Death's Reckoning (38 page)

The rest of the council read the documents with obvious glee, perhaps thinking all this nonsense would be put to rest. They wanted people to blame, and Muldor had given them some.

“You bastard, Muldor!” Raul said. “You lying bastard! You damn—”

One of Dillon’s men thumped him in between his shoulder blades, and Raul sprawled. The doomed man winced and cried in pain but kept his mouth shut.

Muldor eyed Cassius, wondering what he was thinking. It came down to him, as the most influential man in the city. What he decided would determine if the fight would continue or if they had won their position for The Guild. Their organization would be secure. Maybe not for all time but they would win some credibility with the council and some respect within both the city council and the city at large.

Cassius rubbed his forefinger and thumb together. “And what of our missing conspirator, Master Maggur?”

“Our agents are at this very moment working to find him and bring him to justice. If he were not guilty, would he have left town? Why else would he try to escape punishment if not because of his culpability?”

There was a ripple of assent from the members of the council and the members of The Guild. Muldor had them. They would do whatever he asked of them, Cassius included. The gears continued to move, like the depths of a master crafted clock, turning and turning in his mind. This was another gambit in their game, another move across the board, another victory, but not the final play.

“Very well, Master Muldor. This is sufficient, but I also understand there is an amount that must be paid to the proper offices in Janisberg. A very substantial amount, to repay the stolen goods and to recompense them for their trouble.”

“Indeed. It is in everyone’s interest that the amount be negotiated further. Our navy is being rebuilt, our trade has never been higher or more profitable, and I have some other changes to the way we do business at our port that will be of interest to the council. Do you wish to hear them?”

They did. Muldor outlined his plan, which was Castellan’s plan in fact. Something they never had time to implement. They would increase the cost of docking for all merchant’s vessels not members of The Merchants Guild and increase taxes on all goods and services sold from the city to any foreign buyers. If someone wanted what they sold, they had to pay for it.

It wasn’t a huge increase at first, but it made anyone not part of their group take notice that would be in their best interest to become so. Current Guild members would have to negotiate with foreign sellers higher prices for the goods sold in town.

Any Guild members that didn’t come on board would have to sell their wares somewhere else. They had no choice. Membership cost them dues of course, but the ability to sell in Sea Haven’s famed market square had enough perks to make it impossible to resist. Muldor knew there would be no problems on that end. There wasn’t a single merchant that would break ranks.

A portion of extra money would be used for the City Council. Muldor proposed a new position be elevated above the common level of administrator and become City Treasurer.

“And you had someone in mind?” Cassius said, sounding amused.

“I will leave that to you, Lord Cassius.” It was a compromise, one Muldor hoped Cassius would recognize. Anything to help tip the scales in their favor was worth it. The rest of the room seemed happy with the arrangement. There were questions. Muldor and Becket were more than happy to provide details on the set up, but there were no arguments. The council members were getting paid, and that’s all that mattered.

Two men were being hanged. They had someone to blame, and that someone was not them, so whatever Muldor proposed was fine. He also had a requisition for a new jail in his pile of documents but held back showing at that time. It would seem too obvious, what with Dillon and his show of force right there in the room. Muldor would wait and send off the paper next week sometime, after the hangings.

The meeting went better than he could have hoped. Everything was perfect.

* * * * *

The lone figure felt empty like an egg shell left to crack and rot on a desert rock. No fluids remained; he should have been bloated. His body felt thin and reedy, like a dried out corn husk. Opening his mouth caused an involuntary groan to issue forth, more of a marsh gas escaping the surface of a fetid swamp. The softest light hurt his eyes, and though the atmosphere remained dark, the vestiges of light simmered around the edges. Its origin unknown.

Stone was underneath him and water; dirty, stinking, filthy water. But, the location wasn’t outside. Stone walls encapsulated the surroundings, damp though they were. The air was stuffy. Outside. No, inside.

Where he was, was still.

Water dripped somewhere, drip, drip, drip… tap, tap, tap. A glimmer of remembrance struck his hollow shell. Visions of men surrounding him, chanting at him, hurting him. Preternatural terror raced through him, a feral shiver.

His head felt detached and not his own like a puppet he had seen once as a young boy, so light and airy like the rest of his frame. Giorgio remembered seeing it. He fascinated by the toy and the skill of the puppeteer that worked it across the scrubby stage. Everything about it had been dirty. The man, the stage, the puppet, covered with a sort of grime that could never be washed off. It was deep into the grain of wood, etched in by time and neglect.

Young Giorgio still wanted it so he stole it. He loved the puppet, but the school master at the orphanage took it from him. Giorgio contemplated the man’s death for a long time. When the man left the orphanage Giorgio promised to find him when he grew up, but he never got around to it.

He sat up on a slab of stone. It was wet around the edges but dry from the imprint of where his body lay. He griped the edge, felt some strength return to his arms and took a deep breath. Better but still too weak to stand. The air was thick with a rotten odor, like spoiled vegetables, and piss, and shit. A sewer.

Then Giorgio remembered what had happened. He remembered the men who had kidnapped him. They’d killed his dog. The memory made him bend over and weep. He sobbed in pitiful wail, like a mewing kitten. He was too weak to be angry, only drained and broken.

There was nothing left, nothing worth living for, not even revenge because he couldn’t fathom a life spent fighting. No energy remained. He sat there for some time, contemplating sliding down into the dank water and letting it swallow him.

A flicker of self-preservation made him stand. Ankle deep water made him shiver from the shock of cold. His clothes were rags hanging off his shriveled body, draping him in tatters. They had taken his shoes. They had taken everything from him, and he was powerless to hurt them.

“Master….”

The word croaked out from his dry throat. His body was empty as was his heart, his very soul. He couldn’t focus on more than a thought or two. His mind was like a simple child, struck dumb by trauma.

Taking a step made dizziness wash over him. Giorgio put his hands to steady himself as his vision swam with stunted images. They faded like the after images behind the smoky veil of a fire. It passed as he stumbled forward.

Escape. Escape to the surface, and he would go about finding some clothes. He padded through the murky sewage. His mind clouded over with dullness. It was enough for now to possess a sense of self. Perhaps oblivion would wait.

* * * * *

There was nothing they could do about Jenkins and Jon. They were gone. It pained Cubbins to admit that, but those were the facts. He and Unri were alive, and that was what mattered at the moment. The other two men were being obliterated.

The two of them stood on the other side of the curtain from Malthus Benaire as the evil one continued to work on his experiments. Cubbins didn’t want to think about it. Madam Dreary stood on the opposite wall, looking dazed, drugged maybe and didn’t move an inch. She seemed to be breathing. Maybe they could save
her
.

Unri rubbed his face and attempted to wake himself from their ordeal, and Cubbins did the same. The fuzziness was fading, but he still felt drugged, dull, and despondent. It was as if he had slept far too long, and his body suffered from lack of food and water. Elation at being alive filled him.

The challenge remained: what to do now?

Unri stared at the curtain, watching the silhouette cut and drain the last bits of flesh and organs away from Jenkin’s prone body. There was true hate in his eyes, a fierce passion to fight and destroy the evil that continued to hurt a mere ten feet in front of them. Unri pulled his sword and started forward.

Cubbins was about to join him when a thought struck him. “Wait,” he said and grabbed Unri’s arm, a thought coming to his analytical mind. “We can’t beat him like this. You know that. If he were the least bit concerned about us hurting him, we wouldn’t have our weapons, and we’d be tied down with chains. It would have been easy for him.”

Unri was about to protest, but he stopped short, his mind working. “No, I will kill him. He took all from me. And I will end his work for all time.”

“No! Listen to me. You said it yourself. You said he is death, he’s an idea. You can’t kill an idea. This isn’t a physical thing we can stab or harm.”

Unri looked confused. Anger flushed his dark features. All the hardship of the months and years culminated to this moment. His journey was at long last finished in his mind. “No, no, no, he is….” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, grunting. “Cannot think. I do not know.”

“Look,” Cubbins said. The arm under his bed clear in his mind. The police captain pulled Unri off to the side; though it didn’t seem to matter if they were loud. Benaire was in his own world, shut off from normal human concerns.

“Think! Think about what you said earlier, everything you know about this being. Come on, think!”

Unri tried to think, but it was obvious the man was still dazed and injured. He wasn’t as young as Cubbins. He might’ve been even two decades older. Unri put his hand on his forehead and winced in pain. He rubbed his temples and breathed.

“Tell me how this creature works,” Cubbins said. “Tell me what he does, everything. Think, man, think!”

Unri took a shuddering breath, collected himself, and spoke. “This entity represents death as death comes to all. Will search for those are prime in life and have death come early. Is most times true. People hang in balance between living… how do you say,
changza
, have much life in them.”

Cubbins looked at the back of the curtain. All that he had dealt with in recent weeks became clear. “Well, I’ll not become another corpse for his experiments. I’m dying an old man, sick in my bed. And so are you, Unri.”

Cubbins didn’t think of himself as a sentimental person, in fact he knew he wasn’t, but there was a strong kinship with the man he stood at the edge of a knife with.

“There is nothing to be done,” Unri said. “Death comes to all.”

“No,” Cubbins said, shaking his head and gritting his teeth. “No, I don’t believe that anymore. Not like this! Do you hear me? I used to believe I would die on the streets. My boss did, the captain before me. He died with a knife in his gut, bled out for hours before someone helped him, and by then it was too late.

“That’s not happening to me. That thinking got me here. It got you here, got everyone who ever laid on that slab here. This thing is Death, as it comes to us all. You said it and believed it. He sent me a gift months ago, to remind me of my own mortality, and it worked because it made me believe and that belief gives him strength. I don’t buy it anymore. We make our own destiny. I won’t have it taken by this thing.”

Unri looked unconvinced. His quest to avenge his city and family overwhelmed his logical mind. Rage warred with sense on his face.

Cubbins pressed him, for he knew in his heart he was onto something. It felt right. He pointed at the prostrate form of Jon, laying on his back, cut from neck to groin, a gruesome sight for any man.

“This poor man, he’s lying there because he expected to die. He’d been touched by death, maybe for the first time in his life, and it scared him. It made him believe. You and I are different because we have experience and have been through things he never has or will.

“We don’t know why but you and I and men like us always make it through tight spots; sometimes because of skill, sometimes because of luck. But for whatever reason, we’ve survived. And part of our mind must believe we’ll always survive. We’re fighters, you and I, or maybe we’re too cocky to know the difference. It doesn’t matter. We’re here, and we’re alive. That’s what counts.”

Unri looked more alert, his face still tense, but Cubbins was getting through to him at last. “What we do here now? How do we defeat him?”

“We already have. It’s impossible to destroy him because he doesn’t exist, not in a real sense. Only in the minds of those that look for him. See, I brought him here after he gave me a taste. He studied this town and knew where to look for what was needed. We’re hurting, this town. Malthus Benaire must have smelled the blood in the air. I’m surprised he hasn’t come earlier.

“This entity only preys on those on the edge, living well but waiting to die. There are a lot of those kinds of people around here. But not the two of us. Not anymore. This thing can’t hunt for us if we don’t hunt for him. See, you’ve been drawing him to you and your survivors all these years. It isn’t your fault. You did want any man would have, but it only fed him.”