CANVAS TEARS

CANVAS TEARS, by Steve Rodgers

 

As the smells of roasting human flesh weaved through the Grand Suuk market, Amis began to entertain new doubts about his strategy. From atop an auction platform, the idea of defeating a weather-invoking madman in his own city suddenly seemed a half-step away from lunacy. What foul mead had he been drinking last week?

Amis’s arm-chains rustled as he wiped sweat from his forehead, but a sharp crack against his back stopped him dead.

“Hold still while your betters examine you,” hissed the slaver, lowering the bamboo reed. He stepped close, his body reeking of oily fish and roasted pistachios. “Listen, you pink-skinned mongrel. You want to live in this city, you learn the little things. Repeat after me: ‘Praise Mephosi’.”

Amis nodded earnestly. “Crazed Mephosi.” He cast his eyes downward, allowing his voice to drift beneath the market’s din.

He listened to the slaver’s slow breathing while trying not to stare at his beard, which was trimmed sharp enough to spear fruit. After a long moment, the man moved on to his next human chattel. Amis exhaled deeply.

He had to admit that Terraud’s slight objections to his plan–“the stupidest idea I’ve heard since King Vishta drank his wife’s poison soup”– might’ve had some merit. But it was far too late to turn back now. And anyway, neither of them had come up with anything better.

Amis turned sweaty eyes toward the market, trying to shift the hot metal collar away from his Adam’s apple. He stood on a raised wooden platform with four other chained men, watching crowds swarm through the stalls of Wallmarket. Those stalls twisted along the length of Great Umber’s Imperial Compound wall, a hideous edifice of ancient yellow brick marred by dozens of arrow slits high above. From the otherwise clear sky, dark clouds poured rain into a narrow spot somewhere inside the compound, a grand display of power by Sparhall–or Mephosi as they called him in this town–to douse the very burning he’d started.

Near a bakery stand, Terraud watched him like some leather-booted mother hen. His black lute case threw a long shadow over trays of sweet rolls, though Amis knew that the only stringed instrument in that case came with sixteen arrows. Terraud caught Amis’s look and shook his head in disgust. Then his expression became alert, and he pointed to his right.

Amis followed Terraud’s finger and sighed with relief as he recognized Hamischal, the man they’d been tailing all week. He watched that tattooed scalp weave through the crowds toward the platform, rustling his chains to get the man’s attention. But Hamischal’s narrow eyes were focused on the last man on the platform. The slaver smiled, his sharp beard pointed directly at his new client.

“You have an astute eye,” he said. “This man–”

“Sir, allow me to fill your coffers with gold,” Amis shouted.

Hamischal blinked and turned to Amis. The slaver’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut. Face twisted with rage, he grabbed the bamboo reed and stormed up the platform steps, stopping only when Hamischal held up his hand.

“My new slave will be hauling wood all day, and you’ve got less meat on your bones than my parrot,” Hamischal said to Amis. “What in Mephosi’s name can you do for me?”

Amis looked into those cruel eyes, wondering again how he’d put himself here. Hamischal scowled back, bunching his scalp tattooes over a bent proboscis that had probably been broken by a man with more good heart than sense.

Then Amis pulled himself together. He cleared his throat.

“This.”

He threw back his head and launched into the Song of Ellika, his clear voice ringing so thoroughly through the Wallmarket stalls that every head swung to face the platform. The crowd hushed as Amis belted out his misery, his voice warbling with the horror of Bentara’s fall. The agony of those final days filled his stomach, rose into his throat and took wing from his mouth, bringing every market transaction to an utter halt.

 

–A land of green hills, a city of towers

–With laws of truth, and kings who believed

–Till honorless men destroyed all for their powers

–And left us poorer, the very earth bereaved…

 

He sang of his burning home, remembering Ellika as he knew her, not bloody and violated as he’d found her in the end. He sang of men with no conscience, soldiers who’d thrown the battle for their homes to gain a taste of mad power.

Kietas, Orlich, Sparhall.

Only one of them left now.

He sang until he’d drained every emotion from his body, until there was no more to give. And when his lungs finally emptied, the only sounds in Wallmarket were the distant flapping of pennants atop the Imperial Compound wall. Every face had turned toward him; every merchant had put down their wares. On the dirt road, two richly-dressed women had stepped out of their stopped carriage, staring at him as if he’d sprouted wings.

Amis wiped tears from his eyes and looked at Hamischal. “And I’ll need what’s in that case.” He pointed to a leather satchel at the foot of the platform.

Both Hamischal and the slaver looked as if they’d been publicly executed, dragged through the underworld, and then deposited back into central Wallmarket. Slowly, the market buzz began anew, expanding into some hushed semblance of its former self. The slaver wiped tears from his cheeks, turning to Hamischal with narrow eyes. “Forty fens.”

“Thievery!” Hamischal sputtered. “You had them marked for two fens twenty!”

“Well, there has been a certain, ah…upgrade…in that one’s status.”

Hamischal and the slaver bartered for some time, and in the end Hamischal caved in, procuring Amis and the satchel for thirty-five fens.

And with that, Amis traded hands.

Minutes later, Amis found himself being pulled by his neck-chain like a donkey through the Wallmarket crowds, an endeavor fully as unpleasant as it sounded. Hamischal kept Amis’s wrist-chains connected to his ankles, seeming to enjoy Amis’s occasional stumbles. Once, Amis collapsed into a pile of metal links and awkward limbs after tripping over his own feet, provoking hearty laughter from Hamischal.

They stopped at a fruit stand, where Hamischal purchased a Taki embedded in a giant yellow flower. Biting into his fruit, he pulled Ellika’s portrait and the rainpaste tin from the satchel.

“What in Mephosi’s name is this garbage?” Hamischal smacked, mouth filled with fruit. “Slaves don’t need portraits.” He opened the rainpaste tin. “And what is this, skin cream? It’s all going on the burn pile.”

Amis willed his pulse to slow. “Part of my act, sir. They’ll increase my takings enormously–you’ll see tomorrow.”

Hamischal sneered, an ugly expression that combined oddly angled eyebrows with a violently bent nose. “Ridiculous. It belongs in my chamberpot.”

But Hamischal’s hands seemed independent of his mouth. He carefully closed the rainpaste tin and placed it back in the satchel with the portrait. Then he threw the satchel’s strap over Amis’s shoulder and yanked Amis’s neck collar chain behind him. And with the satchel bouncing at his side, Amis stumbled behind Hamischal to his new home.

#

Hamischal’s workshop occupied a dingy basement in a neighborhood of narrow alleys and ancient buildings that leaned so precariously, their top balconies almost touched. The two of them descended a stairway beneath such a structure to be greeted by three men, one holding a hot iron. Amis scrambled backward, but Hamischal and two of the men seized his arms. The third unsnapped his collar, and then pressed that burning poker into Amis’s neck, amid a horrible sizzle and an explosion of black smoke. Amis screamed, his knees buckling as the smell of his own cooked flesh filled his nostrils.

“You should be happy; no more need for chains,” Hamischal said brightly, unlocking Amis’s arm cuffs. “Try to leave Umber with that brand, and any city guard will return you here. Just so you know, my penalty for escape is the loss of one digit.” Smiling, he grabbed Amis’s index finger and wiggled it as he walked away. Amis collapsed into a pile of wood shavings, biting his lip against the pain.

Hamischal made burn platforms for the Mephosi, which was indeed the entire reason Amis and Terraud had singled him out. The workshop was filled with saws, hammers, and beams of wood, as well as blueprints on vellum. Tailing the carpenter and discovering he wanted a new slave had been easy; the hard part had been convincing Terraud to sell him into bondage. But now the stone had been cast–if Amis couldn’t figure out how to stay alive for just a few extra minutes on one of these wooden horrors, his entire plan would be useless.

The next day, he grabbed his satchel and a metal bowl and walked to the side of the cobbled street near Hamischal’s workshop. Dodging horses and busy pedestrians, he set Ellika’s portrait on a ledge and dabbed her eyes with the rainpaste. Then he placed the bowl in the street, backed away ten paces, and began singing.

 

–Ellika, my sweet, my only love

–I trust you hold well, in the clouds above

–Once we thought to together fly free

–Our plans destroyed by the Renegade Three

–With the magic of Gods but the conscience of beasts

–They brought us ruin and Bentara deceased

–Light in the darkness, reason amid madness

–Where once stood our city, lies only sadness…

 

He sang with eyes closed, pouring his loss into the busy street until every emotion had left him, every horrible memory had numbed into a dull ache. By the end, the rainpaste had begun to melt, trickling from Ellika’s eyes in small rivers to form green smudges on the canvas.

Not enough, Amis thought, disappointed to see that most of the rainpaste had survived. Perhaps more of an ending lilt?

Amis’s mind cleared. He looked up to see all street traffic completely stopped, and everyone staring at him as if he’d just turned blue. Townsfolk gaped from the balconies above, including Hamischal, who lived in the second floor above the basement. On the street, crowds had gathered around his portrait.

The long silence was finally broken by a pigeon flapping to a rooftop. Then a reedy child’s voice called out: “How did the Renegade Three get their magic?”

Amis smiled at the small boy. “Well, that, young knight, is a story for tomorrow. Come back then and I’ll describe the Land of Giants, and secret magic of the Renegade Three.”

He straightened, faced the crowd and bowed. After a moment, hearty applause erupted from the street crowds and the dozens of balconies above, filling the air and echoing from the alley walls. Several people approached the bowl to throw coins, some walking backward away from him, as if reluctant to depart. One man forcefully dragged his wife from the scene as she continued to stare at Amis.

Amis retrieved the bowl and displayed it to Hamischal, whose thin-lipped smile reminded him of some bridge troll after a grisly meal of unwary traveler.

He stepped through the basement door and was nearly bowled over by a dark-haired girl in an ivory headband, her laced bodice displaying far more flesh than any man could reasonably ignore.

“Where on earth did you learn to sing like that?” she whispered, advancing on a retreating Amis until that bodice was inches from his chest.

Amis swallowed. She was about eighteen, her nose still covered by the freckles of youth. Straight black hair fell from her headband, framing a slender face of olive skin and wide eyes.

“Well I–”

“Lauricia, get back upstairs,” came Hamischal’s gravelly voice from above. She backed away, her eyes flicking up and down Amis’ frame. Then she ran up staircase, turned for one last look, and disappeared.

Amis finally exhaled.

Hamischal stomped down the stairs toward Amis and grabbed the bowl. He counted fifteen fens, nodded, and then looked backward to make sure Lauricia had disappeared. Satisfied, he turned around and slammed his fist into Amis’s gut. Amis doubled over, and Hamischal bent down to look into his eyes.

“You stay away from my daughter.” He straightened up and tucked the bowl under one arm. “Good job today, but tomorrow you bring more.” Then he turned and walked back up the stairs.

Amis collapsed onto a half-built platform, wondering how in Goddess Opal’s name he’d come up with this horrible plan.

#

The next day, Amis again set Ellika’s portrait on the ledge, threw back his head, and sang his pain. This time he chanted the Celeuthian Lament, describing the slow fall of the Celeuth Empire, and the final snuffing of civilization’s candle. He named the great cities of Celeuth: Bentara, Aridan, Great Umber, Heraditus, others. He warbled his voice a bit more than yesterday, satisfied to see more of the rainpaste melting and forming thick trails of tears on the canvas.

 

 

His last note faded into the same stunned silence as the previous day. Amis looked up to see that today’s crowds were much larger–his audience now included people from other districts, one of these a richly dressed, veiled woman atop a black horse, who watched him intently over the crowd. The balconies were so packed, he thought the neighborhood’s leaning buildings would finally collapse.

From the hushed alleyway, one man finally broke the spell. “You named Great Umber as a Celeuthian city,” he said. “But that is just a myth.”

Amis shook his head. “This whole continent was once part of Celeuth, though it’s been centuries since Great Umber last saw a Celeuthian legion. But that common past is why we can still understand each other, even if you all do sound funny to me.”

“You promised to tell us about the Land of the Giants,” pleaded a familiar high pitched voice. Amis nodded at the tow-headed boy and stood up straight to address the crowd.

“So I did. Legend has it that even as the rest of Celeuth fell, Bentara always survived because it was protected by the Feather Brigade–a band of archers so preposterously excellent, they could hit a fly’s leg at three hundred paces while falling off a cliff.” He raised an eyebrow at the boy, who giggled. “Using this legendary brigade of archers, the great Bentaran King Turelian III laid a trap for the barbarians seeking to destroy his city,” Amis continued. “He funneled them into a valley, and ringed the top of the cliffs with the best bowmen in history. But unbeknownst to him, he’d camped his archers in the ruins of Giants.”

Amis swept the crowd with his gaze, seeing every eye riveted on him. “Now, the ancient Giants were no larger than men, but by wearing coats layered with magic paste, they achieved god-like powers. On our fateful day, three of the Feather Brigade found remnants of this paste and used it to become modern-day Giants. They turned themselves into mighty sorcerers, albeit sorcerers who’d descended into madness. For, fearing that their comrades would steal the magic paste, they massacred almost their entire brigade. In so doing, they signed Bentara’s death-warrant, and that of their own families. Love and civilization brought low, in return for invulnerability and command of the weather. Powers very similar to those of your Mephosi…”

The crowd drew back at Mephosi’s name, and Amis held up his hand. “A pure coincidence, I’m sure. Even if Mephosi does strongly resemble Sparhall, the last living member of the Renegade Three.”

There was a collective gasp, and Amis waved his hand. “No, no, all just a coincidence. Please. Come, let me sing you a song of Sparhall, who is in no way related to Mephosi.”

With that, he sang Sparhall’s Ditty, a rollicking chorus of missteps and misdeeds in the time before Sparhall became one of the Renegade Three. He sang the legend of Sparhall’s nickname, which he’d acquired after making lewd comments at the best female warrior in Bentara’s sparring hall, prompting her to beat him senseless.

The people soon forgot their shock. A minute later, the crowd was clapping and stamping its feet, as Sparhall’s chorus rang from the balconies. And when he’d finished, they swarmed the money bowl, placing so many fens in it that the coins overflowed onto the street. Amis smiled and nodded at each of them, watching from the corner of his eye as the green-veiled horse-woman trotted away. When everyone had left, Amis retrieved the overflow coins from the street, picked up the bowl, and walked to the basement to give them to Hamischal.

Just as he stepped through the basement door, a fist slammed into his stomach. The bowl flew from his hands, throwing coins onto the wooden floor. Amis sank to his knees, looking up just in time to catch another blow to his shoulder.

“I’ll avoid your pretty face, or your precious voice box, so the women keep giving fens,” Hamischal said. “The rest of you is fair game.” With that he proceeded to beat Amis mercilessly, stopping minutes later when he ran out of breath. He leaned against the wall, panting hard. “You never,” he wheezed, “never mention Mephosi’s name again. Understand?”

Lights flew through Amis’s vision as he focused on Hamischal’s double-image proboscis, wondering if he could punch that monstrosity straight. Then he spat blood and lay back on the floor.

“Perfectly.”

#

Every day, Amis brought Ellika’s portrait out to the street, dabbed her eyes with rainpaste, and sang a song of pain and loss. He practiced different pitch, lilting his words at various times to create the thickest tears possible. He sensed he was approaching the perfect combination of melody and tone to melt every bit of rainpaste, dreading the death-duel that would soon follow that achievement.

The crowds grew and changed, but some became familiar. The veiled horse-lady attended often, as did several other women, from leather armored halberdiers to dirty smocked cleaning maids. Whole families also attended his shows, and the children often sat in front, begging to be called when Amis posed one of his rhetorical questions.

Hamischal’s daughter Lauricia continued to bump into him at random times that weren’t random, and Amis ensured their conversations always occurred at a distance of three paces. Not that this stopped her father’s occasional blow, but with Amis’s money bowl constantly overflowing, Hamischal didn’t seem keen to beat his golden goose so hard it stopped laying eggs.

One night, a crackling sound from the outside basement stairway jolted Amis awake. He sat up sharply, squinting into the low lantern light to search for the nearest heavy woodworking tool. But he stopped at the sight of some very familiar calf-skin boots on those stairs, boots soon followed by a dark-cloaked figure he could identify in the blackest night.

“Members of the Feather Brigade should be light as a feather, and not issue giant cracking sounds at midnight,” Amis complained.

Terraud cursed and threw back his hood, revealing a squat face striped by that thin goatee he seemed so proud of. “Stupid branches on the stairs make such a racket. Aren’t slaves supposed to clean their entranceways?” His voice trailed off as he stared at the branding scar on Amis’s neck. He reached out to touch the charred flesh.

“Let me kill him, Amis. One arrow.”

Amis shook his head. “It would ruin all our plans.”

“All your plans. This is madness. I have it on good authority that your little sing-alongs have finally gotten the King’s attention. It won’t be long now–get out before it’s too late.”

Amis was tempted, sorely tempted. But no. “Terraud, Sparhall is the last of them. We swore an oath to rid the world of these beasts. Are you with me?”

Terraud grimaced. “Of course I’m with you, you obstinate troll. I’m just proposing we find a different way. We’re the last of the Feathers, Amis. If you leave me alone in this world, no one will share my memories. Anyway, think what you have to live for: strong health, a steady bow–“

The light pat of slippers on wood interrupted Terraud’s speech, as a silk-gowned Lauricia tentatively peered over the stairway railing.

Face stricken, Terraud turned back to Amis. “–And apparently the most alluring basement fairy to watch over you.”

“My friend, we have no choice, this is the only viable plan. Just be there when the time comes.”

Terraud’s face fell. “Aye, Amis.” He looked ready to say something more, but stopped himself. He stepped back, took one last look at Lauricia, then bounded up the external stairway and was gone.

Lauricia flew down the steps, her eyes wide with excitement. “I knew you were on some secret mission! Who do you work for? I want to help!” She ran forward, and Amis shut his eyes to banish that slender, hopeful face from his vision–so young, so filled with ignorant exhilaration. She’d no idea what her involvement would mean.

He opened his eyes. “Lauricia, this is no game. People will die before I’m through, most importantly me. Don’t taint yourself with my fight, or you’ll share my fate. Have you ever been touched by fire, smelled flames as they singe your hair?”

“I know what my father does for a living,” Lauricia said, moving that silk-clad body six inches from his. “And I think you’re here to kill Mephosi. I want to help.”

“You have no idea–“

“I have every idea,” she insisted. “I’ve watched him select men and women from the garment district for his little bonfires. One I knew; she mended my clothes. I can’t imagine what crime she committed, other than telling a few jokes about the Mephosi.”

Amis nodded. “The Renegade Three enjoy their little sacrifices–it is part of madness brought by the rainpaste.” He looked down into those determined eyes, and she pressed her body against his. Almost without volition, he wrapped his arms around her, breathing the sweet scent of her night creams. But he kept his hands still, and she moved away, disappointed.

“Are all Bentarans so difficult as you?”

“Perhaps only the ones who’ve picked through a looted city to find their wife naked and used in a pool of blood.”

She stepped back, drawing her shawl tight around her head. “Ellika. The lady in the picture. I’m so sorry.”

Amis nodded, biting his lip against the memory. They were silent for a time, watching each other in the flickering lantern light.

“My father–” Lauricia started. She looked away, then back at Amis. “I know he’s not a good man, but he loves me. At least there is that. I don’t want trouble for him, but I want Mephosi dead even more.”

Amis nodded. “You know, I’ve heard straw treated with resin-mixed water can resist flames for several minutes. Resin just like you use to join those posts together. For some reason, Hamischal won’t let me near his precious cache of the stuff.”

Lauricia stared at him for a long moment, until they heard stirring on the floor above. She stepped back, her eyes fixed on him. Then she ran up the stairs, and was gone.

Amis sat on the wooden bench, head in hands.

It won’t be long now.

#

They came for him the next day. Three guards with royal-seal rings surrounded Amis just as he was setting up for the next show. They allowed him to gather his things and place them in the satchel before escorting him to a carriage with tiny windows. He sat between the two guards, wondering what in Opal’s name was happening. He’d expected to be transported in chains to a burn platform, not to ride through the city in a bejeweled chariot. They clopped through the Imperial Compound gate and passed through another portcullis, which clanged shut behind them.

Amis was escorted out of the carriage, up a marble stairway, and pushed into a luxurious room of gilded quilts and gold-framed landscape paintings. The royal dragon emblem lined every blanket and pillow, and Amis swallowed hard. There was no doubt, he was inside Great Umber’s royal chambers.

Amis started as a tall woman in a flowing gown appeared at the doorway, her gray-blond hair pushed back by a silver brace. That brace was studded by emeralds shaped into royal green dragons, each glinting under chandelier’s light. Amis immediately recognized her, even without her face covering.

“The green-veiled woman,” he whispered. Then he remembered himself and looked down. “Highness.”

The Queen moved into the room amid a rustle of fabrics and clinking of gold bracelets. “What is your business in Great Umber?”

“Well, I was sold into slavery, and–“

“No lies,” she snapped. “You must be Bentaran; those stories you tell are far too detailed to be legends. Is Mephosi truly the one you seek?”

He allowed himself to look into her eyes, lined but soft. The Queen was an attractive woman, but Amis thought her commanding face would’ve been even more striking without the swirl of dyes so favored by the royals. And no amount of color could hide her loneliness, which seemed carved into her features as if by knife.

“Yes. He is Sparhall.”

“And your goal?”

Amis knew lies were useless. “Highness, four of the Feathered Brigade survived the massacre of our unit. As we picked through the burnt corpses of our comrades, we found a bit of the rainpaste ourselves, and have discovered its weaknesses. With this knowledge, we’ve travelled the earth to destroy the Renegade Three. We’ve succeeded twice, though two of our number have paid with our lives. Sparhall is the last, and by every bit of strength in us, we final two will finish the job here.”

Her eyes burned. “Our city is fractured, Amis. I command half the city guard, and the King commands the other half. We live separately, and do not speak. Our king is a weak man, happy to let Mephosi devour our people. I, on the other hand, will do anything to rid our city of that monster.” She approached within a foot of Amis, close enough for him to notice the tiny jewels embedded in her nostrils, and the downward mouth lines that spoke of a thousand joyless evenings. She was so close now; he had no idea what he’d do if she stepped forward.

She searched his face, but finally looked away. “You still grieve for your Ellika.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, Highness.” He longed to hold this woman, not for any physical reason, but simply to banish that incredible loneliness for the briefest instant. He wondered how a woman so rich and beautiful had become so isolated.

“Well,” she said, her tone businesslike. “I will help if possible. I suspect your fate has been sealed, but I still have some agents in Mephosi’s guard. If you strap a knife to your wrist, it may be that they won’t search there.”

Amis nodded slowly. “Thank you, Highness.”

She nodded and turned around, her purple gown swirling behind her. “My guard will bring you back.”

The guards booted him out of the chariot in front of his basement and a very wide-eyed Hamischal.

“Mistaken identity,” Amis said, brushing his tunic. Hamischal’s mouth twisted, his wrinkled neck reminding Amis of some spiteful sand lizard. Amis turned away and proceeded to set up Ellika’s portrait.

The show was bittersweet that afternoon, and the longing poured from him with even greater passion than usual. Many had tears in their eyes at the end, and to Hamischal’s delight, the extra bowl he’d put out overflowed onto the street, with coins covering the cobblestones. But Amis didn’t care that he’d get no beating today. Nothing mattered except what was to come.

As he’d suspected, the city guard came for him the next day. This time Amis knew it was real, because they snapped chains around his arms and legs and gave him a few blows in the back to start him walking. His shirt was ripped off and the butt of his hidden knife was used to strike him on the forehead before it was thrown into the street.

So much for the Queen’s influence.

His usual crowds gathered, watching silently as he was led away, though the horsed lady–the Queen–was nowhere in sight. The guards pushed him through cobbled streets, past staring onlookers until they walked through the open metal bars of the Imperial Compound gate. And that’s when Amis saw the burn platform.

It stood above the tightly-packed crowds, one of Hamischal’s double-slat designs, with a mountain of straw surrounding a wooden post with ropes. Amis trembled as the reality of his situation sank into his bones. He moved again only after a sharp blow between his shoulder blades.

Everything blurred together then: His numb walk through the crowds, tearing pain as two men tied him to the post, Hamischal’s smirk from below.

“Not to worry, Amis,” Hamischal called cheerily. “The King’s reimbursing me for your cost, since I finally reported you. So, I’ll be just fine.”

Amis swept his gaze over the packed crowds, all straining to catch a glimpse of the unfortunate sod about to be ashed. A hundred yards away was Mephosi’s dais, raised higher than the burn platform, its steps draped with purple cloths.

A minute later, Mephosi appeared at the base of those steps, wearing a long cloak and a Y-style metal helm, both covered by a thick coat of rainpaste. He climbed the steps slowly, raising his arms as he reached the dais. The crowed hushed, and Amis swept his gaze across the Imperial compound, his vision blurry from tears.

“Today, we rid Great Umber of the unfaithful!” Mephosi cried, as a dutiful cheer rose from the throngs. With a hearty yell, he extracted a long dagger from the folds of his cloak and proceeded to stab himself violently in the stomach. The metal shattered, and he held the useless dagger handle high above the crowds. Another slow cheer rose up from the masses.

“Ah, Sparhall,” Amis shouted. “Good to see you. What stories we can tell! Remember that time you got sick after eating all those clams? You couldn’t leave your chamberpot for days.”

A low murmur rippled through the crowds, and Mephosi stared at him across the sea of heads. Then Mephosi raised his arms again and began chanting his words of power, inviting the crowd to hum with him. A slow crooning rose from the masses, the beginnings of the weather-magic that would invoke lightning to ignite the straw, followed by rain to douse the glowing bones of his corpse.

But Amis had other plans.

 

“–In a time of battle, a city fielded its best

–To protect its mothers from hordes to the west

–But treachery in-rank ensured t’would never be

–Those smallest of men, those Renegade Three…”

 

Amis’s vibrant song silenced the crowds, leaving only Mephosi’s distant voice as challenge across that packed courtyard. Amis continued to sing of treachery and loss, greed and nobility, watching the rainpaste on Mephosi’s helmet begin to grow shiny.

Not enough.

Mephosi stopped his chant, pointing to the platform. “Start the fires now!”

Amis desperately warbled his voice as two men with torches climbed the platform. The first man touched his torch to the straw, but the flames rose and quickly died, leaving only a few red embers. Amis smelled the strong scent of oak resin.

My heart to you, Lauricia.

Amis cycled through every note, every practiced melody, watching the rainpaste on Mephosi’s cloak sink into the fabric. Mephosi tried again to invoke the weather, but the smoothing of the rainpaste seemed to have affected his powers.

“Gag him!” Mephosi barked.

Another guard approached the singing Amis with a cloth, while the others continued their attempts to light the straw. But as the guard came close, an arrow flew from the crowds and slammed into his back. He jerked forward and crashed into the oak planks, sprouting an arrow fletched with the Feather Brigade’s eagle plumes.

A few seconds later, another arrow flew from the masses and slammed into Mephosi. It exploded into bits while barely rocking its target, who seemed more interested in his soldiers’ attempts to light the straw. Guards began running into the crowd then, and Amis watched with relief as their progress slowed through the tightly packed throngs around the platform.

Amis stilled his raging heart. And as the straw finally lit in two places, he closed his eyes, travelling back to that horrible day he’d walked into Bentara’s ruins.

He sang of the grand palaces, reduced to burnt shells. Of marble justice halls–where citizens low and high entreated the king–now empty and smeared with blood. He brought forth the image of his beloved, lying naked and bloody on the hard stones. His agony clenched every organ into a knot, wrenched his tissues into a twisting cloth, bereft of life. The misery of his song so utterly consumed him that the heat of expanding flames left no pain.

He opened his eyes to see dancing flames a few feet away, and a crowd that had become still as the Imperial Compound walls. Even Mephosi seemed to have faltered, his shoulders slumped. The rainpaste had completely melted from his helm, and his cloak had faded from green to dull black as the paste soaked in. Amis now felt horrible heat, but he steeled himself, vowing to sing until the flames had burnt his tongue to cinders.

Just then, another arrow sailed from the crowd, tearing straight through Mephosi’s chest and whirling him around in place. Mephosi waved his arms a moment, staggered a few steps forward, then fell face first onto the dais. A sharp gasp rose from the crowd, as blood began dripping down the edges of the platform.

And then, everything blurred again. Flames taller than his head only a dozen feet away, the clash of arms in the crowd, heat–agonizing heat–everywhere on his body. A city guard approaching from the side, wielding a long dagger. The man desperately sawed through Amis’s ropes, and as the last came free, he yanked Amis away from the stake and far to the side. Amis gasped desperately, sucking sweet cool air into his lungs. Below the platform, the crowds swirled in panic as the King’s guards battled the Queen’s for control of the courtyard.

“The Queen sends her regards,” the guard shouted over the din. He shoved Amis’s satchel into his hands, followed by a strung bow, a quiver of six arrows, and a new shirt. “Leave by the North Gate, and you won’t be stopped.”

Amis closed his eyes; holding a bow again was like being rescued from the fires a second time. He grabbed the sleeve of the departing guard. “You tell the Queen–tell her that Lauricia, Hamischal’s daughter, saved my life. Treat her well.”

The man nodded. “I will.” With that, he jumped off the platform to join the fight, though the king’s guard had already begun to surrender throughout the courtyard.

Amis was about to jump himself when he saw a familiar tattooed bald head on the steps to the bloody dais, likely intending to steal Mephosi’s helm. Amis nocked an arrow and let fly, pinning Hamischal to the planks through his tunic. Hamischal desperately tried to yank the arrow from the wood, but was stopped as another arrow pinned his other side, piercing only the cloth. Fastened to the dais on both sides, a pale-faced Hamischal stared into Amis’s eyes across the swirling crowds. Amis nocked another arrow and pointed straight at Hamischal’s chest, watching a slow liquid stain spread through the man’s breeches.

I know my father’s not a good man, but he loves me.

Amis held the arrow steady for a long moment. Shouts and whoops pierced the air as the Queen’s guard overwhelmed their last resistance, and the crowds began cheering. But he heard none of it.

Hamischal closed his eyes.

Finally, with great reluctance, Amis lowered his bow. For a daughter’s love, you live. Then he jumped off the platform and became lost in the crowds.

#

Terraud waited for him on a grassy slope high above the city next to two brown geldings, the wind ruffling his hair as he watched Amis climb. He remained motionless until Amis drew near, then turned and began tying cloth sacks to the saddles.

Amis reached the hill’s windy crest and closed his eyes, letting the cool breezes of the Umbrian Plains sweep across his face.

“Took you long enough,” Terraud said as he worked. “You’d think near-immolation would speed a man’s pace.”

Amis smiled, gazing at Great Umber’s gleaming spires below. “Yes, but some things tend to slow a man down again.” He held out the Queen’s note, passed to him by a guard at the North Gate.

Terraud stopped tying the sack and took the note. He began reading aloud: “Amis, if ever you return to Great Umber, please know that you’ll be my guest. I would very much like to continue our conversation under more relaxing circumstances. Yours, Queen Relena.”

Eyes wide, Terraud handed the note back to him. “And?”

Amis shook his head. “I need a new start, Terraud. I’m going to buy a farm in the Gilbeath valley where I can grow grapes and make fine wine. That is the life for me.”

Terraud sighed. “Amis, with that golden voice, you spend more time avoiding women than most men spend chasing them. But I’ll come with you at least as far as Gilbeath. After that, I’m not sure.” He looked at the horses. “Shall we?”

“A moment,” Amis said. He fell to his knees and began digging two holes into the soft dirt, placing the rainpaste into the first. He lifted Ellika’s portrait, stained with a dozen rainpaste tears, and pressed his lips against the canvas. He held them there for some time, as the afternoon winds danced across his neck and Ellika’s happy laugh filled his thoughts. Then he placed her portrait in the second hole and gently covered it with earth.

Wiping his cheeks, Amis stood and faced Terraud.

“Now.”

Terraud nodded. And with that, they mounted their horses and began their long ride to the valleys of Gilbeath.

 

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Steve Rodgers has been reading science fiction and fantasy since he was old enough to haul a stack of hard-bound books out of the library. He is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop and has sold short fiction to places like Compelling Science Fiction, Metaphorosis, NewMyths, Bards & Sages, Black Denim Lit, Perihelion, NewMyths, Electric Spec, and many others. A full list of publications can be found on his author website.

“City of Shards“and “In the Claws of the Indigen“, the first two books of his epic fantasy Spellgiver series, are available on Amazon now