Commandment (36 page)

As they continued along their course, Lakif noticed that the sting of the morning’s chill was slacking. Perhaps it was merely the power of suggestion, or perhaps the rare flower was indeed working its latent charm.

After a short hustle, the triad stopped at a nondescript tavern for breakfast. Lakif and her towering friend wholeheartedly dived into their dishes. Torkoth, on the other hand, merely picked at the meat. He certainly was a rare bird among Half-men, who tended to eat all viands indiscriminately.

“I knew it was a hoax,” he stewed and gestured to Lakif’s lily.

“What?” She looked to the plant pinned on her breast.

“It actually attracts snow!” The Half-man gestured to Lakif’s collar. The Acaanan fished around and produced a white feather that had settled in her cowl. Apparently, it had spiraled down from an erinye or a sparrow. It indeed looked like a gigantic snowflake. Lakif could only assume the Half-man was being facetious.

Lakif’s attention veered to the door where a gangly Human just entered. He clutched a rolled up scroll in his hand and looked for an available table. Seeing none, he opted for a spot across from a fat diner. Instead of being annoyed by the intrusion, the seated fellow burped out a hello, and they shook hands.

“How did you know of that back gate?” Bael asked the finicky diner. Lakif’s ears perked up, for she was looking forward to hearing the answer.

“I couldn’t very well live off Lakif’s largess,” Torkoth explained. “I adopted a job at the inn.”

“So Dumont offered you employment?” Lakif wondered if the swordsman had actually spoken with the famed owner.

Torkoth nodded.

“She approached me under the impression that I was accustomed to such work.” Torkoth was perusing his scaled hand. Residual soot clung to it, and now it genuinely looked like charred skin. “I mean, that I was accustomed to working in fiery places like chimneys. It was only for a few days until the regular hand returned. But it awarded me free room and board and a modest stipend to boot.”

Lakif nodded, happy to have solved several mysteries. Torkoth’s work in the tower hearth explained his intimate knowledge of the Goblin Knight, his daily disappearances, and also why he had chosen to linger in the inn after their return from Ebon Myre. Lakif had to give credit to the Half-man. Stoking the fires of the inn would surely be a chore few men would savor. She was never one to engage in any kind of physical labor, irrespective of the salary. She was far too frail of limb and even fainter of attention. That the Half-man had endured the choking tower spoke to a true chameleon, an amphibian adaptable to extreme environments. Lakif was also impressed with the industriousness of their guard. He had lost no time getting back on the horse after the
accident
that left him penniless.

“Fate winks wryly upon us,” Bael added. “That insight proved life-saving.”

“Speaking of that hasty exit, I owe you both a debt of gratitude,” Torkoth continued.

“How so?” Lakif tore a steaming piece of bread off a loaf.

“For rescuing me this morning.”

Lakif stopped in mid-bite.

“Pardon?” Bael asked. He clearly was as startled by the comment as the Acaanan.

“If you hadn’t rousted me from the sheets, I would have fallen prisoner to that foul band.”

Lakif blinked with surprise. Torkoth noted her surprise.

“They went to my chamber, no?” he asked.

Lakif was stunned by the suggestion. She had naturally assumed that the priests had come for the two aspiring warlocks. The notion that they had come for the Half-man had never even occurred to her. The Seekers had headed for their hall. But as both of their rooms were located there, it now wasn’t clear who had been the intended target.

“Torkoth, they were searching for
us
.” Bael motioned to himself and the Acaanan. Lakif looked around to be certain others weren’t eavesdropping. Any talk of Seekers was bound to elicit interest. Fortunately, they were clearly being ignored by the others.

“For you?” Torkoth’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

“A troop broke off for my quarters,” Bael explained. Lakif nodded; that settled the story in her mind.

“I see.” Torkoth exhaled deeply and then bolted a drink. “What a relief!”

“Wait a minute!” Lakif eyeballed the amphibian suspiciously. “Why did you feel they were after you? Is there something we should know?”

“I don’t know. I imagined that I had become mixed up in some trouble,” Torkoth justified his belief.

“That would have to be a capital offense to warrant a legion of Seekers,” Bael corrected him.

Lakif didn’t fully swallow Torkoth’s measly explanation. He was surely hiding something. Unfortunately, his confession dampened the praise Lakif had showered on him following their miraculous escape. If the Half-man thought he was the target, he was simply saving his own skin and not selflessly abetting his desperate friends.

“Why would the Seekers come for you? Are you both wanted?” Torkoth asked. Lakif gulped. The conversation was wading into dangerous waters.

Again she looked around. The two Humans were laughing and joking about the pitiful work prospects in the neighborhood. Bael decided to answer the challenge.

“Criminals to normalcy perhaps. Seekers and warlocks are embittered enemies,” Bael virtually whispered the word
warlocks
.

“Warlocks?” Torkoth asked.

“We who yield the Rare Earth Stones are sometimes called such,” Lakif explained quickly. She had never used that word in conversation with the Half-man. In fact, she didn’t even care for the label, but for whatever reason it had stuck in the vocabulary of the populace.

“Why is that?” Torkoth asked.

“By their decree, Arcanum is forbidden,” was all Lakif was capable of answering. In fact, she didn’t know the real origins on the state ban.

“You both are opening up a host of difficulties,” Torkoth warned.

“No doubt.” Lakif nodded.

“Then why do it?” Torkoth fired back.

Lakif was smote by the question. She had never questioned the wisdom of pursuing Arcanum.

“Because we
can
,” Lakif stammered. “You can’t appreciate how few…”

But she drifted off. The simple question defeated her. How could she respond? She had never entertained the idea of
not
becoming a warlock, so she had never been called on to justify the desire.

Bael swooped in to offer aid.

“We are well aware of the federal mandate against Arcanum. It is the cardinal law of the land. Lakif, myself, the others from Rhoan Oak, we were all born with a special gift. What man would rather be lame than walk on his own power? What man, given the power of speech, would choose to live as a mute? Arcanum liberates us from the handicaps of our own existence, the hobbles of ordinary life. It is our ambrosia and nectar. But it is more than a precious gift bestowed to us. One can deny a gift. We accept it because it is our commandment.”

Lakif agreed wholeheartedly. Bael had settled the issue, but in doing so had incriminated Rhoan Oak, a subject Lakif had never breached with the swordsman. Now the cat was out of the bag, and she could expect a flurry of questions on this topic in the future.

Bael paused to take stock of their provisions, namely, the ingredients for the nursery rhyme ritual. As he rifled through his sack, Lakif realized that they still lacked one ingredient. When she mentioned this to Bael, her friend assured her that the inventory was complete. He had taken the opportunity to befriend a cook at the Goblin Knight. As teal was on the menu, it was a simple matter to collect an ounce of the duck’s juice.

As they were leaving, Lakif took note of the two unemployed men whose conversation she had nominally kept tabs on. The beanpole had laid out an advertisement of some sort of work, which apparently required two pairs of hands. He was urging his compatriot to join forces and together they would apply for the stint.

Within an hour of brisk marching they arrived at Cocytus, more by accident than plan. Lakif knew it was the southern border of the district. It laced around Grimpkin, forming a virtual moat that girdled the district.

A gathering had assembled in the plaza overlooking the murky waters. They coalesced about a central figure dressed in gaudy robes. She was preaching about the recent star fall, and the dreaded fact that a new light had not winked into view at the former star’s bed. Her alarm was no less vivacious than that of Capalos. She too broadcast that the blazing star was an unnatural midnight-sun boding catastrophe.

“This isn’t the first I’ve heard of such eschatology.” Lakif dismissed the rhetoric as the orator finished her speech.

“And it won’t be the last,” Bael said.

Lakif watched the fragmenting crowd with pity. The orator’s attempts to commove them had failed. Despite the apocalyptic promise, the crowd couldn’t be rousted from their antipathy. In light of the Bard’s story, she beheld the citizenry in a far more scathing light. They were certainly a far cry from their passionate ancestors. The spark of outrage within their forebears was snuffed out in this effete populace.

“Did you see it too?” Bael asked Lakif.

“The star fall? Of course, from the common room of the Goblin Knight no less. It was as amazing as the orators describe. Where were you?”

“On the deck of a whaling vessel in Kalkadria.”

The admission forced Lakif to imagine Bael’s reaction to the star fall. She had hoped to learn of this before, but the only other time it had come to mind was in Erebus before Eyre Rasp. At that time, it had been inconvenient to regale about the beauty of the comet.

“She said it was a sign,” Lakif reflected on the orator’s words.

“A sign it was.” Bael prepared his own version of the event. “But not a sign of doom, Lakif. No, one of birth. Every so often a star falls, heralding in the birth a new
regime
. Perhaps it was a sign that our time has come, time for the children of Rhoan Oak to light up the dark heavens.”

“You too enjoy a penchant for drama, Bael.” Lakif smiled. “Perhaps there’s the making of an orator in you as well. How did she call it? The Midnight Sun. Maybe she was right; we are the Midnight Sons.”

She found Torkoth searching the morning sky. The feeble sunlight sparkled off his scaly hide. The Acaanan wondered if he had paid any attention to the tendentious speech.

“What think you, Half-man?” Bael asked.

“I was merely dwelling on the colorful elocution.”

“Do you believe we are witnessing the final days?” Lakif pressed.

“I don’t believe in such superstitions. But I fear that people will use the event to champion any cause, no matter how ridiculous or criminal. Tongues are the leaves on the Great Tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They can praise and inspire, or slander and cripple. Don’t underestimate a single magnetic speaker. A lone voice is the rudder that can steer the entire ship of state.”

Lakif deferred to her partner’s insight and motioned that they resume their trip. As crossing the moat would lead them out of the district, the group turned east. This would be the last leg of their trip to the Lucent. And it was with no small amount of reservation that Lakif began it. She felt they were three wretched travelers on a pilgrimage to an unholy site.

They continued their trek eastward, skirting the meandering course of Cocytus. Although Mordakai lay beyond, it was difficult to see much of the district through the waffling vapors that effused up from the poisoned river.

Ahead, a bridge crossed a slender river. It was a modest tributary feeding Cocytus and indeed was one of the few remaining waterways that percolated into the heart of Grimpkin. This was a surprise find, as they had crossed over many dried-up riverbeds. She was reminded of the Bard’s belief that the alchemists had alone sustained the waters that fed Grimpkin. With their absence the nourishing waterways had gradually dried up, leaving dry, dusty veins. These desolate gullies were called wadi by the locals. Only mallow shrub flourished in those baked river beds.

Lakif casually glanced over the arching rampart. The water below was tan-colored, mottled with occasional dark streaks, suggesting pockets of doughty vegetation clogged the thinning riverbed. Pale and bulbous bellied frogs floated upside down on the water.

A few children cavorted in the water down the river. Although they were playing well out from the bank, the water reached only their shins. This suggested that this river too was well on the way to joining its extinct forebears. But there was another telltale sign that this waterway was struggling to survive. The hiss of the vapors sounded like a deathbed confession.

A cobblestone lane paralleled the far side of the river. It hugged so close to the water’s edge that a single step from the causeway would land a traveler in the drink.

She lowered her eyes down to a figure near the base of the bridge. A woman crouched at the riverbank. She was washing clothes in the murky waters. A blue bonnet kept the sun out of her eyes but also prevented a clear view of her features. Bone white hair speckled in the morning sun, contrasting sharply with her coal-hued hands. An Acaanan! The distaff was diligently raking a garment over a slimy rock. The surrounding water was suffused with red, which seemed to stain the cloth as well.

Without a word of warning, Lakif bolted across the bridge, leaving her associates to puzzle over the exit. As she reached the abutment, Lakif hopped the low wall and slid down the slope toward the bank. The slant was enveloped by a fine layer of gravel, and she slid all the way down to the base, crashing into a bolus of dust that mushroomed up.

The woman did not break from her chore at the commotion behind her. Lakif approached the washer with a cautious, calculated pace. As she drew near, her eyes never veered from the assiduous hands that scoured and beat the garment.

The distaff raised her weathered hands and wrung the sheet tightly. Blood-red water showered down as her bony fingers twisted ever tighter.

“Excuse me, ma’am…” Lakif’s voice trembled. The woman dunked the stained sheet in the river and continued her labor, uninterrupted. Words fled from Lakif. Marshaling her nerve, she reached out and touched the distaff’s shoulder.