where she loitered. Although she could see and hear nothing, she was restless because theweather both served her purposes and threatened her security. The time was, at her guess, very close to the middle of the night, meaning the tavern would soon close. It was a popular drinking and whoring place, especially for the tanners and leather workers whose businesses flourished in the Foundry Quarter, but it wasn’t on the main roads and its clientele were mainly local regulars. The owner, Barrel Taverner, a generous man with a large belly and a wooden left forearm, legacy of a battle in his youth with tribesmen on the southern front when he was conscripted into the Kerwyn army, liked his food, his drink, women and sleep. If he was without one of them, his temper became foul and there were a few who’d felt the back swing of his wooden forearm.

  The door opened again and two men emerged with a woman. They stood together in the soft rain, haloed by the light, as if they were making a decision. The woman kissed one man before she pulled up her shawl, and the three separated, the kissed man walking quickly in the direction of the drunken three who left earlier, while the remaining man and the woman linked arms and headed for the Main Way. Moments later, a large man with long dark hair poked his head out of the door, checking both directions. Swift recognised Barrel Taverner. He settled his gaze on the alleyway where Swift waited invisibly and nodded as if he could see her, before he looked quickly left and right again and pulled the door shut. The light above the tavern entrance went out.

  Swift waited until the interior tavern lights dimmed before she cautiously emerged. She glanced up at the solitary light in the first-floor window as she crossed the street, conscious of her black leather boots squelching in the puddles between the loose cobbles. At the tavern door, she liste
ned and checked the street for movement, before she turned the handle and slipped inside. Dying hearth embers lit the bar and room with a red hue and she appreciated the warmth that kissed her cheeks and seeped through her clothing. From behind the bar, Barrel Taverner whispered heavily, ‘He’s up there. This better be very clean. I can’t afford a bad name. Business isn’t good here.’

  ‘Is the barrel ready?’ she asked. Taverner nodded. ‘Who’s with him?’

  ‘Ella.’

  Swift knew the girl. ‘She has to go. You know that.’

  ‘I can’t afford to lose her,’ Taverner argued. ‘She brings in good cash. She’s popular. She won’t say anything.’

  ‘She has to go,’ Swift said firmly.

  ‘I’ll get her to come out,’ he offered, his puffy face pleading.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Too risky. I can’t afford a struggle.’

  ‘Can’t you spare her? For me?’

  Swift shook her head. ‘She has to go,’ she repeated. She eased down her black hood, revealing her gaunt features and shaven head with its tufts of red hair, and slid off her wet leather overcloak, handing it to the taverner. ‘I’ll be quick about it. You’ll help me get him into the barrel?’

  ‘I said I would.’

  Swift headed for the stairs at the rear of the room, weaving between the chairs and tables, and crept up the steps, wincing inside each time one creaked. At the top, she moved quickly along the short hall, drawn by the light spilling under the third door. She pressed her left ear against the wood, her hand resting on the metal handle. He was hard at it, grunting like a pig, and the girl was making soft cries.