Reave the Just and Other Tales (23 page)

I did not need to see them, of course. I knew them well. Their suddenness made them seem hotter than they were, and they blazed among my tables and periapts and apparatus as if Caliph and wizard and guards were about to be consumed in conflagration. They did no hurt, however. Instead, as they leaped, roaring silently toward the ceiling, they began to spew out the known stuff of young Akhmet’s dreams. Mandrill leaped and snarled, spitting rubies and blood. Nilgai chased silver fear among the flames. City lights unfolded maps of tyranny across darknesses implied by the cruel gaps between the fires. His Serene Goodness Abdul dar-El Haj stretched his mouth to let out a cry of love or pain. Akhmet’s swollen member ached for the most glorious and rending ejaculation. To all appearances, my workroom had been filled with dreams come to madness and destruction.

Caliph Akhmet saw those fires no more than I did. They were intended for the edification and appeasement of his entourage. He saw, rather, that I reached among my vials and flasks, uncorked a dusty potion, and poured a liberal draught into a goblet ready with arrak.

“Drink this, my lord,” I said as my arts distracted the spectators. “It will enable you to live your dreams even while you are awake.”

Young Akhmet had not been a tyrant long enough to learn the fear which corrupts and paralyzes hurtful men. He took the goblet and drank. I could not see the expression on his face.

_______

Several days later, after Akhmet had died, and I had outfaced the accusation that I had killed him, and a previously forgotten relation of His Serene Goodness Abdul dar-El Haj, discovered and prepared by the Vizier, had been installed as the new Caliph in Arbin, Moshim Mosha Va took me aside and challenged me.

“The truth, wizard,” he demanded. “You killed that little shit, did you not?”

“I did not,” I replied in feigned indignation. “Did not the guards declare that I gave our lamented lord no draught or potion, but only a vision of his dreams? Did not the best physicians in Arbin proclaim that our lamented lord showed no evidence of poison? This truth is plain, Vizier. Caliph Akhmet brought about his own death by refusing to eat or drink. He died of thirst, I believe, before he could have died of hunger. Can I be blamed for this?”

“Apparently not,” growled the vexed Vizier. “Yet I will continue to blame you until you answer me. By what miracle have we been freed of him? What wizardry did you use? What power do you have, that you do not reveal?”

“Moshim Mosha Va,” I responded piously, “I gave our lamented lord exactly what he desired. I gave him the capacity to dream his wonderful dreams while he remained awake. Sadly, his dreams so entranced him that he neglected to live.”

The Vizier treated this answer with disdain. He could not obtain a better, however, and in time he grew to be content with it.

Wizardry is illusion. I put the potion which had drugged Caliph Akhmet away in my workroom and made no use of it again. I am a man, and all men dream. But I have forgotten my dreams. I have no wish to become a tyrant.

T
he previous evening, I had restored the Duke’s son and heir, the Lord Ermine, bringing him back from the deep mortality of his wounds. For safety’s sake, I had given of my life in the strict privacy of the Duke’s chambers. Indeed, I was attended only by Duke Obal himself, so that no lord of the Duchy, no official of the court, no commander from the field, and no servant in the palace would witness what I did. And when I had infused the young man with my vitality, his death had withdrawn from him, allowing him to rest and grow strong again. Then, depleted and grieving, I had crept quietly from the palace, observed by none except those whom the Duke had commanded to protect me.

Now, in the dusk of the battlefield, I scavenged to restore myself.

All day, Duke Obal’s forces had labored against the High Cardinal’s siege. Sorties had ridden forth from the walls of Mullior, probing for weakness in the Cardinal’s holy persecution. Feints and forays had spent their lives and their horse to protect the Duke’s fervent efforts to shore up his defenses, as well as his attempts to ensnare or sabotage the Cardinal’s siege engines. Arrows of flame had flown the sky among heavy stones arching from the trebuchet, their flights punctuated by the blaring of the Duke’s few cannon, the flatter shouts of his fusils, and the more brazen replies of the Cardinal’s harquebus. Now gunpowder added its reek to the stench of charred flesh and garments, the odor of opened bowels, the stink of sweat and pain. On such days, death and bodies seemed to fall like rain, although they fed no harvest on the churned ground. The only crop of so much killing was blood.

Yet it suited me, in its way. To my cost, I gained sustenance from it, and grew strong again. Giving my life to the Duke’s son had left me famished and forlorn—so near collapse that my daily resolve to wait until dusk nearly drove me mad.

I had vowed that I would feed from no man or woman except those to whom God had already given death. And in daylight the battlefield was too hazardous for me. I could be hacked apart as easily as any other man, or killed by shot, or burned to death. Nothing warded me except the brief strength which I had already spent in Duke Obal’s name. Until I fed, I was as frail as I appeared—and no less contemptible. Indeed, daylight itself threatened me. It encouraged witnesses and denunciation. Therefore I awaited the sun’s decline, although my hunger and weakness were anguish.

When the sun at last dipped from the heavens, however, drawing daylight westward off the plain of battle, I presented myself to the secret portal in Mullior’s outer wall. There the guards had been commanded to let me pass—and to admit me again when I was done. This, too, was hazardous. If ever the guards had refused my reentry, I would surely have fallen prey to the High Cardinal’s retribution. But they were ignorant of what I was, and had never scrupled to fulfill their lord’s instructions. Piously they gave me Godspeed when I departed, and welcomed me when I returned. Doubtless they considered me a spy, charged with some small, regular mission for the Duke, and for that reason they wished me well. Duke Obal was well loved in Mullior, as in the Duchy at large.

My own love resembled theirs, although I did not demean the Duke by speaking of it. Even in Mullior, my esteem would have brought him execration, if I were known.

Concealed by twilight and battle fume, I emerged from the portal and followed failing light across the human wreckage of the siege. Crouching as I went, I scurried among the corpses and the dying—as timorous as the vermin which now thronged the field, and as ravenous.

It was commonly said of my kind that we drank blood. The High Cardinal himself had pronounced anathema upon me in those terms, calling me “blood-beast” and “spawn of Satan.” We were misunderstood, however. I did not drink blood. I did not consume blood at all. I drew life from blood—and I drew it by touch. The vitality in the blood of any man or woman who still lived could sustain me.

It was a fact of my nature that I absorbed nourishment and strength more quickly and easily, and with more pleasure, through the touch of my tongue than of my fingers. But at need any portion of my flesh would suffice. Life passed by blood from the one who bled to me, and I was made whole.

As for those who bled— Their lives became mine, and so they died.

For that reason, I fed only from the doomed.

Because their vitality was diminished, tainted with death and therefore noxious, they sustained me ill. I was forced to range widely to preserve myself, groaning with the nausea of my kind.

Nevertheless I was scrupulous, careful of my vow, although it was commonly believed that my kind had no souls and no conscience, and existed beyond the reach of God’s redemption. I had joined my heart to Mother Church, and to the sweet maid Irradia, for whom I still wept, and what I had sworn to do I did. I took no life which had not already been claimed by God. Any of the fallen for whom the faintest hope of rescue or healing still breathed, I passed by.

However, Mullior was at war with Mother Church, in the person of the High Cardinal, His Reverence Straylish Beatified. And each day of the contest harvested enough soldiers and commanders, camp followers and lords, to sate me several times over. I did not lack for sustenance, despite my scruples.

Yet I may indeed have lacked a soul, or the impulse for redemption. I kept my vow—and all this carnage did not content me. Touching my hand to a torn side here, my tongue to a gutted chest or a ripped throat there, I skulked among the bodies and the charnel stench, feeding abundantly—and still I desired more. Nausea hindered my satisfaction.

This night, trouble found me in spite of my caution. My foraging had drawn me nearer than I realized to one of the Cardinal’s encircling camps, and their tents and fires stood no more than an arrow’s shot distant. I heard the unsteady crunch of boots among bones and mud as a heavy tread approached me, but the warning came too late. I could not slip away among the shadows and corpses before I was observed.

The man’s presence was dangerous enough. More fatal to me, however, was the lantern in his fist. He had shielded its light so that it would not expose him to hostile eyes, but when he turned its radiance directly toward me he could not fail to see the blood upon my hands and lips—the stigmata of my unalterable damnation.

Hunching among the fallen, I stared up at him, unblinking, transfixed by the cruelty of illumination.

“Ho, carrion-crow,” he snorted as he regarded me. “Eater of the dead.” His tone held no fear. Rather it suggested the amiable malice of a soldier who took pleasure in killing and meant well by it. His grin showed teeth the color of stones. “Straylish told us Mullior’s foul Duke harbored such as you, but I doubted him. I doubted such fiends existed. Now I see the virtue of this war more clearly.”

I made to rise, so that I might better defend myself. At once, the soldier snatched at his falchion. In the light of the lantern, its notched and ragged edge leered toward me, eager for butchery.

“Stay where you are, hellspawn,” the man warned. “There will be promotion in it when I deliver you to the High Cardinal. He will be pleased if you are presented to him alive—but he will find no fault with me if you are dead.”

And Straylish the High Cardinal would certainly recognize me. This war attested daily to the enmity between us.

The soldier’s grin sharpened as I sank back. His lantern reflected sparks of greed in his gaze—for advancement, for pain. Directing his falchion at my neck, and confident of his authority, he shouted over his shoulder toward his camp, “Ho, you louts! Here! On the run!”

While his head was turned, I rose.

Here was one of the High Cardinal’s captains, brutal and righteous—and rich with life. I had fed enough, and could overmatch him, striking a blow against my accuser in the person of his servant. Within my stained robes, behind my tattered beard and shrouded eyes, I was no longer the frail figure who skulked the shadows of Mullior, or crept tottering in prostration from the Duke’s chambers. I had become strong again. This man’s blood would exalt me.

Yet I had forsworn such measures. In my heart, I had accepted the accusation.

Instead I leaped upon him, sweeping his sword aside as I sprang. My unexpected bulk staggered him, hampered his reactions. In that instant of advantage, I struck him senseless to the ground.

Shouts carried across the field, answering his call. His men had heard him, and hastened to respond. But they would not catch me now. With nourishment I had grown fleet as well as strong, and the dark was my ally in all its guises.

Before I could flee, however, I saw that the captain’s lantern had fallen with him, spilling its oil over him as it broke. Already flames licked at his side. In another instant he would begin to burn.

His men might save him. Or they might reach him too late.

And I had sworn that I would take no life not first claimed by God. Uncertain of my own soul, I had sworn it on the maid Irradia’s, in the name of Mother Church.

The soldiers of the Cardinal charged toward me, yelling. Their weapons caught the unsteady light of the campfires and shed it in slivers of ruin. Although I was frantic for my life, I spent a precious moment stamping out the flames. Then I turned and ran.

The captain had named me “carrion-crow,” and so I was. Threadbare, my robe fluttered and snapped about me like wings as I raced among the dead. I stooped and turned like a raven assailed by hawks. My only haven was Duke Obal’s secret portal, distant before me, but I did not aim for it. I feared betraying its existence to the High Cardinal’s forces. Instead I directed my flight elsewhere.

Blood I encountered aplenty as I ran. My senses discerned it acutely, despite my haste through the enfolding darkness. I knew it by its aroma, and its luminescence, and its aura of life. Its sweetness clad the fallen wherever they lay. Yet I did not pause to feed.

There was purpose to my path—and hope. Although the soldiers pursued me perilously, I trusted the Duke’s defenses, and bent my flight ever nearer to his walls. Like their captain, the men on my heels carried lanterns, as revealing as corpse-light, else they would have lost me at once. And those shielded flames were apparent from the walls. Soon I heard shouts from the city, a quick fusillade, cries at my back.

Several of the soldiers dropped, shot-struck. Cursing, the rest fell back and let me go.

Those who had been mortally wounded died at my hands. Cardinal Straylish was my enemy, and when my vows permitted it I did him what harm I could. By choice, I accepted the taint of Hell with each flicker of life I consumed from the dying.

Once I had fed deeply, I turned away.

Ashamed of the carelessness which had led me into difficulty, and haunted by the ceaseless fear of my kind—the alarm that I had not fed enough to sustain me until I could feed again—I returned to my portal and signaled for admittance.

Had I possessed a soul, its sickness might have driven me to madness or suicide. I had embraced the teachings of Mother Church, and knew my own evil. From Irradia’s sweet love I had learned to yearn for Heaven. With the eye of my heart, I saw clearly the baffled distress and—perhaps—revulsion she would have felt at my actions since her tormented death. Although I had not caused this war, I used it to serve me. Duke Obal and all Mullior unwittingly carried out my contest with the High Cardinal. Grieving, Irradia might have begged me to surrender, as she would have surrendered in my place.

I, too, grieved. I had no hope for the redemption which had surely enfolded her in God’s grace. But I had chosen another road, and did not turn aside from it.

Because I grieved, however, I resolved to spend this night in the hospital where the Duke’s surgeons tended those who had been injured in battle—both Mullior’s men and the soldiers of High Cardinal Straylish. There I could repay in some small measure the life I had stolen from the battlefield. I was familiar to the surgeons and nurses, although they knew nothing of my nature. I had moved among them often, when Duke Obal did not require my service. Where the portal guards considered me a minor spy, the hospital’s attendants believed me a holy man of an obscure sect, visiting the injured and dying in expiation for my sins—a man whose piety and prayers gave rest to pain, healing for fevers, and relief from infections. I was subtle and circumspect, so that no one grasped what I did. The small restorations which helped the victims of this war survive their hurts passed unremarked.

I felt the need for expiation. My carelessness had led to deaths which might not have occurred otherwise, and that burden I did not bear easily.

But at the portal a new trouble awaited me, more ominous than my encounter with the Cardinal’s captain. The guards informed me that Duke Obal required my presence. I was instructed to obey swiftly.

That he saw fit to risk my aid two nights running was highly unusual. It was also profoundly unwise. The “miracles of healing” which I performed in his service endangered us both. They attracted notice. Members of the Duke’s court, as well as of his army, could hardly fail to observe that men such as Lord Ermine—or one of the field commanders—or indeed the Duke himself—were borne, dying, from the day’s carnage, only to return entirely whole. In sooth their recovery was so remarkable that even the opposing forces noted it. No ordinary surgeon or priest could account for the new health of those men, except by miracle—or by Satanic intervention. And Straylish preached that God’s judgment would permit no miracles in the name of an excommunicate like Mullior’s Duke. Thus were spread the rumors that fiends and hellspawn served Duke Obal, empowering his resistance to the righteous authority of Mother Church in the person of the High Cardinal.

This notion was so fearsome to the devout of the Duchy that it undermined Obal’s position and strength, despite the fact that his people loved him. To all appearances, I alone bore the cost of the arduous restorations which I wrought on the Duke’s behalf. I passed stored vitality to those of his most precious adherents who had been sorely wounded—a transaction fraught with pain for me, as well as with the weakness of deep loss, all compounded by the unannealed visceral terror of giving away my own life. While it drew its recipients back from death, the infusion left me drained and frail, scarcely able to provide for my own continuance. Thus the core of the Duke’s support in Mullior was preserved. All the suffering of the stricken became mine.