by Jason Ray Carney
in Issue 82, November 2018
In the city of Re, thirty mask-wearing oligarchs rule. They are the silver-faced lords, heirs to the blood of the most ancient and respected pilgrim-families that pitched the first sad tents of the settlement that bloomed into Re over the course of several hundreds of war-bloodied years. And none of them are sorcerers. They are afraid of spellbinders in that city. Deadly afraid. For they worship Atok-the-Million-Eyed, whose image is a splayed hand pocked with several wide eyes, and in his teachings, carved in stark language on several sheets of beaten copper, he condemns as anathema all sorcery, declaring it evil, as abomination, as sin.
The laws of Atok are the laws of Re, and much effort is spent by the thirty lords of to assure that the people hew to their god’s strict tenets. A strong police force of cruel inquisitors, “the Eyes of Atok,” keep a close watch on the people of Re: one of them might stumble upon a tome of spells, a dusty codex of power, a mathematical map to another world; or, perhaps, one might have a whispered conversation with a sinful foreigner, be-cloaked and silver-tongued, who speaks of blood contracts with formless creatures from the deep stars.
How the Rogue found himself in Re, this story does not tell. Perhaps he came disguised as a discharged oarsmen, by one of the many merchant triremes that bobbed in Re’s deep harbor; perhaps he wandered in, unknown as a teamster or porter, with a spice-bloated caravan from the highways heading inland from Re. Who could know? The ways of the Rogue are mysterious.
But come to Re he did and so found himself working for pennies as a stevedore, carting wares of saltfish and slime-rocks through the trash-strewn streets of the slanting harbor district of that dark city. And in these days, the thirty silver-faced lords of Re were uniquely afraid, for recently a cult of spellbinders–three witches who taught the mysteries of life and death from a book bound in human skin and inked in blood–had been revealed and gruesomely beheaded by the high priest of Atok. The Eyes of Atok were on double patrol and whispers spoke that a few of their coven had escaped the justice of the thirty silver-faced lords. The Rogue heard these whispers in a winesoak, where late at night he dined on bloody joints of meat, drank bowls of rancid wine, and watched the curves of a dancing girl with finger cymbals and the harp-strumming of a painted-faced motley-bard in the red light of grease lamps. The bard sung of Atok, his million eyes, and his hatred of secrets, and though the harpists’ pious staves were of little interest to the Rogue, his calming melody brought a kind of pleasure. Indeed, the Rogue was pleasantly drunk, his hunger satiated, and coin jingled in his pocket–the modest haul of a full day’s hard labor and sore back.
He was ready to retire to his cot, one among many in the beggar room, when charity stirred his heart. He stood, pulled his cloak tight about his form, and approached the bard and dancing girl, whose eyes revealed fear, for this den was no stranger to violence; often the first victims of the downtrodden’s anger are the very ones who work to raise their spirits. The harpist’s hand strayed to his lower back where a knife was snugged deep into his thick waist sash; and the dancing girl, turning her body just so, touched the pearly pommel of a small poniard that appeared to the unsuspecting eye as a finely wrought hair pin, its blade small but sharp enough to pierce the jugular. But their suspicions were quickly allayed when the Rogue jammed his fist into his belt pouch and brought out two coins of silver stamped with thirty eyes, the sigil of the silver-faced lords’ coinery, and so tossed them into a clay spittoon laid out that served the performing pair as a receptacle of artistic supplication. The Rogue’s gratuity jangled in the pregnant silence.
“Teverus lift your struggles, my friend!” said the dancing girl, who spread a paper fan and bowed and touched her glistening forehead with her steel finger cymbals.
“And may Teverus return and multiply your coins when need arises!” said the bard, smiling with yellow teeth; he dramatically strummed a resonant chord on his harp. Perspiration soaked through his three-fingered coxcomb and streaked his white and black face paint.
“Maur is a true Teverite and knows all of the Hearthfather’s songs!” piped the excited dancing girl, her green eyes sparkling; she gestured grandly to her comrade with her fan and cymbals. “We would like to honor your gift. What song shall we sang?” she asked. The bard, Maur, nodded. “Yes! Let me play for you! And Braxis’ can dance and sing it alive with her lithe body and birdsong’s voice!”
The Rogue grinned and waved them away, refusing their bardic courtesy, and he began to retire, but after a few footsteps, he seemed to hesitate. He ran his hands over his face as if to wipe away the night’s fatigue. He turned, and smiled; the wrinkles at his eyes betrayed his apparent agelessness, and on the canvas of his smile was knotted what might be fear or embarrassment. His eyes were glassy with drunkenness. “Perhaps a few staves. I am sore of heart and not in the mood for songs that would please your saucy Hearthfather. But, with my apologies, you might sing a lament of Cajuls.”
The bard Maur and dancing girl Braxis eyes’ widened at the mention of that God of Weeping and Wisdom, and for a moment they were silent, but then, after a few breaths, they smiled and nodded and positioned themselves; the bard raised his hand to strum while Braxis transferred her hand cymbals to her beautiful ankles, and the Rogue crossed his arms and closed his eyes. And then, when the sad and scintillate harp’s melody began, she danced and rhymed these staves in a voice like liquid silver:
Uninvited guests at the feast embraced
We strive to taste the food that all do taste
In vain we bring the chalice to our lips
But drink we can’t, past lips the wine flow slips
What sin did we commit to draw this fate
Upon us, we who gaze unmoved by fete?
What truth, or life, leave us alienate?
To look on but struggle to celebrate?
O Cajuls who knows how humans do pain
O Cajuls who laughs at bliss close yet vain
Tell me, Tearfather, what change to life to strike?
What sacrifice, what spell, what chant, what words, what spirits fell?
For too long have we sat and gazed and dreamed
This feast, this chair, this board, our own, it seemed.
Braxis finished her dance crouching and kneeling, her face in her hands, as if sobbing, and Maur, taking his strumming hand from his harp, brought a clay handpot of small beer to his lips and drank a deep draught. Otherwise, silence reigned at the song’s end; the Rogue stood on, his eyes remaining closed, and so seemed to be lost in thought or memory. Several of the patrons hid their eyes in their drinking jacks or wine bowls.
The Rogue stretched, yawned, and then helped Braxis up from the floor; overwhelmed with the sadness of her song, Braxis smiled, kissed the Rogue’s hand, and he glimpsed wetness shimmering in her emerald eyes. “Cajul’s lamentations are as a spear to my heart!” she laughed.
“You sang that one well,” said Maur, nodding his thanks as a few murmuring patrons tossed pennies into his coin-holding spittoon.
“No, no,” Braxis said, chiding Maur. “My croaky voice is better suited for drinking ballads than such high fare!”
“Nay!” said the Rogue. “Your compeer is right. You sing well.”
Braxis smirked and sat, crossed her legs, and accepted a tin jack of dark wine from a downcast scullery maid. She sipped, painting her full lips a deeper red. For a moment she locked eyes with the Rogue and some nameless emotion flit, like a shadow, across her orbs’ greenness. The Rogue stood wordless for a few beats, seemed to speak, but then turned and began walking, unbalanced by wine, toward the beggar room, where his cot waited.
But before he left, several men-at-arms of the Eyes of Atok–wide chested and wearing cloth tabards embroidered with eyes over leather-studded vests–strode into the winesoak. At this late hour, when the candles were squat as frogs and wavering, the patrons of this winesoak were few. Most of them had a grim look about them, for this was the harbor district, well-known for its crime and its propensity to succor foreigners, many of them spellbinders, spellbinders who had harsh words for the silver-faced lords of Re and their several-eyed god of mistrust. Many of the patrons had reasons to be reticent, and so shadowed their frowning and salty faces in hoods quickly raised. And the men-at-arms stoked their guiltiness. Sneers of revulsion on their hard faces, they fanned out, hands on dull blade-pommels that swung at their hips, and began interrogating the patrons rudely with harsh questions. Several of the drunkards were ill-treated with kicks. Hoods were ripped off. Scullery maids and serving girls were pinched and fondled wickedly with dirty, unyielding hands. When one patron, an old drunkard with a goat beard and rotten teeth, whispered an insult into his tankard, he had his hair pulled and face dashed to the table.
Watching this cruelty, the Rogue grit his teeth and made two fists, but he restrained his wrath, for such behavior was expected of such men, and the Rogue had seen it before. It was only when the men-at-arms, like buzzards descending on prey, approached Braxis and Maur, that the Rogue’s interest became fully engaged.
There were eight men-at-arms, and one of them had eyed the dented spittoon that held mostly pennies and the Rogue’s generous gift: “Two silvers! A whole week’s work!” He eyed Braxis and Maur suspiciously and grabbed up the coins and rubbed them together in his callused fingers. “What song is worth so much?” And his eyes seemed to luridly lick Braxis, who crossed her arms and shivered in disgust. “Oh, I see. I understand,” he said, hitching his belt and hip-sheath. “Some slut,” he said. “Probably a witch. Do you bear any markings of Three Sisters?” he asked Braxis, licking his chapped lips. “Let’s see,” he said, reaching out his hand, grabbing her shift rudely and pulling it, revealing a brown thigh. Braxis swatted his hand away and Maur stood forcefully.
“Leave her alone, swine!” Maur hissed.
The soldier smiled showing crooked teeth: “Look here! This painted bugger thinks he’s a warrior, brothers,” he said, laughing evilly at his comrades-in-arms. “What is she hiding, Hearthfather? Don’t you know there are witch shadows lurking in this district?” He sniffed the air like an animal. “I can smell them.” His bloodshot eyes bulged out. “Let’s see if she has the black triangle, somewhere,” he said, his eyes bulging. “We won’t violate this blushing maid’s modesty here, of course. Come, milady, come with us out back. It’s more private there,” he said. His comrade-at-arms snickered as he reached for Braxis’s wrist, and when he touched her, Braxis’s poniard, hidden in her hair, slashed out; the swinish man gargled in pain and he stumbled back, grasping his cheek where blood now poured.
“Witch!” he said, though his words were muffled for his cheek flapped, a bloody and unbalanced grin.
“That was a warning!” hissed Braxis. “I could have killed you, dog!” she said, brandishing her poniard like scorpion its venom-dripping tail. Maur alike pulled out his knife and held it clumsily out.
The wounded man-at-arm growled like an animal, disbelief at their protest widening his eyes. He spit bloody spittle to the floor. “You should have!” he said, and hurled a dagger, hitherto concealed, that smote Braxis at the heart, and she fell, trembling. Maur howled in rage and charged the man-at-arms, and his downward slash was caught at the wrist by a strong grip, and swift as a serpent’s bite, the blade was turned, and the bard gargled, spitting blood, and fell, turning over the coin spittoon, impaled by his own blade he had wielded so clumsily.
Let it be known that the Rogue is a prideful soul. Let it be known that his patience has limits. Further, let it be known that drink and the Rogue are not a good combination, and though he loves them, his tolerance of the spirits brewed by humans is low.
“Do any others wish to challenge the Gaze of Atok?” screamed the man-at-arms, turning, his bloody cheek gushing more crimson as if in response to his rage. “Scullery wench!” he shouted, pointing a bloody finger. “Fetch me a rag for this cat scratch!”
“Let him bleed,” said the Rogue.
All eyes went to the tall, cloaked man who stood grim and hooded in the shadows of the room’s head.
The man-at-arms narrowed his eyes. He grabbed a rag from a nearby table and held it to his grisly wound, unsheathed his blade, and strode angrily to stand before the Rogue. He flared his nostrils and puffed out his chest, and though he stood a foot shorter than the Rogue, he showed no cowardice as he whipped back his greasy hair. Behind him his comrades murmured and capered like toads.
“Who are you?” “A traveler.” “Where is your homeland?” “Far away.” “Do you swear you do not discourse with demons?” “No.” “Do you swear you are no necromancer or conjurer of spirits?” “No.” “Have you encountered any witches?” “No.” “Do you know the whereabouts of any witches?” “No.” “Where were you three hours before?” “No.” “Do you even speak the common tongue?” “Yes.” “What is your name?”
The stagnant silence of the unanswered question filled the air like a swarm of stinging midges. At last, the man-at-arms cleared his throat and turned to his comrades, laughing gravelly: “This den is infested with mongrel witchery! The evil runs deep!”
“Yes.”
The Rogue slid his dagger into this man; his eyes bulged and bubbling foam spurted from his mouth. The dagger removed, the Rogue slit his throat with a wet slash, hissing, showing stained teeth in a rictus snarl, and then shoved the limp body over a table, scattering wine bowls, gnaw bones, and candles. In a flash, seven swords gleamed trembling in the flickering light of the smoking grease lamps swaying from the rafters. The Rogue leapt to a table, his cloak thrown off, his blade, a curving shiwa, gripped and ready at his dark brow. One of the men-at-arms came forward and died, stabbed through the eye. Another guard came forward and died, his blood spattering the Rogue’s face and bare chest, and thereafter fell like a sack of roots to the ground, his hot blood spurting from his wound rhythmically. The sounds of his gargling and dim death-movements were all that broke a new silence, and the iron aroma of blood blended with the stale musk of fear-sweat.
The men-at-arms hesitated:
“I have killed three of you! I am your better in blades! Back away, thralls of a pig godlet! My rage is sated! I have taken three lives to two, and your lives will be spared if you value them!”
The five remaining men-at-arms fanned out screaming at each other, in chaos now that the bravest of them had been killed; and for a moment they seemed to plan a renewed attack, murmuring and stammering at each other in fear, but then they fled the Rogue, who stood tall, his skin blackening before them, gulping air, besmeared with the sanguinary stains of their comrade-brothers. Seeming a death-god incarnate, he filled them with dread.
Silence ensued and the Rogue stepped delicately from the table, his dreadful aspect giving way swiftly to something like pity or sadness. The Rogue approached the inert bodies of Braxis and Maur who sprawled on the flagstone floor among a sad scattering of pennies and spilled wine and beer mingled with their blood. The rest of the patrons gazed wordlessly on as the Rogue knelt beside them, rolled their bodies over, arranged their limbs in a dignified, restful posture, and removed the killing blades from their bodies delicately and laid them glimmering redly in the lamp light.
Braxis’s wet eyes were wide, full of shock and anger, but Maur’s face was calm and sweet as child’s sleep. The Rogue touched their wounds, their faces, put his thoughtful face close to theirs, as if listening to their secrets, and the patrons whispered, their hackles rising, for they knew what sorcery looked like, and this was it.
The Rogue used his shiwa to cut his right wrist, and as it was dripping blood, an unreality seemed to permeate the room, and all were silent, as if they were watching a strange, potent sacrament, and they were. And the Rogue let his blood drip drip drip into Braxis’s mouth. And then he brought his bleeding wrist to Maur as well. He wrapped a linen around his wrist that soaked his blood, and he tightened the rag, hissing. And then he raised his left hand, two fingers pointing to the air, and closed his eyes: “Come!” said the Rogue.
Braxis and Maur gasped and coughed and thrashed, their backs arching and arms failing, their lifeless bodies now animate, and the Rogue calmed them, constrained them, like a midwife to a mother in childbirth; a sigh of awe and a scattered scream issued from the patrons, who watched, rapt by this miracle, even as the Rogue helped Braxis and Maur to their feet, their wounds healed, their clothing still stained deep with blood, but life flashed in their eyes. Though confused and coughing and speechless, they lived. “Help them! They are weak,” said the Rogue breathlessly. “Hold them.” Several maids and servants came and supported Braxis and Maur. His burden lifted, the Rogue gripped his wrist, swathed in bloody rags, and as the patrons thronged Braxis and Maur, testing their wounds with probing fingers to see if they were truly healed, the Rogue re-cloaked and re-hooded himself. No one noticed as he stooped, and with a piece of charcoal, painted two black triangles on two pale foreheads of two of the men he had killed, and somehow, though the tap room was fully lit by grease-lamps and braziers of coal and thronged with folk now joyous, he slipped away, unnoticed, and begrudgingly left the city of Re that night, and went elsewhere.
This is why the lords of Re call him a necromancer, tell lies about him–that he is a demon, a revolutionary, a conjurer of spirits. I do not know if these things are true. I only know that the anger of the Rogue is death and that life is in his blood.
©November 2018 Jason Ray Carney
Jason Ray Carney‘s work has appeared in Skelos, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Phantaxis, Cirsova, and previously in Swords & Sorcery.