The clerk had befallen some sort of accident it seemed, an injury of some sort. Merion could not help but smile at the justice. He watched the clerk hopping about madly on one foot, both hands clamped to his thigh. He seemed to have cut himself; blood was creeping into the cracks and creases of his interlocking fingers. His face was the very picture of agony and his tongue was busy painting the air the very definition of blue in between his high-pitched howls. Merion felt as though he were back in the kitchens of Harker Sheer, listening to the potwash men banter over hot murky water and slippery plates.
‘Man howls like a rat on a spit,’ said a voice down beside him.
Merion was immediately torn between melting into a puddle of eternal gratitude or booting the faerie over the nearest rooftop. Instead, he whirled around and gawped at the semi-transparent faerie, leaning casually against the wall and flicking the last few drops of blood from his black knife. He was smirking.
Merion made a vague strangling noise in his throat. ‘You …!’
Rhin instantly noticed the red in Merion’s eyes, the white pinch of his cheeks. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I thought you were gone!’ Merion hissed, eyes feverishly scanning the streets for any watchful eyes. ‘I thought I’d lost you!’
Rhin nodded. ‘Ah. I was actually teaching our rude friend a lesson,’ Rhin pointed past Merion, to the doorway. The clerk was delving deep into his arsenal of expletives now. Rhin could hear him banging his hand on the desk in time with his words.
Bang!
‘… a shit-swilling, piss-guzzling, mother-fu—’
Bang!
‘… Maker-damned, knuckle-dick whore-ass—’
Bang!
‘I think that’s what the eastern men call “karma”,’ said the faerie, suppressing another smile. ‘Thought you might appreciate it.’
Merion threw his hands up and slapped his forehead. ‘You can’t wander off without telling me.
Rhin shrugged. ‘But I’m fine,’ he offered. ‘Nothing happened.’
Merion tugged at his hair, blowing loudly though his mouth. He sounded like a trumpet.
Rhin jabbed another finger at the doorway. ‘Look, I only wanted to teach that dolt a lesson. Don’t you find it funny?’ Rhin asked. ‘Come on, Merion. I’m safe, as always. Stop worrying. Got my lucky coin, after all.’ Rhin patted his chest.
Merion looked to the sky for patience. After a few more moments of counter-banging and scintillatingly descriptive language, Merion threw up his hands and sighed. ‘Fine,’ he said, unable to keep his face from breaking into a mischievous smile. He held open the rucksack and quickly scooped the faerie up, then returned to the doorway to enjoy a little more of that sweet vengeance. The clerk was sprawled on the counter now, trying to see what the hell it was that stuck him.
‘Did you give him the whole blade?’ Merion whispered.
Rhin’s voice was tight with amusement. ‘No, but I think I might have accidentally caught something important in the process.’
Merion had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from braying with laughter. Inch by inch, he dragged himself away from Rhin’s glorious mischief, and back onto the muddy street.
‘Home?’ asked Rhin. He was half out of the pack, clinging onto the fraying straps, bold now that the day’s light was failing.
Merion’s sniggering came swiftly to a stop. ‘Don’t call it that,’ he said.
‘Alright. Your aunt’s house?’
‘Yes.’
Merion headed back to the side-alley and for the north side of the dripping town. The thick, rising mist was now so thick it tried to swallow his boots. Merion kicked out his legs and watched the mist swirl. The alley was darker now that evening was slowly yet inexorably falling. There was a chill in the air, the like of which he had not yet felt in that blistering desert. It sent a shiver up his spine.
Merion flinched when he noticed the figure at the end of the alley, sat against the corner of the building; a hunched-over, cross-legged pile of rags and threadbare sacks. Man or woman, Merion couldn’t tell. It was currently bent over the mouth of a drainpipe, making loud slurping noises. Merion slowed his pace, treading softy through the muck. The beggar had yet to notice him, and was still busy with dusty water dribbling from the cracked pipe. One of Merion’s boots sunk noisily into a puddle and the beggar looked up. Merion bit his lip, and silently cursed the damned mist.
When the beggar spoke, it was with a voice split with age, use, and harsh drink. A man then, by its depth, and his tone was shaky, weak, and fraying at the edges. ‘Spare a coin for an old soldier?’ he asked, holding out a dripping hand.
Merion shook his head, but when the beggar did not move, he answered with a firm ‘No thank you,’ and made to move past. The man stank of sweat and mould. It tickled Merion’s nose in a way he did not like at all.
‘Just look me in the eye, son, so I know I ain’t invisible.’
What a decidedly odd thing to ask
, thought Merion. He was about to politely decline once again, but found that his legs were moving of their own volition, dragging him towards the dishevelled heap of a man. He tried to stop himself, but there was something about the man that pulled him in, in the way that a freak at a circus might—that strange voyeuristic urge to stare at those so different from ourselves, and to measure our worlds against theirs.
Merion leant down to meet the man’s eyes, hidden as they were under the lip of a filthy hat. He caught a glimpse of a pair of scabbed lips, then a slim broken nose, but before he could reach the eyes, the beggar flicked his head up. Merion couldn’t help but flinch, and then again when he realised his gaze was met not by pupils, but by puckered recesses of grey flesh.
‘Hehe,’ the beggar chuckled, hearing the boy gasp. ‘Gets them every time.’
Merion could not stop himself from asking. ‘What happened?’ he blurted, and then quickly remembered his manners. ‘If you don’t mind me asking?’
‘I would tell you all, for a coin or two,’ whispered the beggar, licking his cracked lips with a thin tongue.
Even though he felt Rhin punch him through the canvas of the rucksack, Merion delved into his pocket and pulled out a copper dime. ‘Here,’ he said, and placed it in the beggar’s palm.
The beggar looked around, as if he secretly had eyes after all, and then motioned for the boy to lean closer. ‘Ever heard of the Shohari, son?’
Merion’s heart beat out a fast patter of excitement and intrigue. ‘I have. Did they do this to you?’
The beggar nodded. He frowned, his scars managing to take on a forlorn look. ‘And many other things too, son. Many things,’ he said. ‘Blood and pride.’
‘But why?’ asked Merion.
Once more, the beggar looked around, as if to check if they were alone. ‘Fought them up in the high mountains,’ he said, when he was satisfied. ‘Back east, years ago, before we pushed the Shohari back out here. They’re devils, I tell you. Know a hundred ways to skin a man alive, and they take great pleasure in doing it. The man don’t die, see, while they’re doing it. They could be wearing him as a coat before they put him out of his misery.’ The beggar shuddered then, as if chilled by some awful memory.
‘That’s horrible,’ Merion was revolted.
The beggar nodded sombrely. ‘That it is, son. But they’re mighty fascinated with us, that they are. Don’t stop at the skin, no. Their shamans like to get their paws on as much of us as possible. Brains, liver, tongue, and eyes, of course. Fascinated with our blood too. Say they use us for their spell-making, they do. We’ve got power in our veins, I think, and they want it.’
Merion bent down to a crouch and leant closer to the man. Curiosity, battling with the stench. ‘What kind of power? Like magick?’ he asked.
The beggar took a breath before answering. He did not seem to share Merion’s excitement, it had to be said. He looked distant and pale, still wrapped up in whatever haunted history he kept. ‘You’re damn right, son. Damn right. I saw them with my own eyes, right before they spooned them out of my face. Casting lightning and fire from their hands as if it was nothin’. All chanting and dust, and dancing too. Magick makes ‘em shake like crazy. And the blood … Everywhere … Everywhere … Everywhere …’ The man began to rock back and forth, rags rustling.
Merion quickly thought up a lie to interrupt the beggar’s recitation. ‘I heard they can tell the future? That they can tell you the truth of anything?’
The wet hand darted out again. ‘Another coin to refresh my old memory, son?’
Merion fished out another penny and dropped it into the man’s palm. He felt another fist in his back, and coughed.
The beggar frowned at him. ‘Why’d you want to know, son? What have you heard.’
Merion raised an eyebrow.
Whatever had he just stumbled across
? ‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’
‘You heard about their witch then, huh, and her magicks?’
‘No, but are you saying she can …’
That seemed to be the wrong answer. The beggar rocked faster and faster. ‘Forget you ever heard it, son. Man doesn’t need to know his future. Pray you never meet her. I do, every night. I shouldn’t have joined the fuckin’ army in the first place. Should have stayed at home. Had a wife there. Pretty thing … Shit.’
Merion slowly backed away, sensing his pennies were good and spent. The beggar did not even notice. He just rocked back and forth, countering away to himself.
But when Merion turned his back, a sharp cry froze him.
‘Son!’ snapped the beggar.
Merion didn’t move. ‘Yes?’ he asked, shakily.
‘Blood ain’t just for bleeding, you hear me?’ he hissed. ‘You hear me?’
‘I hear you.’
The beggar went right back to his muttering. His words faded into the mist as Merion wasted no time in escaping. ‘Ain’t just for … blood. So much blood … Their lips …’
Merion walked in silence, utterly confused and yet infuriated by the beggar’s cryptic words. The Shohari witch. Could she really tell a man’s future, or was it simply a case of too much whiskey and too much sun? Was he just a mad old tramp or a man of truth?
Blood ain’t just for bleeding.
What did that even mean?
In the half-dark, his aunt’s house sat like a guardhouse at the edge of the town, its back defiantly, or perhaps even foolishly, turned on the wilderness and the distant hills.
When the door was securely latched behind him, Merion bent down to peel his muddy shoes from his wet feet. There were voices coming from the kitchen. The door was closed, letting only a thin blade of candlelight and a few whispers escape.
Merion crept forward. One of the voices was Lilain, that was for sure. The other was deeper, darker. A man, no doubt. Merion crept closer still.
With each and careful step, the murmuring began to sharpen into syllables, then words, then finally sentences. Merion hooked a finger behind his ear and leant close to the crack in the door.
‘… when I say he’s ready, dammit! Not before. He’s already been through enough.’
‘Time’s as good as any. He can put all that anger of his into it. He’s got a right…’
‘
No
, Lurker, I said no. I don’t want to break him. Karrigan’s death still pains him, I can see it. Throwing him headfirst into all of …’
Lilain’s words dwindled away, and there was a moment of aching silence. Merion froze like a wincing statue.
‘Of what, Lil? Speak your mind.’
‘Shh, Lurker. Did you hear the door a moment ago?’
Merion was already backing away when the orange light began to flicker. Seconds later it spilled into the corridor, tumbling around the sharp shadow that was his Aunt Lilain. Her shadowed face was that of flint.
‘Merion,’ she stated. ‘Eavesdropping again.’
Merion adjusted his coat and lifted his chin. ‘It is not eavesdropping if I have a right to know whatever it was you’re talking about.’
‘And what gives you the right?’
‘Because you’re talking about me, of course.’
Lilain tilted her head like an owl measuring up a mouse. ‘Were we indeed?’
‘You were talking about my father, saying I’ve already been through enough!’
‘I don’t think we were, were we, Lurker?’ Lilain turned, revealing the towering form of the prospector standing behind her, near the table. His magpie was strangely absent.
All Lurker did was grunt, tip his hat, and make for the kitchen door.
‘I’ll see you in a week or so, Lil,’ he grumbled before he left.
Lilain fixed her nephew with an icy stare. ‘I think you’d better go to bed, boy,’ she said.
‘I told you, I heard what you were say—’
Lilain snapped her fingers and Merion clamped his mouth shut. ‘And I told you that I don’t abide sneaking in my house! Now get to bed, before I make you sleep in the outhouse!’
Merion was aghast. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’
Lilain made as if to grab him by the collar, but Merion skipped away, storming off to slam his bedroom door. Lilain shouted after him. ‘I’d dare alright, nephew, now get!’
Behind his closed boor, Merion held his shoulder against the wood, waiting for the telltale thud of the basement door. He put a fist against his forehead and bared his teeth. ‘There’s something going on here, Rhin. I need to find out what it is. I need answers,’ he hissed.
Rhin snorted. ‘Oh yes? From who? It doesn’t sound like your aunt is going to be very forthcoming.’
Merion swung the rucksack off his shoulders and shook the faerie out of it. ‘Then I’ll get them from Lurker. Did you hear him? He wants me to know. I’m going to follow him.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ Rhin said, wide-eyed, as he watched Merion stuff the rucksack with clothes and various other things that sat pretty low on the scale of usefulness in the desert.
‘Get your sword,’ Merion ordered the faerie.
‘Merion, hang on,’ Rhin said, holding up a pair of grey hands. ‘We can’t just leave. What about Lilain, and your job?’ Merion stood up so he could tower over him. He put his hands on his hips.
‘Get your sword, I said.’
Rhin had seen that look in Merion’s eyes before, and he knew better than to argue with it. At least this wasn’t
technically
leaving, he thought. They weren’t getting on a train just yet. He shook his head. ‘Fine,’ he replied. ‘Nobody else is going to protect you.’