Beneath Ceaseless Skies #23 Read online

  He turned to Periphas. “Would you care to do the honor of slaughtering the first?” The other centaurs stamped their hooves.

  Do it, thought Periphas. Prove your faith.

  “No?” asked Eurytus, and then began to laugh.

  The jawbone-blazoned sorceress thrashed and fought against his grasp. She aimed a vicious kick at his stomach. He twisted, letting the blow glance off his ribs. She wrenched open his grip on her throat, stumbled half a step back towards the edge of the cliff, dropped into a crouch.

  A knife had appeared in her hand—a knife of steel, flashing in the morning light that angled in across the gorge. There were gasps from the sorcerers—to those who had never seen steel, it must seem a thing of power. And they were right. The knife belonged to Eurytus—his spiral was etched on the blade. She’d stolen it out of his belt.

  Her gaze settled briefly on Periphas, her expression familiar: challenge, entreaty, as though all she needed was a steadying hand. She was asking for his aid. With a hundred guns trained upon him. Asking him to sacrifice his life. For a chance to kill Eurytus.

  Blood ran down Eurytus’ forearm, but he didn’t stop laughing—not until Periphas stepped towards him. Then he drew the handcannon from its holster, leveled it against Periphas’ throat.

  “I remember the night I met you,” he said, “when I dug you from that dune where you were waiting to be slaughtered. There was the grease of human fat upon your lips. Spittle flew from your teeth like the froth of a dog mad with rage, and you fell upon the throat of Amycus, a centaur I relied upon and respected. One of my own kin. You broke Amycus’ nerve that night; left him useless, a coward. There was nothing human about you. You were a beast, a monster. I’ve loved you ever since.”

  “Master,” said Periphas. His treason, his redemption, had been no more than an illusion. He served Eurytus. He always had.

  But perhaps he could use Eurytus’ love to save her—save them all. If he could offer them a semblance of their lives—the chance to survive in delusion—wasn’t that better than this? “Master, you don’t have to kill them. They are ignorant—they hate us because they don’t understand. But I’ve seen them fight. They have power. Take them as slaves. Teach them, as you did for me.”

  Eurytus inclined his head. “Why, you’re right,” he said. “I recognize her now....” His eyes angled away from the woman at his hooves. A thin crease marred his sculpted brow, then smoothed away. “She’s what you could have been.”

  The jawbone-blazoned sorceress lunged at Eurytus, angling the blade at his throat, spitting curses in her savage tongue.

  Eurytus reared effortlessly, anticipating her attack. One of his hooves caught her square in the face. There was the wet sound of caving bone. She pitched backwards, silent, into the gorge.

  “I have loved you, Periphas.” Eurytus struck him across the face with the muzzle of the gun, knocking him to hands and knees. Then he wheeled and galloped the three strides back to the line of centaurs.

  There was a storm of cocked hammers and shotgun barrels snapping closed.

  Periphas sought out the elder. He found her eyes upon him. He remembered the labyrinth of wrinkles hidden beneath the mask. He imagined how despair must twist them. Yet in her gaze, he sensed no accusation, only regret.

  The roar as the centaurs opened fire was deafening. Humans toppled from the cliff’s edge, arcing down gracelessly into the gorge. Not a single buzzard altered the course of its spiral by so much as a hair.

  The elder’s hair and cloak distended as the impact of the bullets drove her past the brink, her arms flung back, her shoulders, knees and body hunched around the mask.

  Then she fell, and Periphas covered his face.

  * * *

  In the still that followed, he realized that he was unscathed. “I’m sorry, master,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”

  Eurytus gestured; two centaurs caught Periphas beneath the arms and helped him to his feet. “There, there, my boy. You only did what was required. I sent you alone among your own race. How could you help but betray me?” A quirk in his lips, a half-sneer, sensuous, triumphant. Eurytus drew a length of metal rod from a leather sheath at his withers. He turned it in his hands. One end was twisted around itself into a spiral—a brand. By his sorcery, it began to smolder, then to glow.

  The two centaurs flanking Periphas gripped his arms, holding him still.

  “Besides,” Eurytus added, “I’ve been looking for an excuse to do this.” He pressed the red-hot iron into the flesh of Periphas’ shoulder. The skin hissed and smoked in the path of the spiral, bubbling up into blisters. The scent of seared flesh, to his centaur-trained palate, was mouth-watering. The pain was slight and numbed swiftly, but he found he couldn’t hold back the screams.

  The buzzards spiraled down into the gorge.

  * * *

  Later, when the brand had scabbed, he searched among the bodies. But he never found the mask.

  Copyright © 2009 Michael J. DeLuca

  Comment on this Story in the BCS Forums

  Michael J. DeLuca lives in Western Massachusetts, where he divides his time haphazardly between writing, reading, brewing, baking, gardening, drinking, and starry-eyed contemplation of the ineffable. His writing has appeared in Interfictions, Clockwork Phoenix, Murky Depths, and Shroud, and he is the author of “Of Thinking Being and Beast” in BCS #9, set in the same world as “Between Two Treasons.” His blog can be found at http://www.michaeljdeluca.com.

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  OIL FIRE

  by Kate MacLeod

  If I had been a child of one of the twelve great Houses, my crime of stealing scrolls from the priests’ library would have been punishable by death. My body would have been left atop my House’s tower until my flesh filled the bellies of the sentinel birds, then my picked-clean bones placed in the city walls so that in death I would still serve a purpose, warding the city from the demonic vapors that swept down from the mountains at night and filled the river valley all around Ummur’s walls. Not even the humblest goatherd dared remain outside the city’s walls past moonrise.

  But I was not a child of a great House. My death would serve no purpose, but I could not be tolerated to live among the chosen. So I was banished. I walked down the dusty road south of Ummur, the priests watching every step I took until the road dipped out of sight.

  But I was back within the walls well before moonrise, using the knowledge I had “stolen” from the priests to hide from the guards’ sight. There was more in their library I needed to know before I could leave Ummur.

  As I skirted around the marketplace filled with farmers and artisans setting out their goods I wondered if that was still true. There were a few scrolls left that I had never read, in the library off limits to all but the highest-ranking priests, but I would have to face great risk to get to them. Perhaps it was time to move on, to follow my clues to the city of the goddess far to the north. I was certain I could find it, if only I had the courage to take the first step outside the walls of my city.

  Those walls towered over me as I neared the hiding place I called home. It was the blood and the bones of the members of the great Houses, the descendents of the city’s twelve founders, which the priests said had the protective magic that kept the vapors without, but as with all things magic the common people believed there was power in imitation. So within the mighty walls and watchtowers of Ummur there was another humbler wall, a row of former homes and shops now given over as abodes to the dead so that the common folk could feel that their ancestors too were guarding them. It was unthinkable that a sentinel bird should be tempted to eat profane flesh, so the rooms containing the bodies were sealed, windows and doors. Airy mud brick homes became ovens in the hot summer, and the smell of slow-roasting flesh hung thick in the air. No one lingered needlessly in the neighborhoods of the dead. It was the perfect hiding place.

  Being banished served me well. No longer needing to spend my days among the sisters keeping the t
emple, now I studied until weariness took me, then woke to study again. Soon I would know all the priests knew. Only then would I allow myself to be banished from Ummur, to go out into the world and find more knowledge than the priests could ever dream of.

  That had been my plan. But one hot summer day I woke to the sound of a funeral procession, the clatter of tambourines and sistrums and the wailing song of the dancers. The procession was passing on the main road that ran from the ziggurat at the heart of the city out to the watchtower for the House Elam. I saw the number of dancers who were employed in singing and scattering wilted flower petals, the finery of the mourners’ clothing, and the ornate bier being used to carry the veiled body of the deceased, and I realized they were not bound for any of my neighbors’ houses; they were going to climb the tower itself, the tower of House Elam.

  Oh, poor Enanatuma, my sister in all but blood! This could only mean her father, the head of House Elam, was dead. Her father, who had welcomed me, his daughter’s strange orphan friend of no House, her fellow temple dancer, into his home. He who had given me the most important gift of all when he had shown me how to read, to unlock the mysteries of the library it was my tiresome duty to keep clean. Her father was gone, and her House would need a new head.

  I watched the procession go by from the shadows of an alley. They were close enough to touch; some of the dancers’ skirts brushed against me as they passed. I had to be that close to see their faces, to see Enanatuma. I bit my lip to keep my voice from joining those of the dancers and pulled my veil closer around me. It had jewels that hung over my forehead, the largest one positioned over the blue tattoo that marked me an outcast from Ummur. That was a bit of cheek on my part; in truth that enspelled jewel hid more than the mark from view. The moment its cool facets touched my skin I could not be seen; I did not even cast a shadow.

  A familiar face passed by, Enanatuma’s cousin Amar-Sin. I had never known him well, had only seen him a few times waiting to walk Enanatuma home from the temple. The years had not been kind to him. Some great pain, some frustrated longing was etched on his face. It was too much to be for his uncle; the furrows it had left in his face were too old. He walked alone, no wife at his side, no children around him. He was a noble son, so it was unthinkable that he wouldn’t marry. It was nearly unthinkable that he wouldn’t marry again if his first wife had died without bearing him children, but surely that must be the case.

  Enanatuma and her family walked at the end of the procession. Her husband Shulgi carried their little daughter in his arms and held their son by the hand. Enanatuma looked pale and confused, as if she hadn’t yet realized what was happening. I fell into step beside her and slipped my arm through hers, giving her hand a squeeze. She stopped walking, letting the procession carry on without her.

  “Puabi?” she whispered. “Is it really you?”

  “Yes,” I whispered back. We had been estranged long before my banishment. I had seen her only once since the day ten years ago when I had given up dancing and devoted all my energies to magic. I had done her a favor in return for the thousand kindnesses she and her father had shown me and had intended never to see her again. But she was still my sister.

  “I need you,” she said. I couldn’t tell from her words whether it was Puabi her sister or Puabi worker of magic that she needed, but either way I had only one answer to give.

  “I shall come. Tonight.” I got up on tiptoe to kiss her cheek, for she was tall, with arms that didn’t come from spinning and weaving. Which goes to show that sometimes people don’t need my spells to fail to see the obvious. “My heart weeps with yours, sister.”

  “I know,” she murmured back. Then she was gone, running to retake her place at Shulgi’s side. He turned to look back. The last time I had seen him he had been dressed in cast-off rags and covered with brick dust, and I had thought him the finest looking man in all Ummur. Ten years of easy living had softened him, but only a bit, and the violet robes of a noble son suited him more than I had ever dreamed they would. I found I could not turn away; I had to take this moment of seeing him that I had so diligently denied myself for so long.

  I think his dark eyes almost saw me even through the spell, his gaze was so intent, but then his daughter tugged his hair sharply and he turned away.

  * * *

  Enanatuma and I had been terrible dancers. We both loved the movements and the feeling of being in motion, but we never had the proper reverence to the gods, which was the first calling of a temple dancer, or so Sister Nata had told us over and over. This was perfectly true. Neither of us wanted to learn to use our bodies to honor the gods. I used my dancer’s grace and strength to run from rooftop to rooftop across Ummar, vaulting garden walls and climbing to tantalizingly forbidden rooms. Enanatuma used hers to practice the art of gis-gis-la.

  Her father teaching me, a girl, to read had been a grievous sin. But it paled in comparison to teaching his daughter the gis-gis-la. I knew from the ancient scrolls that once all had practiced the gis-gis-la, but over time it had been restricted to just members of the twelve Great Houses, and then to just the men. If it were ever known that Enanatuma’s father had taught her this martial art, their entire House would be put to death, from the members of the House council to the lowliest cousin of a cousin, and their watchtower and the city walls containing the bones of their ancestors razed to the ground lest the demonic vapors take advantage of the weakness such a sin represented.

  It was still a danger to the rest of the House even now that he was dead, which was why I was not surprised to find Enanatuma’s house empty of servants as I slipped over the garden wall. I could hear the clang of blade on blade as she drilled with her husband. No servant could be trusted to keep such a secret, especially not considering which of them was the student and which the teacher.

  I lingered in the garden, waiting for them to finish and Shulgi to leave. I had often watched Enanatuma practice the gis-gis-la with her father, mastering the spins and leaps, slashing away with her long-bladed sword and catching her opponent’s blade with the prongs on the hilt of her dagger.

  She had gotten very good since I had last watched her fight. Shulgi was clumsy and slow by comparison. At last he gave up with a curse, throwing the blades to the floor and storming out of the room.

  I felt a cold chill in my heart. This was not the Shulgi I had once known so well.

  Enanatuma fetched up the blades and set them reverently in their place of honor around the family altar. She had just bowed her head in prayer when she twitched at the sound of my sandaled feet on the stone floor. I tugged off my veil and her face lit up briefly before darkening once more, as if she wanted to smile and burst into tears both at once.

  “Sister,” I said. “What ails Shulgi?”

  “Oh, he—” But the tears at last came and it was several minutes before she could continue. I held her close, as once upon a time she had held me, and waited to hear how I would be needed.

  “It is as you feared,” she said at last. “He truly believes he is a noble son of House Akitu. So he gets angry when he cannot fight the gis-gis-la as any noble son can do, and he will not listen to my advice on how to conduct House business.”

  “With your father dead, he is head of House Elam?” Enanatuma had no uncles, no close family at all, only distant cousins. But they were cousins very covetous of power.

  “Only until Eku comes of age,” Enanatuma said, “but yes.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Ten years ago I had not appreciated that magic raged like an oil fire. If one were not careful it would grow too hot too fast, and trying to douse it would only spread it more. I had learned more control since I had crafted that spell for Enanatuma, one that made everyone believe Shulgi was a long lost son of Akitu, but at the time I had had more confidence than skill. The spell had worked, but it was as though I had used too much oil for such a small spell. It made a flame that was higher and hotter than needed for the task. I could not extinguish that flame; I could only try
to keep it from spreading further.

  “I don’t want you to undo it,” Enanatuma said.

  “He will go deeper,” I warned. “Soon he will realize he should not allow you to practice the gis-gis-la. What then?”

  “Then I give up the gis-gis-la,” she said.

  I did not believe her. For her to put up her blades would be like me giving up magic; it was unthinkable. But there were still tears in her eyes, and I didn’t have the heart to argue with her.

  “What is it you need?” I asked.

  “Help Shulgi. Help him to be a good head of House Elam, and keep him safe. I fear my cousins are watching him closely, waiting for him to make even the smallest misstep. Particularly Amar-Sin.”

  “Amar-Sin wants to rule your House?” I recalled the man I had seen that morning, wrought with grief. I found it difficult to imagine him conspiring to do anything.

  “Sometimes I think so,” Enanatuma said. “Sometimes I think he suspects Shulgi is not what he claims to be. He almost seems to hate him, although I don’t know how that could be.”

  “Has he changed since his wife died?”

  “What? Amar-Sin never married.”

  “Never married? Then why the grief?” But Enanatuma was already impatient with me.

  “Please, can you help Shulgi?”

  “I confess, I do not know any spells to make him a great leader, but at the very least I can make a protective charm to shield him from poisons and magical attacks.”

  “Thank you, Puabi.”

  * * *

  It took me longer than I had anticipated to make the charm, an armband of gold studded with assorted gemstones. Each gem was the focus of its own protective spell; in truth every such spell I knew. If there were anyone in the world who wanted Shulgi kept safe more than Enanatuma did, it was me. The individual spells were easy enough, but finding a way to mount them on the gold band so that they created harmony took a little more work.