The Calm Before (Reign and Ruin novella) (3 page)

Cirrus lifted
his hands from the sand and sat back on his heels. He trembled like
a piece of fine tissue paper and felt just as likely to tear.

A cough sounded
from behind him and Cirrus turned around to see his men frozen like
gormless statues. Lucan was breathing heavily and his face showed
that he knew.

“Cirrus,
brother –”

“Let’s keep
moving,” Cirrus croaked, fumbling in the sand to find his feet and
walk forward as confidently as he could. He heard Lucan struggling
anew behind him.

“That was it,
wasn’t it? Cirrus, you must tell me!” Lucan grunted and strained
against his captors – he was positively frantic.

“What just
happened doesn’t change anything.”

“But it must!”
Lucan cried. “The Painter, the Painter is –”

“Shut up!”
Cirrus said, whirling around again and rearing up in Lucan’s face
so close he could count the pores on his nose. “Shut your
traitorous mouth. You think you deserve to know? You think you were
anything to him?” Cirrus threw his head back, barking with sudden,
jarring laughter. “The connection was mine. The responsibility was
mine. You gave that up the moment you listened to your cock instead
of to your boss.”

“What do you
think you’re going to do, Cirrus? What right do you have,
either?”

Cirrus smiled
and swiftly smoothed over his ashen hair. Taking a step back he
pulled out a pocket watch from his waistcoat. Lucan watched it spin
around in a circle, his eyes widening as the meaning sunk in.

“You cannot
possibly mean –”

“I am not going
to explain myself to you,” Cirrus murmured. “This is between me and
his niece.”

“You are a
deluded man,” Lucan said. “And you will fail.”

The pocket
watch twirled once, twice and a third time through the air. Cirrus
caught it smoothly with his right hand and stroked the glass
surface of the face tenderly, the finely wrought design of a dream
catcher almost imperceptible against the pad of his thumb.

“I will have
everything I ever wished for,” he said as he slipped the watch back
into his pocket. “And all you will have is sand and sun.”

Rising up from
his knees from in front of the smoking fire, Cirrus reached into
his pocket to find the small layer of sand that had spread across
the bottom of the silk lining. He felt an ounce of comfort at the
thought of Lucan, trussed and tied high at the top of the pole. He
would need to find a place for his keepsake, a little box or a
locket. And in a week when the body is finally discovered, well . .
. he would need to practice being particularly mournful.

The thought
made him think. He left the fire and strode back through the front
hallway to the main office. Cindy, who might have been booking
appointments or doing a crossword puzzle, looked up nervously from
her desk and gulped.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Cindy, I need
the Caretaker summoned urgently."

"Mr.
Kleizenberg?" The way in which Cindy said the name made it obvious
that she didn't approve of the person in question. Her lips pursed
in disapproval, but Cirrus heard a few papers rustle and her pen
click. "What shall I tell him is the reason? He's out on duty at
the moment."

"Yes, I know
that," Cirrus said. "But this is a state emergency. Tell him these
words exactly . . ." He paused a short moment for effect. "Painter
compromised. Report back immediately. Apprehend niece." There was
silence as Cindy scribbled down his note. "Did you get that,
Cindy?"

"Yes, Sir,
there wasn't much, was there? Is that all?"

"Yes, Cindy,
that is – " Cirrus blew his breath out in frustration and glared at
her. The color drained from Cindy's face. "That is quite enough,
don't you think?"

"Yes, Sir. Of
course, Sir. I'll summon him immediately."

"Thank you,
Cindy,” Cirrus said through gritted teeth. “Accommodating as
ever."

The door to his
office burst open with a resounding bang as a disheveled and
windswept man stumbled to the floor. Cindy and Cirrus stilled and
watched in surprise as the man crawled back and kick the door
shut.

He looked a
fright: suit shirt untucked, jacket blown over his head and tie
wrapped around his neck nearly four times. Cirrus could hardly help
the smile that teased the edges of his mouth. Sometimes having a
house that moved was the most ridiculous inconvenience the Painter
could have dreamt up. But at times like this, when Council members
tried to reach the dizzying heights while retaining any sense of
dignity, he absolutely loved it.

The man stood
up, straightening out of his disarray, and made a beeline for
Cirrus.

“Cirrus, have
you heard?!”

Cirrus glanced
sideways at Cindy and placed a reassuring hand on the man’s
shoulder.

“Shall we take
his into the privacy of my office? Cindy, please send that message.
Now.”

Walking down
the hallway, Cirrus sensed the panic emanating from the man behind
him. Typical of the Council to send an utter mess to deal with the
fall of the country’s king and god. But they were all incompetent,
so perhaps the pickings were slim.

It didn’t take
but a moment for the man to throw down his briefcase and wait for
Cirrus to close the office door before losing all sense of
control.

“What are we
going to do?” the Council Man cried.

“You need to
calm down,” Cirrus said, pouring a drink from the side board and
placing it pointedly in the man’s hands.

“You must have
heard, you must!” He knocked back the drink and held out his empty
glass at Cirrus’s ready pour. “We never thought it would be our
generation that had to deal with this. I never thought I would be
alive to see –”

“It is all
being taken care of,” Cirrus said loudly. The Council Man took a
trembling sip from his glass and gazed at Cirrus hopefully.

“You have the
heir?”

“She is on her
way here as you panic,” Cirrus replied with a shiver. Even saying
those words made his stomach flip. The Council Man sagged in relief
and collapsed into the chair by the fire.

“You have no
idea, Cirrus. That is such a relief.” He passed a hand over his
face and felt in his pockets for a handkerchief to wipe his brow.
“Is she prepared for the Walk?”

“She is not
aware of it yet. I just needed to get her here,” Cirrus said.

“Well, it’s not
like she has much of a choice, after all.”

“No, indeed,”
Cirrus whispered as he watched the man pull himself up and look
around for his brief case. Making his way to the door the Council
Man turned back suddenly and looked searchingly at Cirrus.

“You’ve seen
her, haven’t you?” he whispered. Cirrus nodded. “Does she look as a
. . . queen should look like?”

Cirrus thought
about the amber eyes and thick, wild hair, the torn jeans and the
one time he spotted ink on the inside of her thigh.

“No,” he said.
The man nodded resignedly and walked back into the hallways.

Cirrus took a
moment, listening out for the sound of his front door, until
turning slowly around and facing the wall mirror. She didn’t look
like a queen. She looked like a lost girl. So what should a king
look like, really? He took off his spectacles and studied his face
without them. Green eyes. Pale cheeks with a slight dusting of
pink. Lips the color of a ripe pear. That was it. Lucan looked
dangerous and he just looked disappointingly normal.

But then again,
so was she. That connection was another feeling that swept through
him like a dam had just burst. He still remembered the first time
he saw her. Just a small glance, as they would always be. She was
watching her uncle paint and braiding her dark hair into a side
plait. Her mouth was creased down in thought, making her forehead
crinkle over the top of her small nose. And that was all. But those
small flashes were hits of nicotine. There was something about her
that made Cirrus lose his breath. Her darkness, perhaps. Or her
freckles.

And each time
he saw her, he tried to look deeper than her face, catch some
detail, some clue as to why she was gifted with such uninterrupted
sleep. There must be a fracture somewhere, Cirrus had always
thought. But there was nothing, and yet she drew him towards her
like a black hole, giving nothing but taking and bending all matter
that crossed her path until spitting him back out on the floor of
his office.

The mirror
showed a man who was airy and pale. Beside him there appeared a
girl who was dark and fiery. The yin to his yang; a mystery as
indefinable as dark matter and yet the answer to all of his life’s
equations.

Cirrus opened
the top drawer of his desk and looked down at the contract staring
at him from the top of the pile. It looked simple and professional,
no small print and no flourishes. Once signed, there could be no
loopholes. He had gone over it a hundred times looking for one. It
wouldn’t do for Maggie to have a way out.

No
,
Cirrus thought.
When she signs this it is win, lose or burn.
He was being fair. Damn it, he was being traditional. The masses
would love it and love her. Just like they would love him one
day.

As Cirrus made
his way across the room and sank down close to the now roaring
fire, he knew she would be on her way.

"Maggie,
Maggie. My darling, my angel." He paused. "My love."

Lucan

The Call of the
Wilds

A Rider’s Vow

Suns will rise and
sons may fall

The fight is just as
certain, just as sweet

I ride on through the
darkness and the sprawl

Ne'er will I halt,
ne'er will I retreat

And if I fall, as
ghost I shall return

And carry with me
sword of iron blue

As cinders fill the
air and fires burn

Riders ride on and in
and through

There are only three
ways on which you can enter into Palet. The first is through the
marbles. Those that take this route are usually government workers.
Saying that, it is not highly recommended; the drugs leave a bad
taste in your mouth and an ache in your gut.

The second is
through dreaming. Only the Painter himself and those newly
dreamt-up can enter this way as, after all, they are his dreams
alone. Nevertheless, it must be mentioned.

And the third
is through the Painter himself, by his own will if he were ever to
realize it was finite possibility. Many philosophers have argued
that paths two and three are basically the same and that the lack
of human consciousness doesn’t matter in the end.

However, that
lack of control opens up a dangerous door. And if you found that
there was a possibly entryway into the head of God where you could
poke around in their brain, wouldn’t you try? This slightly
off-putting reasoning is precisely why the Painter instated Dream
Catchers.

Is it also
exactly how Lucan found himself sagging at the top of the ten foot
pole in the middle of the Wilds, watching clouds gather on the
horizon that heralded the beginning of a mighty and ferocious sand
storm.

The wind
whipped his dark hair across his brow and he shut his eyes to stop
the grit from blinding him. Not for the first time in his short
years, he reasoned life would have been much simpler had he never
been born. For one, he would not be up a pole. And he wouldn't have
a complete asshole for a half-brother.

Another stellar
reason for not being born was the shameful feeling that the Painter
would never have died. Presumably it had something to do with the
dream he let through that did it. Lucan shook his head and, as the
wind died down for a short moment, eyed the oncoming clouds. If it
was so, this entire situation was all his fault: the upcoming Reign
Walk, the rise of a tyrant, these fucking sand burns. Really,
things in Palet would have been much better had he not been
born.

Cirrus told him
so all the time. His mother did too, until the two brothers started
to grow up and she saw that while one had a healthy fascination in
books and animals, the other kept to himself and was sometimes seen
talking to the air.

Guess which one
was the loner?

Yeah, not the
one who, at the cusp of adulthood, suddenly grew like a live
mountain into a handsome, blue-eyed Lothario. No, it was the one
who grew up just as strange as when he was born, whose white hair
reminded people of cold climates and who could move as silently as
a stalking owl.

And so it
began, the battle of the brothers, until one day it stretched
beyond sibling rivalry and blossomed into the stinking flower of
revolution. Viva la fucking revolution. The Riders are coming . .
.

And for Lucan,
the Riders arrived at 5 in the morning after a particularly nasty
encounter with a thug named Rod.

"For the love
of Painter, Lucan! You might have more muscle than common sense but
do you need to take every wrong look from someone smaller than you
as an excuse to flaunt your fists?"

Cirrus pushed
his brother into his office, or at least tried. Lucan staggered in
at his own pace, lurching precariously from side to side and trying
to put the kaleidoscope of images together into one sensible
idea.

"You broke that
man's jaw, Lucan. And a few of his ribs." Cirrus lifted his hand to
examine the developing black eye but Lucan jerked his face away
with a grunt. Cirrus looked disgusted. "You are honestly a
disgrace."

Lucan turned
hazily to face to his brother. Why were there two of him? One
pathetic suck-up is bad enough. Lucan shook his head to try for
some clarity as Cirrus moved around the room.

"Better to be a
disgrace than a goody two-shoes," Lucan drawled with a hiccup.

"At least I
have
two shoes," Cirrus said. "You seem to have lost one of
yours." He pushed a glass of water into Lucan's hands and turned
him towards the chair in front of a fireplace still smoldering
slightly with dying embers. "Sleep it off, brother. We have work in
the morning."