Sweet Clara

            Sweet Clara is what they called her.

            Up above the maze of crooked streets that made up the frankly rather small and insignificant city of Errister, the clouds were threatening like chained dogs. The air had grown humid, and everything felt filthy. It was not yet hot – along the northern coast of Retrein, it rarely got truly hot – but the snows had melted and everything that had been caught up in them over the winter was now unleashed, forming a miasma of putridity.

            It wasn’t that Sweet Clara had ever had an easy life. Father got killed by the Barrow Gang, and mother threw her out when she was fourteen. But there was a time when she made do well enough, plying her trade. When she was seventeen she went to work in Madam Harlan’s place. It was not a proper street-temple – the old buggers in parliament outlawed that decades ago – but Harlan kept it safe, and he didn’t take more than he needed. He had been a street-priest himself, which Clara figured gave him a degree of humanity that others in his line might not have. Madam Harlan, they called him, which he seemed to prefer over “Monsieur.” He was a strange kind of dragger that kept his masculine name. He was actually quite manly, and did not attempt any sort of impersonation, other than the clothes, but he did have a motherly instinct toward his “flock,” as he called them. Things worked out, and the enforcers turned a blind eye – probably happy that Harlan ran things clean: no drugs, no violence.

            But when the fog rolled in five years back, things dried up. People did not have the money to spend on luxuries, and for most, that meant they had given up a good weekly hook. Some of the regulars kept up, and some of the out-of-towners, but business pretty much ground to a halt.

            Harlan had gotten old, and took a bullet when a couple bloody robbers tried to take his Cold Iron safe. He survived, bless the gods, but the business didn’t.

            Sweet Clara had stayed with Esmi for a spell after that. Esmi wanted to give up the trade. She wanted to clean her life up a bit, but she didn’t mind Clara bringing clients in. Clara wished she had minded, because on a slow, boring day in the late winter, a man who’d had too much to drink and was a proper bastard to boot decided he’d get more than what he paid for. The enforcers had to be called, and they dragged the man off in chains, but Esmi was in no shape to live there anymore. The social services people took her away, kept her safe, Clara hoped, but the flat was gone after that.

            And now Clara was on the street. She had thought about going back into the trade, maybe seeing if things had picked up in Ravenfort or Wolfsmouth – the big cities might have recovered a bit quicker after the fog – but she had no way to get there. In Errister, even after the fog was gone, the shelters were overflowing. Clara had heard the stories – the fights that broke out, the crowding. There were stories of abuse, like a woman who was running one of them getting her thrills from beating up the residents. She didn’t want that – figured she’d do better on her own.

            She slept in the day. The nights weren’t a good time to be unaware. She was on the sidewalk, looking down the crooked alleyway that passed for a street here. There had been stories floating around about some sort of demon haunting the city, preying on the beggars, but she suspected it was just the usual sort of spooked rumor that seemed to spread through the city like a plague. Some poor sot must have read a book of myths about Ripper Jack or Whispering Jim and started imagining things. Still, demon or no, you kept your eyes open when the sun went down.

            The night was growing colder, and now there were tiny, timid droplets of rain falling – just barely too thick to be considered a mist. Sweet Clara tried to keep her eyes open. The sun would rise in just five hours, and then she would be free to let them close, but for now, she huddled under her blanket, her knife held tight.

            And suddenly there was blinding light. Clara squinted at it, shielding her eyes. When she could finally bear to look at the light’s source, she saw that it was a limousine.

            The limousine had pulled right up in front of her, though with such a long car, she could not be sure how its driver had managed to get it down the twisting street. The vehicle was black, and appeared strangely matte from the condensation that had collected on it.

            The strangest thing about the limousine was that there was a pipe sticking out of the back of it. Some sort of foul smoke was puffing from the pipe, cascading up into the air. And on the side, behind the passenger cab’s door, instead of a cable-plug, there was a small square door. As the limousine sat in front of her, there was a low rumbling from the engine.

            The front door opened, and the driver hopped out. He was a slightly chubby man, with a bizarrely cheerful smile on his face, which was red around the cheeks and forehead and especially the nose.

            “Ms. Clara? Sweet Clara?” said the driver with a Canwick accent. Then he grinned again. “Of course it is. Wouldn’t be here if it was anyone else. Ms. Clara, would you be so kind as to step inside?”

            The driver opened the door and stood there, waiting. Clara did not move.

            “He’s got a business proposal for you,” said the driver. “And he says he’ll buy you dinner.”

            She had not eaten that day.  She knew it was the last thing you’d do, getting in a vehicle with a client, but with no food today and nothing she expected tomorrow… And there was something inviting about the limousine, even if she could not be sure what it was.

            “At least let us get you out of the rain, Ms. Clara,” said the driver. At that moment, the rain truly began to fall. Sheets of water seemed to be splashing down over everything, and the filth on the streets was quickly being swept up in a rising tide.

            She stood and entered the limousine. As she did, she transformed herself, the way she had learned to do with a client. Posture, movement, and expression could mean a world of difference in how men saw a woman.

            The seats were cool, smooth leather, and the windows were tinted so that they seemed entirely cut off from the foul city around them. She could hardly see outside.

            Across the cavern of a space inside the vehicle sat a strange young man.

            He looked to be around twenty, a man who was only just beginning to look like an adult. He was dressed very well – an immaculate black suit and shoes polished to a mirror sheen.

            He was very pale – so pale he seemed to be truly white, and his hair was similarly bleached of all color. Even his eyes were steely grey. The only point of color on him was an emerald on a ring he wore on the left hand.

            “Sweet Clara,” said the man. “I am in need of certain services, and I believe you can provide them.”

            Clara nodded, taking care not to display her apprehension at touching this ghostly young man. “I understand.” She looked around. It had been months, but she had not forgotten how to get into character. She hadn’t bathed in three days, though, since an old Narcian priest had let her use his tiny temple’s bath. But she had learned long ago that there were men and women of every taste, and her current state could be what this one was interested in. Besides, if this meant a hot meal and a few coins to rub together, she would do what she could. “Would you like me to begin in here?”

            The man smiled knowingly. “No, Clara, I don’t think you do understand. I do not want a prostitute. I don’t need that sort of service.” The man crossed his legs and pulled out a pocket watch. She could not be sure – she only saw the watch’s face for a moment – but she thought it had only one hand and no numbers. “I will pay you a discretionary salary of forty-thousand tolls. You will be provided with housing, a cook, a maid, and clothing. You will be representing me, you understand, and I want you to act the part. I don’t think we’ll need to see a speech coach about your accent, but I would like to impress upon you that you will no longer be living on the streets, and I do not want your voice to give the impression that you still do.”

            Clara could not pick a word to respond with.

            “You’re overwhelmed,” said the man. “Let me explain what the job will entail, and you can decide if it would suit you better than your current lifestyle.” The man began to wind the watch. “You will be my voice among those to whom I do not wish to speak. You will be my ears among those to whom I do not wish to listen. You will be my eyes among those whom I do not wish to see.”

            The man leaned forward. “I will be a rumor that resides in your shadow. Your actions will, in fact, be my actions. You will be the face I show in the mortal world. I require complete obedience. If I receive that, you will want for nothing. If I do not, I will return you exactly here, to live out this facsimile of a life you have now.”

            “I don’t know who you are,” said Clara.

            “I am a man with great influence and power,” said the man.

            “Why have you chosen me? I mean, I can use the work, I don’ t mind saying, but what makes you think I can do this?”

            The man nodded, though he seemed somehow frustrated with her all of a sudden. “You are an actress. You’ve never been on stage or film, but I know of some of your best performances. Men loyal to my cause have auditioned you for years at Madam Harlan’s. Had it not been for recent events, I imagine we might be having this conversation there instead. I need someone who can portray an extension of my will – to show neither fear nor doubt, even though I know you will be filled with both. Does that answer your question?”

            Feigning confidence, she said “Yes, it does.”

            “Do I have your answer?” he asked.

            “I don’t rightly think I can refuse,” she said.

            He smiled. “Good. I knew you were a sensible woman.” He leaned forward, opening a mini-bar in the car’s wall. From there he retrieved a thermos. Slowly, he unscrewed the lid and poured a cup.

            “Sweet Clara,” he said. “My business will require you to know certain things about the world that most people do not. Before we can begin, I’d ask that you drink some of this.”

            He handed the cup to her. Inside, there was a black liquid that splashed up with only the slightest movement of her hand. The smell of it was awful – it reminded her of the smoke coming from that odd pipe at the back of the limousine.

            The man smiled. “It’s not poison. I know what you are thinking. It is unfair that prostitutes are so often targeted by the deranged. Their lives are rarely happy to begin with. But rest assured, I am no Ripper Jack. I see no reason that a woman of your professional experience is any more deserving of cruelty than another.”

            Clara looked back down at the beverage. “I can’t.”

            He frowned. “That is most unfortunate. I will be unable to employ you if you do not drink.”

            Clara inhaled some of the fumes. There was an underlying scent that was strangely pleasant – like some kind of coffee. Yet it was twisted, as if all of the flavor had been squeezed out of it and only the bitterness remained.

            She thought about that sad patch of pavement she’d made her home, thought about Esmi, who had only been given a proper home after a brute had broken half her bones.

            So what if it is poison?

            She downed the cup. The drinking was just as unpleasant as she had feared, and for a moment she thought that it really had been poison, and that her insides were about to be torn up, and the pain would end her life.

            But that moment did not come. After a few seconds, the flavor of the foul liquid evaporated away. Yet this was followed by a thudding headache. What few lights there were in the limousine grew blindingly bright, but this, too, passed.

            And then Sweet Clara realized that she and the strange man were not alone in the limousine’s cab. On either side of him were two other men, staring at her without faces.

            She screamed in shock, but quickly quieted herself. Henry smiled.

            “Sweet Clara, allow me to introduce you to our clients. We will be working very closely with them.”

            She stared at the one that sat to his left. Even as she saw the strange being before her, she felt as if she was looking through it.

            “Do they frighten you?” asked the man.

            “I don’t know what to make of them.”

            “You cannot make anything of them. I suggest you do not attempt to do so.”

            Sweet Clara swallowed. She narrowed her vision, focusing only on the odd man and trying to act as if the faceless beings were not there. “Tell me what to do.”

            The man leaned on his elbow. “Once we’ve taken you to your home, gotten you cleaned up and dressed, and I daresay once you’ve had a decent night’s sleep, I would like you to travel to Ravenfort to speak with an old school friend of mine. His name is Richard Airbright, and I wanted to give him notice that I’ll be coming to town myself shortly and that he should be prepared.”

            “Sir,” Clara began. One of the faceless men had somehow gotten closer to her, such that he was nearly seated next to her, even though she had not seen him make the move. She took a breath, remembering the part that this man had assigned her. “What name should I give this Mr. Airbright?”

            “The name is Henry Thall.”

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2013)

A Good Arizradna Boy

            Azjar tapped out a command on the keyboard, and the projective sigil shifted by just a hair. The moon had come again – the second time this month – and its properties seemed to interfere with the xenogravity field holding up the telescope. The spell keeping the telescope aligned was a form of glyphic magic, using the sigil to substitute the underlying gravitational field of another universe within a set space, thus allowing the enormous instrument to float miles up above. Azjar had always had a better knack for invocative magic, but after a little training, he had learned to maintain the observatory’s key asset.

            Most observatories tended to have a number of astronomers rotate through, and while there were a few people within the community who would come to make their own observations at the DFO, the Sinret Project insisted that they have a presence at the observatory at all times.

            Azjar liked it there. It was far enough from the city that one could feel a degree of privacy without being so far that one could not go into town on a whim. He had grown up in Damana, the capital of Arizradna, and though he loved his hometown and appreciated how lucky he had been to be born there, he was happy to be living outside the city.

            Freya had made her great big stew, and while Azjar typically did not eat meat, he was satisfied that she had acquired the beef from a reputable institution that treated its animals as humanely as one could.

            The Deep Field Observatory had been built at the instruction of the Sinret Project, thousands of miles away in Arkos Province in the Redlands. Azjar had never been to the Redlands, but it was said that most of it was a fairly dangerous place, thanks to the wars that came in and out like the tide near the coast or the general lawlessness as one got farther inland. Azjar did not like to look down on another culture, but he found it strangely poetic that Arizradna and the Redlands were almost mirror images of each other, his homeland spread along the west coast of Sarona and the Redlands occupying much of the east coat six thousand miles away.

            He had once made an offhand comment, carelessly denigrating the Redlands in front of Tessa, and begged her forgiveness for his insensitivity, but she had only laughed and mentioned that there was a reason she never intended to return to the country of her birth.

            Still, Arkos province, where the Sinret Project was based, was said to be stable and even pleasant, at least in the cities. He imagined one would have to have some semblance of order to attempt a project of such magnitude, and truthfully he was glad the people of Arkos had entrusted his country with the construction and maintenance of the observatory. Not only was Arizradna a far safer place to invest the millions that the DFO cost to build, but historically it was believed that that position on the planet would give the best angle to stand a chance at finding Arashka.

            The people of the Redlands - or at least most of them, as of course there had inevitably been some racial mixing after living so long on Sarona - were originally refugees from an entirely different planet called Arashka. There was some myth passed down among the Redlanders that Arashka had been beset by a terribly calamity, marked by the arrival of an entity called the White King.

            The Gods of Arashka all had dual-identities – a day aspect and a night aspect. The most powerful among them was called Ternis – the God of Time. Ternis represented ambition for the future, and the promise of a better day to come, with new opportunities, growth, and the limitless potential in what had not yet happened.

            Ternis’ night aspect was Sinret, who represented nostalgia, history, and the striving for what had been lost. Depending on who you asked, Sinret could be a sorrowful being, or a seductive one, or potentially destructive and dangerous.

            There were many nuances that were lost on Azjar, but he suspected the legends and myths of the Pantheon of Arashka had mutated and been rewritten a hundred times in the ages that had passed since the exodus.

            The only member of the pantheon still known to exist was the night aspect of Sirca, the warrior god, who was named Ashtor. After the White King’s arrival, Ashtor flew through the heavens toward Sarona-Ki, leaving behind a wake of red flame that came to be known as “Ashtor’s Bleed.” For whatever reason, even when the Arashkans landed on the planet, he chose to shun them and instead found worshippers among the Sardok.

            For this reason, Azjar felt oddly out of place. Both Tessa and Freya had a connection to the project – one was searching for the land of her ancestors and the other was searching for the land of her god. Meanwhile Azjar, a good Arizradna boy, was less interested in the mystical or romantic side of things. Instead, he was drawn to the project primarily because of the puzzle of the technical logistics.

            When he was satisfied with the adjustments, Azjar made his way to the lodge. He was not yet sure what to make of Tessa’s boyfriend. For one, he did not remember her mentioning him before, and there was something… off about him. They had only interacted twice, first when Tessa brought Jack to his station and introduced him and again when Azjar had gone to the kitchen for breakfast.

            Oh hey, you’ve only eaten a bowl of cereal today, Azjar thought. Once again, he’d allowed himself to get lost in his work.

            But his thoughts remained on Jack Cart, Tessa’s sudden boyfriend from Narcia. He seemed friendly enough, though oddly thin. The man looked as if he had recently kicked a drug habit or been through months of torture, yet his manner and tone were lighthearted and friendly. Admittedly, Azjar was used to people being a little more rotund – thanks to what he had once heard a comedian call “The Arizradna Padding.” Yet Jack, well, he did not look unhealthy exactly, just strange.

            When they had sat at the dinner table, Freya handed him a very large stein of beer. “Drink up, witch. It’s not Varhall unless you’re stumbling drunk at the end of the night.”

            Azjar took a sip. The beer was thick and rich and very bitter. Azjar usually preferred bluewine, but he also recognized the need to get into the spirit of the holiday.

            “So how long have you been working at the DFO, Azjar?” asked Jack.

            “I came in with Freya. We had met in undergrad at Al-Akthi University up in Tevali. That was about four years ago.”

            “So you guys were here a year before Tessa?”

            Freya nodded. “Yeah. We’re the old-timers around here.” Freya then proceeded to grill Jack on his life: where he grew up, how he and Tessa met, what he did for a living. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but still Azjar thought that Jack seemed uncomfortable, despite his confident answers to this impromptu interrogation.

            Azjar reasoned to himself that it was possible he was simply projecting his own discomfort over having a stranger there.

            They feasted for nearly three hours, and soon Freya was nearly unable to stand. Tessa left to help walk her to her room, leaving Jack and Azjar alone.

            They sat there, quietly, until finally Azjar felt he needed to break the silence. “So what do you think of Arizradna?” he asked, grasping for something to talk about.

            “It’s very nice,” replied Jack. He did not elaborate. Again, Azjar thought he could sense some discomfort underneath Jack’s friendly attitude.

            More silence.
           "Well, we made it to the couch," said Tessa as she reappeared. "Jack, you coming?"
           "Sure," he said, and they left the dining room. Azjar went to the kitchen and put his plate in the dishwasher, then began to make his way to his room. The beer had hit him harder than he expected. Much harder.

            He walked down the hallway, nearly tripping over his own foot. He supposed Freya would be happy with him, but she was already passed out, draped over the sofa in the enormous living room, absolutely reeking of beer and whiskey. Azjar opened the door in front of him.

            “Azjar!” Tessa nearly cried. He looked into the room. The room was dark, illuminated only from the lights in the hallway. Tessa was in bed, in her bedclothes. On the floor to the side of her bed, Jack was stretched out on a comforter, his bony chest uncovered. “What are you doing?” she asked.

            Azjar paused for a moment.

            What am I doing?

            He turned around. “I think I took hold of the wrong door.”

            Tessa nodded. “Yeah.”

            “I have a theory… bear with me here. I have a theory, that I may have ingested greater quantities of alcohol than I realized I was… doing.”

            Tessa laughed. “Yeah, that beer Freya brought is something like fifty proof.”

            Azjar nodded sagely. “Yes, that might account for it.” He looked around the room and nodded. “Right, well, carry on. Carry on.”

            He closed the door and walked toward what he now realized was his own door.

            That would have been pretty embarrassing if you were sober, he thought. Funny that Jack was sleeping on the floor.

            He went into his room and collapsed on the bed. It was amazingly soft and warm. He didn’t even mind that his face was pressed down against the mattress. It was still wonderfully comfortable.

            It was odd, though. Tessa was hardly a prudish woman – living with her and Freya for so long, he was privy to all of their “girl-talk.”

            Why would she make him sleep on the floor?

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2013)

A Mote of Dust in the Air

            Lydia Lisenrush awoke at five. She sat up out of bed, did a set of push-ups, and went to the shower. The water was very hot. She got dressed, tied her hair back, and went on her way to the office.

            It was well into spring now, with summer just around the corner. The snow should have melted by now, but it was still there, black and dirty from the mud it had soaked up over the months.

            The faceless man was walking behind her, and part of her knew that he was there. The part of her that understood made her walk faster. Yet there was a disconnect – some gulf between the part of her mind that saw the faceless men and the part of her brain that saw nothing out of the ordinary other than a discouragingly shrunken ranger corps.
            Actually, it had been a long time since they had lost a ranger. Lisenrush suspected that they were not trekking quite so far into the woods. Yet the rangers who had returned from their journeys seemed very hesitant to set out again. After Vymer came back as a draugr, Lisenrush had become conservative with the rangers' assignments. She's gotten word - top secret information - from the forensics team back in town - Vymer was not a typical draugr. His flesh had not rotted or mortified, rather it had somehow fused together, such that each muscle transitioned smoothly into other parts of his anatomy, and the internal organs had become so undifferentiated that it was almost as if he'd been replaced with a man made of plastic. He was hardly "undead," as much as he had been turned into something quite unlike a human being.
            He was on his way to becoming like the faceless men.

            There was dissonance, and both halves of her thoughts recognized this. She blamed the numbness on it, even if she had still not come up with a satisfying theory to explain how they could be connected.

            It would be troubling enough to feel that she was losing her mind, but she noticed it in the men as well. Perkins had even come to her, volunteering that he may not be fit for service, given his current mental distress. She admired that he had the courage to speak up about it. So many of the men were in denial, even when they were clearly just as affected. Still, there weren’t enough men to rotate people in and out. She had sent Perkins back to his post.

            There was only one person in all of Far Watch Outpost who seemed normal – one person who seemed to have a cohesive mind, who was not distracted or spacey. It was Ana Sweeney.

            Lisenrush had begun to entertain a very dangerous notion. Part of her, the rational part that knew that there were no invisible men stalking her, considered that Sweeney could even be the cause of this strange malaise, and that it was foolish for them to keep her here. Yet even that side had been forced to consider that Sweeney could be telling the truth.

            Once or twice, a thought from her mind connected with her brain, like sparks jumping between two wires held just close enough together. Sweeney had been going on about some sort of hidden presence at the Outpost, a man that was everywhere.

            You can see them. There is one next to you right now.

            Lisenrush felt her heart begin to race. Only now, after walking across the entire compound, did she realize she had walked to Sweeney’s cell. She looked to the man guarding the door, whose name was Andersen. He seemed hardly there, as if he were catatonic.

            The door opened, and she went inside.

            “Ranger-Captain. What answers would you like to ignore today?”

            Lisenrush crossed the cell and sat down on the bed. Ana backed away, eyeing her as if a lion had just wandered into the room.

            You’re not the thing she’s looking at. Her eyes are not watching you, they are focused on the air in front of you – as if there were a mote of dust floating there.

            “Ana,” said Lisenrush – that was unusual, she usually stuck with “Sweeney,” or “draugr.” “Tell me about the faceless men.”

            Ana swallowed. She looked up at the faceless man, standing mere feet from her. The thing seemed to be focused on Lisenrush, rather than her, but it was still deeply unsettling to be in such close proximity. There was a strange kind of pull in the air, like from a vacuum, toward it.

            “You won’t believe me,” said Ana. “You haven’t yet.”

            “I want to know everything you can tell me about them. I’ll decide if I believe you.”

            Ana was very still. “I started seeing them in my dreams. I don’t know when it started. In my dreams, they weren’t as dangerous. I started seeing them for real after I was shot.”

            “What do they do?”

            Ana was now against the wall entirely. Lisenrush was better at hiding her fear, but she had the same instinct – to straighten and stiffen, to remain motionless until the danger had passed. “They stand there. Sometimes they touch someone. It’s… it’s like they are sucking the feeling out of the air. I don’t… Captain Lisenrush, I… I don’t know much else.”

            Lisenrush looked up at her. “Something horrible is happening here, right now, all over the compound. But I cannot say what it is. I think you can.”

            Ana took another step back. “Captain Lisenrush, there’s a faceless man standing right in front of you, right now.”

            Lisenrush looked up, and for a split second, she saw it. Right there, less than a foot away, staring without eyes right down at her.

            For the first time since she was a child, she screamed in terror. She climbed backward, scrambling over the cot and to the floor. She could not see the faceless man anymore, but she knew that it was there.

            And it was now that she realized she had been seeing them for months. At Far Watch, in town, even on a trip to Port Sang. She had been seeing them everywhere. Why had she never noticed?

            “Sweeney, we’re both leaving here right now.”

            Ana did not need to be told again. The two of them ran out of the room, down the corridor and out into the open.

           

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2013) 

The Guest Speaker

            The central chamber of the Royal Arcane Society was a large circular amphitheater, where the few hundred sorcerers, wizards, arcane physicists, and theoretical magicians squeezed past one another to get to their assigned seats. Some of the men (and it was mostly men, even these days) had held their seats for over fifty years. Doctor Oberon Müller was the current senior member, having sat on the Governing Council for seventy-seven years. Despite his profound age, he still sat perfectly upright, and wore a stern, unimpressed expression at all times.

            Seamus Kerry was only thirty-six, making him one of the society’s youngest members. Twice annually, members of the society were called to appear at the headquarters, to discuss new advances in the field and how best to apply their talents to current events.

            Last year’s meeting had been almost entirely devoted to the fog that had isolated Retrein from the rest of the world. Despite all the wonderful crafting of theories surrounding the mysterious fog and its equally mysterious dissipation, Kerry knew that its true impact was on the economy, and that in the long run, it had not done much to shake up the field of arcane studies.

            One lecturer spoke on the subject of the bombing in Entraht over two years earlier – a subject that Kerry wished would go away. It had descended into the pantheon of obsessions for the bored and the paranoid. Next, there was an engineer who spoke on the use of solid-state xenogravity fields to create more fuel-efficient airships.

            Kerry had grown to dread these tedious meetings. Many of these men had made their greatest contributions half a century earlier. The few youthful, energetic members of the society were generally relegated to Listeners, like Kerry himself,

            Yet every time he heard one of his cotemporaries spout off about shaking things up, creating a new society or traveling down to Narcia to work at the University of Carathon, he reminded his esteemed colleague that the Society had been around longer than even Queen Elona had, and would persist long after they had gone from stuffy old men to simple names engraved on the walls for future arcanists to ignore as they made their own complaints.

            Kerry shifted in his chair. He had grown too accustomed to his own office, with a modern chair composed of soft fibers and squishy foam cushioning. The chairs here were old, nearly flat pieces of wood. Some of the older members – the Speakers, who were allowed to give lectures – had customized their assigned seats, even building makeshift offices within their opera-box-like spaces, but to do so required a degree of status within the society that Listeners usually lacked. Kerry had only gotten his assigned seat a year earlier; before then, he had been forced to jostle for a good position with his fellow Listeners.

            While there was no explicit requirement that a member attend the meetings, it was seen, as the Hesaians would put it, to be a faux pas. Circumstances could arise, certainly, and if there was a decent excuse to be had, a member’s absence would be met only with gruff disapproval and not humiliating shaming.

            So it was quite a scandal that Sir Roderick Candel was nowhere to be seen. A man who somehow managed to be mysterious yet warm and friendly at the same time, Candel was a prominent Speaker and sat on the Governing Council. All Kerry knew about the man was that he wore six coins, slipped into his shoes and sewn into his coat and pants. Kerry imagined the coins had some sort of warding or protective property, but Candel would, of course, never speak on them, seemingly pretending that the coins were not there.

            After the airship lecture, Kerry saw a young aid, perhaps an intern, jog over to the Council table and whisper something into Doctor Müller’s ear. The ancient man, whose eyes had sunken and seemed like two tiny black spots, and whose mustache was the only hair that seemed to grow on his head anymore, appeared surprised, and when the intern leaned away, he shakily rose to his feet and banged his gavel as hard as he could on the table.

            “There has been…” his jaw shook as he pondered his next words,” a change. We have an unexpected…” another jaw-shake. “There is a guest lecturer... that we are to hear.” Müller nodded to himself, satisfied, and lowered himself carefully back into his chair.

            The man who walked in was dressed in a black frock coat, with a pair of round spectacles and a wild beard to match his hair.

            “Esteemed masters, gentlemen, and ladies,” the man began. There was a strange air to him, as if he was not alone in the center of the amphitheater. “I am Richard Airbright.”

            The room erupted with chatter. The Airbrights were as infamous a family as any of them had heard of. It was Paul Airbright, down in Narcia in the Royal Era, who had invented necromancy as it was known today. No Airbright had ever been allowed to join the Royal Arcane Society. To have one speak here today was an insult to everyone present.

            “By your reaction to my presence, I take it that I am not a welcome face in these hallowed halls, but nevertheless, propriety and convention are small prices that you must pay for what I am about to tell you. First, so that you should see I do not hide any truth from you, I will reveal my familiar. Whispering Jim, make yourself seen.”

            With those words, a cloud of smoke seemed to appear out of the air next to him. Yet upon taking a closer look, the smoke actually had the form of a man – approximate and distorted, but this being was clearly alive in some manner.

            “This is a demon, who I entrapped using ancient and forbidden methods. I humbly apologize if his presence in this hall goes against your ways, but he is a tool. A means to and end, and this end is one that I expect most of you will agree is imperative.”

            Already, some members began to get up from their seats, walking out of the room in disgust. Kerry considered doing it himself, though less out of disgust and more out of a practical fear. Demonic magic was a most dangerous endeavor, and even a bound demon could be a real hazard. Still, he was far from the floor, and he reassured himself that if the demon were to get loose, it would be the crusty old Speakers who would take the first blows.

            “Gentlemen, there is a man named Henry Thall, though he is not a man in the strictest sense anymore. Thirty years ago, Henry nearly destroyed this very building, and the final tally of his rampage left forty dead. It was only with great effort that this being was defeated and exiled from our realm. Henry was held, incorporeal, in Faewatch, a small town on the northern coast that most of you, I expect, will not have heard of. Six months ago, the Tomb of Eschalesh, to which Henry Thall had been bound, was destroyed, and erased from the world through means I have as of yet been unable to discern.”

            “He has escaped. Consider yourself warned.”

            Airbright took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. Smiling, he looked up. “Questions?”

            A Listener whose name Kerry could not recall stood. “How do you know of this man and his imprisonment?”

            “I was among the practitioners who bound him there.”

            A Speaker, one Sir Lyle Marbury, rose. “You spoke of an imperative end, Mr. Airbright. What end is that?”

            “To kill him, of course,” he responded, and moved on to the next question without a moment’s hesitation.

            Lady Morgana Clarke, a junior member on the Governing Council, rose. “Why have your brought this to our attention? Did you not, first, go to the Enforcement Ministry?”

            Airbright nodded. “I intend to do so immediately after I have finished here.”

            “Why did you come to us first?” she followed.

            “Because I believe that the very first thing Henry will do when he is ready to make himself known to the world is to kill every last one of you.”

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2013)

A Traditional Sort of Man

            Tarson had settled down a bit, now that they were back on Retron soil. Nascine imagined that he would be a little less eager, a little less ambitious now, having seen how bad a Rookery Expedition could go. She still could not understand why they had sent such a novice with her, and she could still not get herself to think of him by his real name, which was Chris Thatch.

            Valerie Justinian had evaporated the moment they left Narcia. Nascine had taken on a few aliases in her years with the Rookery, and so the practice of shedding identities as a snake sheds its skin was second-nature.

            The Rookery was a large enough organization that it was not that strange she had not seen

            Thatch – his name is Thatch.

him before their mission. She had told him the basics of the note that Yasik had left her back in Omlos – that he had double-crossed them, stealing Jaroka for himself. She had not yet told him to be on the lookout for a House Agent.

            In that sense, she envied him. Yasik’s note had been a dead weight around her neck since she had read it.

            Nascine had put together a map of the Rookery’s organization, to the extent that she knew. Queen Elona had provided a little extra information, explaining a few things Nascine had always wondered about. For starters, she had never realized quite how many people worked directly under the Lord or Lady Crow. Systematically, she would work her way from the top to the bottom. Elona herself had vouched for the trustworthiness of Lady Crow – Nascine supposed such a job would require the most stringent of screenings. That put Renford Harren as the first person to clear.

            Harren was a wiry man, tall and thin, with black hair that was salted with strands of white and skin like beaten leather. He looked the part of a thief, which, Nascine supposed, was intentional.

            Harren did not much leave the country these days, except to occasionally visit Entraht to take part in the annual Public Theft. The Public Theft was a tradition dating back centuries as a celebration of Narcian-Retron relations. The Thiefmaster of the Rookery would come to “steal” a tribute from the Narcians, who offered it as a show of friendship. It was strange enough for the Retrons, and Nascine imagined the Narcians found it even more bizarre, but tradition was tradition.

            And Harren was a traditional sort of man. Married for twenty-five years, with teenaged children. Nascine, even in her line of work, had always considered the Agents of the House to be something quite different than that. She imagined them as lonely individuals, with nothing to tie them down, nothing to lose should they have to break off and disappear. She had never thought of them as being real people, with real lives.

            The problem was that up until her conversation with Yasik, she had been on the side of those who considered the House to be a myth, or at best a minor, distant historical entity who had achieved legendary status through the feedback loop of popular imagination.

            It would not be an easy thing to speak to Harren directly. Nascine was a veteran thief, certainly, but that hardly put her on a first name basis with the head of the Rookery.

            Harren was not first on the list, though. Elona had told her to look into Tartin. Nascine could not believe that Tartin was an Agent. After the Offices, she knew he was exposed. She had seen him at his weakest and most vulnerable.

            It was raining when Nascine knocked on Tartin’s door. She waited for a while, thinking she should have called when she was getting near, but soon the door opened.

            “Emily, come in,” said Natalie. “And do take off that jacket before you get the carpet all wet.” Tartin and Natalie had been together for many years now. She was about his age, and worked one of those important-sounding jobs for a manufacturing firm. Tartin could have lived well enough with his salary, but Natalie provided the two of them with a degree of luxury, albeit with a tasteful sense of restraint.

            “It’s been far too long,” said Nascine. Natalie led her into a sort of front living room that overlooked the street. This was one of a number of venues for entertaining guests, and had great bay windows to allow as much sun in as possible.

            “Emily, I’m brewing a new tea I picked up at the market earlier. Would you… what am I thinking? Of course you’d like a cup. I’ll fetch one.” She stole back into the kitchen. Nascine looked around the room in the meantime. There were a few new features – a grandfather clock, set against the wall opposite the windows, and a mounted set of stag’s antlers. Nascine wondered what Rosanna Jaroka would think of that particular piece of décor. Natalie had a house out in the country as well, but she did not skimp on the decorations here. She did not like to flaunt it, but it was not hard to tell that she was of aristocratic stock. Natalie came back in with a steaming cup.

            “How is your work, Emily?”

            Nascine accepted the cup, sipping a little. “Fine. Gil is out?”

            Natalie nodded, sitting in a comfortable chair. “Yes. Wandering, as I like to say.”

            Nascine sat on the sofa. “Whereabouts?” she asked, attempting to make it seem as innocent as she could.

            “You know, I think he sometimes goes to the Finger’s Market. He says he likes to see all the fresh fish.”

            “It’s a charming enough part of town,” said Nascine. That was where she would track him. It would, of course, be quite difficult to follow a friend as old as Gilbert Tartin without being noticed, but Elona told her to start with him, and at the very least she would do her due diligence before moving on to Harren.

            It was early morning now, and the fog was thick, making everything seem to dissolve into the distance. Nascine had learned at a very young age that fog was a friend. Not only did it obscure, but it could also dull and flatten what fell in a person’s field of vision.

            She had climbed up the old Harley’s Electric building, which still bore its sign, though the paint had faded and so the sign was textured with the underlying bricks. From the rooftop, it was quite easy to see the entire market.

            Tartin was right there, walking with purpose toward a store called “Thompson & Son’s Salvage and Tinker.” When he reached the door, he clearly had found it locked, shaking the handle in frustration.

            Tartin moved around the store, eventually walking down into an alleyway where Nascine could not see him. She peered around the building, trying to see if there was an angle at which she could see him. Suddenly, he was there on the roof, pulling himself over the ledge.

            Nascine ducked down, allowing the ledge of her own roof to obscure her.

            The man has not lost his touch, she thought. He may have scaled his building faster than she had hers.

            Tartin leaned over the ledge facing the alleyway and dexterously reached down to the window below. Nascine watched in admiration as her former mentor pried the window open and swung down from the ledge and into the building. It was only after he had gone out of view that she thought to be concerned about just what he was doing in there.

            “Emily Nascine, I presume?” came a voice behind her.

            Nascine spun around, looking up at the wiry man standing in front of her.

            “Mr. Harren… I…”

            “You were watching our dear Gilbert. I must say, the man may have put on some weight, but he is still an exemplary thief.”

            Harren was wearing a simple grey jumper and loose, comfortable-looking trousers.

            “Sir, what are you…?”

            “Doing here? I was looking for you.”

            “I… I was…” she considered pretending she was simply practicing, keeping her skills sharp, but she was too shocked to come up with the right words.

            “It’s all right. I know why you’re here. And I know that Queen Elona was the one to send you.”

            Harren looked down at her. She realized now that he did not blink. “Sir, the Queen?”

            “I know, Nascine. And I know about the House mole. We can talk about it.”

            “The Queen told you?”

            Harren gave a strange half-smile. “No.”

            Nascine looked Harren over, attempting to assess if he had any weapons, but it seemed he was unarmed. “Why are you here, Mr. Harren?”

            “Because I need your help, Emily. You’re the only one I can trust.”

            “I’ve never met you before.”

            Harren smiled – again, only halfway, as if it was painful to do so. “Yes.”

            “What is it you need me to do?”

            Harren crouched down and looked directly into Nascine’s eyes. “I need you to help me expose Elona as an Agent of the House.”

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2013)

Tall Man's Note

            The Deep Field Observatory sat nestled between two large jagged, rocky hills, just shy of being mountains. The road leading to the observatory was a narrow path, like a causeway above the sand. The hum of the car’s electric motor was the only sound. It was after midnight, and Jack had fallen asleep, his head resting on the window. Tessa could not hear him breathe, no matter how hard she listened. She still had Tall Man's note in her pocket. She would have to destroy it soon, but she had not yet had an opportunity.

            She wondered how difficult it had been to sleep when he was underground in that facility. The torturers had gone insane. Tessa wondered why Jack had not. Tall Man had emphasized how important it was to get Jack to join the House, and Tessa had gotten the impression that the order was coming from somewhere above him.

            Tessa turned onto the road that led up the hill. The observatory was only a mile away now, as the crow flies, but they would have to wind their way up the side of the hill, and that would take several more minutes.

            They’d talked it over as they left Towatki. Jack was her boyfriend, but his name was Jack Cart – probably one of the most common names in Narcia. The story would go that Jack was a fellow grad student, working on a criminology degree (Jack already had a master’s in the subject, so it would not be terribly hard to bullshit) but taking an extended leave to be with her.

            There were a few scattered trees on the lower parts of the hill, though they grew quite thick as one approached the observatory itself. There was some strange quality to the Arizradnan soil – naturally it would appear to be dry, rocky desert soil, but nearly anything could grow in it. Many decades earlier, several redwoods were transplanted from Sardok by a wealthy businessman, along with other plants native to his homeland, so as you got to the top of the hill, it was as if you were in a thick woodland.

            The unfortunate result was that the road grew quite dark.

            The car lurched as the front right tire sunk into the ditch next to the road. Jack awoke with a jump.

            “Shit!” yelled Tessa.

            “What happened?” asked Jack.

            There was a hissing sound. Tessa unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car. “Damn it, damn it, please let the tire be…” she came around to the other side of the car and her shoulders sunk. “Shit.”

            “Popped a tire?”

            “Yeah.” Tessa growled in frustration. “That damned turn does it to me all the time.”

            From deep in the woods, a woman yelled out. “Tessa, was that you?”

            Tessa looked up. “Freya?”

            Freya walked out of the trees, but her appearance was a big surprise. She was tall and athletic, with long, golden blonde hair tied back into a waist-length ponytail. She was dressed in a buckskin loincloth and nothing else. Along her cheeks and down her chest there was a great deal of blood,  smeared on in decorative patterns. In her right hand, she held an enormous steel greatsword.

            “Car trouble?” asked Freya.

            “Freya, what the hell is… what is… Explain.”

            “It’s Varhall. The Sardok spring festival.”

            “You’re naked.”

            “No, I’ve got this,” she said, and pointed at her loincloth.

            Jack stepped out of the car. “Hi,” he said. Tessa could see he was making a great effort to look Freya in the eyes.

            “I might have a sweatshirt in the back of my car, if you want one,” said Tessa.

            “No, I’m good,” said Freya.

            Tessa stood there for a second. “Jack, this is Freya Jorgensen. She’s here with the Sinret Project. Freya, this is Jack Cart, my boyfriend.”

            “Oh, great, hi!” said Freya. She switched the sword to her left hand and extended hers to shake Jack’s.

            “Nice to meet you,” said Jack. He then attempted to rub off some of the blood that had gotten on his hand.

            Tessa turned to Freya. “So Varhall means you go into the woods mostly naked, covered in blood with a sword? And what kind of blood is that?”

            Freya laughed. “It’s cow’s blood. I picked up some beef at the butchers and drained the blood for the ceremony. Incidentally, I’m cooking some hølstorn tomorrow if you’d like some.”

            “What’s that?”

            “Traditional Sardok stew. Barley and onions with steak cooked separately, and I like to throw in some janaños berries for a bit of a kick. Also there’s going to be a lot of beer.”

            “Count me in,” said Tessa.

            “You’re welcome too, of course, Jack.”

            Jack nodded, and Tessa burst out laughing when she noticed how hard he was trying not to look at Freya’s breasts. “Freya, could you put on a shirt? You’re making Jack uncomfortable.”

            Freya sighed. “Fine, I’ll go get it.” She then thrust the sword down into the ground and ran back into the trees.

            Jack smiled. “Well, she seems nice.”

            “She usually wears more clothing.”

            “I had assumed.”

            It took twenty minutes for them to replace the tire, lifting the car up from the corner and then slowly driving up the hill.

            The main observatory itself was an enormous building, but unlike any Jack had seen before. It was a square building, with a sort of upside-down trapezoid projecting up into the night sky.

            “Don’t people usually put telescopes in big domes?” asked Jack.

            “Yes, but this is the observatory, not the telescope,” said Tessa. She held his shoulder and pointed far up into the night sky. “Do you see that tiny speck directly above us? It’s easier to see during the daytime, but sometimes if the Watcher is bright…”

            “The Watcher?”

            Tessa paused. “Sorry, Redlander term. The moon. If the moon is bright, you can sometimes see it at night time. Anyway, the telescope’s up there.”

            “How do you…?”

            “Arizradna witchcraft,” said Freya. “If my dad ever got a good look at this place he’d want to burn it to the ground.”

            “The telescope is suspended magically?”

            Tessa nodded. “Something about arcane tethering. You’ll have to talk to Azjar.”

            “Who’s that?”

            “He’s our Arizradna witch,” said Freya.

            They settled in at the dormitory – a large wooden lodge where the dozen scientists and technicians could live comfortably. There were extra rooms, but Tessa recommended to Jack that they share a room to keep up the appearance they were a couple.

            As Jack slept on the bed, Tessa changed into her night clothes. The drive had been long, but it was good to be back at the observatory. She had not yet told Jack about the rumors floating around. As his superior, it was her call to warn him or not. So far, she had decided that there was little they could do.

            Tall Man had passed her a note that morning when she and Jack were at breakfast in the Stargazer Café. Something had happened in Harisha. One of Tall Man’s other subordinates – an Agent named The Flatfoot – had been found in a public restaurant with his throat slit. Tall Man would not give her any other details, but it appeared there was a pattern.

            Tall Man was going silent until things died down, but someone was killing off their chain.

            “What the hell are we getting you mixed up in?” she asked herself quietly.

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2013)

Hunger

            The little slot on the door opened up, and the noise was so sudden that Ana jumped at it. It was a tray with food. There was a flimsy plastic spoon and a cup of water. The dish was some sort of mushy vegetable stew, with perhaps a little chicken, though the meat was little more than a few strings, cooked down almost to nothing.

            She tried to force herself not to eat it too quickly. She had lost count of the days she had been there – over a week at least – and she had not been fed in all that time. As she licked the bowl, making sure to consume every last particle of food, she began to wonder why the Militia had changed their behavior.

            If this is their version of a last meal, I’ll be very disappointed.

            Yet if they did hang her, she wondered if she would die. Perhaps she would simply hang there, neck possibly broken, freezing in the wind. It was not a pleasant thought, but then, she was not expecting pleasantness.

            She had seen him again, the man from her dreams. He had not come into her cell, but from her limited vantage point, he appeared occasionally out in the yard. Sometimes he was close – a few short yards from her window, and sometimes he was far away, barely visible between the trees.

            The faceless man disturbed her. He had seemed so friendly in her dreams, yet in waking life, he was something very different. What she saw him do to the guards was worse. On occasion, he would merely reach out as one of them passed him, grab hold of their arm or head, and the guard would convulse. The ones he had held and then released grew more rigid, walking more mechanically, yet they also looked far more tired.

            He was doing something to them, transforming them, but Ana could not tell what the end goal was.

            Three hours after the food, the door slammed open. Two guards stepped forward, pointing their rifles at her.

            “Against the wall!” yelled one of them. She complied. “Hands on the wall, legs spread,” he barked again. Ana had no interest in being shot, and while the guard could easily do that regardless of her actions, she decided that obedience would decrease the odds that he would.

            Someone else entered the room. After a long, silent moment, she spoke. It was Lisenrush.

            “Right, turn around,” she said. Ana did so. Lisenrush looked her over with a hunter’s eyes. “I want information,”

            Ana nodded. “What do you want to know?”

            “Many things. First of all, how did you infiltrate Port O’James?”

            “I did not ‘infiltrate’ Port O’James. I lived there. I was born there.”

            “How long have you been under the thrall of the Icelord?” asked Lisenrush.

            “I don’t believe that I am.”

            Lisenrush exhaled. Ana sensed that she appeared tired. She had not seen the Ranger-Captain many times before, but Ana did not remember her looking so sickly. Lisenrush coughed lightly.

            “I am not going to torture you,” she began.

            “That is good to hear,” said Ana.

            “As one of the undead, I don’t expect you have a sense of pain. Frankly, as far as I know, you do not have any senses at all. However, if you do, we could find a use for you before we have you destroyed. If the information you provide us with is accurate, you will prove yourself useful.”

            “And if I refuse to answer your questions?”

            Lisenrush glared. “Do you intend to do so?”

            Ana shook her head. “No, I just want to know where I stand.”

            Lisenrush smirked. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you? There’s wit to you in a way I’ve never seen among the draugar.”

            “I’ve never really stopped to chat with one before, so I couldn’t say.”

            “You may not feel pain, but I know you feel hunger. I saw your plate. You didn’t leave a single speck.”

            “My compliments to the chef,” replied Ana.

            “I think that you’re going to want more food. I can provide that for you, but for a price.”

            “So you do intend to torture me. Only through my stomach.”

            “Only if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

            Ana nodded. “Here’s what I can tell you. Until I was shot by one of the Icelord’s draugar, I was a respected member of the Port O’James Law Enforcement Agency. I did not know I was undead until later that day, when the doctor told me my heart wasn’t beating and you and your men dragged me out here to spend several days in isolation, half-frozen with no food. That is what I know. I have never had any impulse to harm my fellow citizens. I have never been beyond the Thanatos Trees. I have never interacted in any way with the Icelord. But, of course, you will not believe me.”

            “That is correct; I do not.”

            “Well, I guess that meal’s going to have to last me a very long time. I’m glad I cleaned my plate.”

            “I will be back in two days. There will be food for you if you cooperate.”

            Lisenrush began to walk out the door, when Ana saw something on the back of her neck. There was a patch there, like dead skin, but not. It was a small patch of grey, and appeared utterly smooth. It was as if there were a hole in her neck, but rather than air, there was simply nothing at all.

            “Have your people detected him?” asked Ana.

            Lisenrush stopped in her tracks. “Detected who?”

            “The faceless man.”

            Lisenrush turned around. “What?”

            “He’s been here for as long as I have. I think he followed me here. I see him all the time, but your people never seem to notice.”

            Lisenrush stood very still for a few moments. One of the guards looked to her. “Is this some sort of trick? I have no idea what you are talking about.”

            Yet Ana was sure that she had seen a flash of recognition. Somehow, they knew he was there, yet they never attempted to evade him. At best, she had seen some guards step out of the way to avoid walking into the faceless man, but they seemed to do it subconsciously, without truly seeing him there.

            “You don’t see him, but you know he’s out there, deep down,” said Ana. “Ranger-Captain, I know you do not trust me, but I am far from the greatest danger on this base.”

            Lisenrush regarded her, and even in those hunter eyes, Ana could see fear.

            “Lock her up again. We’ll check back in two days to see if she’s more cooperative. No food without my authorization.”

            “Yes, sir,” replied the guards in chorus. Lisenrush walked out, and the guards quickly exited as the door slammed shut.

            Two days, thought Ana. Her stomach churned. All she could do was wait.

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2013)