CARPE CAPUT

CARPE CAPUT, by Evan Dicken, with artwork by Pen Anders, Audio by Karen Menzel, Music by Kevin MacLeod

 

 

Nastazo Balicosta was thinking of dinner when his client tried to strangle him. This shouldn’t have been wholly unexpected–the woman had murdered six city guards. Still, she was securely restrained, and it was Nastazo’s last case of the day. One quick consultation then he’d be off to the Golden Carafe to enjoy the Exegesis Day festivities.

“You are my champion?” the client asked as Nastazo walked into the holding cell, a sheaf of papers under one arm, his second-best saber under the other. The woman’s accent branded her a foreigner–most likely an imperial, judging by her gray-green pallor, large eyes, and utter lack of a chin.

“I am your public defender, yes.” Nastazo set his papers down on the table, belting on his blade as he looked the woman over. She had the slack-muscled looseness of a lifelong scholar, belly straining the front of her roughspun robe, her hair pulled back in a loose queue.

“I did not kill those men.”

“Then I’m sure it was mere happenstance the responding patrol found you covered in their blood?”

“You have to help me.” The client shifted with a rattle of chains.

“Of course I do.” Nastazo forged ahead with a shuffle of papers. “You have the distinct pleasure of having allegedly murdered six city guards in the Gilded City of Limini. As such, you are entitled to a trial–either before a jury of your peers or by combat. You have chosen combat.”

The client sniffed the air, gaze darting around like a trapped fly. “I thought we would be safe here.”

“You are quite safe, I assure you–except perhaps from the humane and final ministrations of Limini’s vaunted Executioners’ Guild.” Visions of broasted serpent and field greens danced through Nastazo’s thoughts. Although he hadn’t been able to secure an invitation to Doge Remivaldi’s Exegesis Day Ball, a private table at the Golden Carafe was a fine consolation.

“I’ll need a name for the records–just a formality, of course.”

The woman didn’t even glance at him. “Calixandra Akropolites Ptochoprodromus.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Old Imperial.”

“My name.”

“Well, Mistress…Calix.” Nastazo licked the nib of his stylus. “As you have elected not to represent yourself, I have been sworn in as your court-appointed champion. Pursuant to the law and custom of the Limini, I shall engage, on your behalf, in a duel to first blood, the outcome of which shall determine–”

“You’ve sworn to defend me?”

“To the best of my ability.” Nastazo glanced up from his papers to see the client watching him. Calix’s eyes seemed almost luminous in the dim holding cell. “We pride ourselves on justice in Limini. Foreigner or no, you shall have your day in court.”

To be fair, the woman hardly looked capable of lifting a sword, let alone dispatching a half-dozen of Limini’s finest. True, inhabitants of the cursed wastes that had once been the old imperial heartland were rumored to be possessed of a truly unnatural character. But Nastazo could hardly be blamed for discounting stories of sorcerers and demons.

Which made what happened next all the more surprising.

“It’s here,” Calix said.

Nastazo was about to inquire when a sharp crack reverberated down the hall, followed by a sound suspiciously like an armored man collapsing on a tiled floor. Nastazo twisted in his chair, but the hall behind the cell was empty, the heavy, iron-banded door at its end still reassuringly shut.

From beyond came shouts and stomping boots. A brief clatter of steel resolved to distressing silence.

Nastazo had just opened his mouth to call out when he heard Calix’s manacles click open. The woman was across the table so fast Nastazo barely had time to turn.

Reflexes honed by scores of duels, Nastazo jabbed the nib of his stylus into Calix’s bicep. If his client felt the wound, she gave no sign as she looped a length of chain around Nastazo’s neck and drew it alarmingly tight.

“Quiet.” Calix’s voice was a low rasp in Nastazo’s ear. “We haven’t much time.”

As if to punctuate the woman’s words, something heavy hammered into the door at the end of the hall.

“If I let up, will you promise not to shout?” Calix asked.

Nastazo managed a red-faced nod, and a moment later the pressure relaxed enough for him to drag down a shaky breath.

“What is happening?”

“I thought your legal codes would muddy my scent, but it appears they aren’t as prosaic as I hoped,” Calix replied. “I did not kill your colleagues, but the creature behind that door did.”

“You expect me to believe–”

“I need time to work a mither or that thing will make a mess of us both,” Calix’s said. “If I let go, are you going to run me through?”

Nastazo shook his head.

Calix released the chain.

Nastazo ran her through.

It was a clean thrust. The razor-edged saber slid between Calix’s ribs, flesh and sinew parting like bathhouse curtains. She looked down at the foot of steel protruding from her chest, thin lips turned down in a sour expression.

“You’re wasting time.”

Nastazo drew back for another lunge. Unfortunately, just at that moment the cell door gave way with a shriek of tortured iron, ushering in a vision worthy of Doge Remivaldi’s Autumn Grotesquerie.

Nastazo was unsure if it was one creature or a dozen. Tangles of desiccated limbs filled the hall. Knotted like ship’s rigging, they bunched and flailed seemingly at random, twisting over and around each other to form clots of ropey flesh. Yellow, pupilless eyes peered from amidst the snarls, jagged mouths snapping and shrieking. The creature had no arms, no legs, only hooks of bone curling from scores of stringy tentacles.

“By the Gilded Canals, what is that thing?” Nastazo asked.

“Can’t rightly say.” Calix swallowed. “It breaks names.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You’re my public defender.” Calix fluttered her fingers at the abomination. “Defend me.”

Nastazo glared at the woman, but Calix had already hunkered down to sketch shapes in the dust of the cell floor.

The creature writhed free of the shattered remains of the door, knotted body weaving and unweaving. Nastazo had expected the thing to crawl. Instead, it seemed almost to fall toward him, as if the hall were a pit and Nastazo lay at the bottom.

One of the thing’s hooks whipped toward his midsection.

Although Nastazo was not the fighter he had been in his mercenary days, public defense had kept his reflexes reasonably honed. He bent like a wind-caught branch, and the slash that would have eviscerated him merely ruined his best shirt. A twist of Nastazo’s wrist set the sharpened back edge of his saber slicing toward the offending tentacle, but the blade failed to bite

The creature pressed forward, flinging hooks like a crew of whalers trying to land a prize catch.

Nastazo slashed and spun, but his saber seemed unable to find purchase on the thing’s ropey flesh. A step back and he felt the table bump against his thigh. Rather than stand his ground against the flailing madness, he dove beneath the table.

Wood splintered as a hook burst through the top, followed quickly by another, and another. The creature tried to tear its limbs free, but the interrogation table was securely bolted to the floor.

Nastazo crawled out the back, coming up near Calix. The small woman frowned at dusty mandala of lines and swirling shapes spread around her. Tongue poking from the corner of her mouth, she drew her thumb across the dusty sigil.

“There. That should do it.”

The creature’s limbs knotted around one another, hooks tangling in ropey flesh. Where before it had been a nest of striking vipers, now it seemed a muddle of rats, snapping and biting at one another. The thing collapsed in on itself, disappearing with a truly revolting slurp.

“It won’t remain tangled for long.” Calix rushed down the hall. “Hurry!”

Following close behind, Nastazo considered taking another swipe at the woman, but decided against it as they stumbled into the guardhouse proper.

In his tenure with Brazzi’s Blades Nastazo had seen his share of corpses, but the sheer brutality of the attack sat like a lump in his throat. They had not been friends–fraternization was highly discouraged among public defenders–but certainly colleagues, at least.

Calix darted across the room, breaking Nastazo’s wide-eyed stupefaction. He pursued best he could without stepping on the bodies of his former associates.

Out on the street the night was warm and humid, but even the tepid breeze proved a welcome reprieve from the carnage in the guardhouse.

Nastazo caught Calix’s arm, pressing his saber to her neck. “A stab won’t kill you. Perhaps beheading might prove more efficacious.”

“We have to move.” The small woman glanced at the blade, throat bobbing.

Nastazo snorted. “There is no we.”

“Transitive Association–it’s a foundational law of sorcery,” Calix said. “By swearing to defend me you have become my champion. That thing won’t stop until we’re both dead.”

“Lies.”

“You’re welcome to walk away and find out.”

Nastazo bared his teeth. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call the guard.”

“Because you don’t want more blood on your hands,” Calix replied. “The Breaker will discorporate to hunt, but will slaughter anyone in its way once it finds us.”

“What was that thing? A demon?”

“Demons don’t exist. It was something from…” Calix’s tongue darted along her lower lip. “Elsewhere.”

“And I expect you’re some manner of sorcerer?”

“Sorcerer-adjacent, you could say.” Calix winced as Nastazo increased the pressure on his blade. “Please, I’ll tell you everything, but we must get away.”

Nastazo frowned, considering. He believed himself a reasonable man; and like most reasonable men he thought magic the stuff of ancient history, gone with the gods. And yet, this evening’s events stood in flagrant evidence to the contrary.

“Fine.” Nastazo marched Calix across the street and down the canal steps into one of the small, flat-bottomed barges that bobbed in the golden water. Shoving Calix into the front of the boat, he untied the moorings, then pointed his saber at the slumped woman. “One move and you’ll be headless as the gods.”

Calix gave a dejected nod. Nastazo took up the oar, dipping it into the bright flow. It came back gilded and glittering, the god’s blood dripping from the edge. It wasn’t actual gold, but the gods hadn’t been actual gods, either. How else could the old empire have carved them up so easily?

It seemed impossible, but Limini appeared unaware of the slaughter. Boats bobbed along the Gilded Canals. Men and women walked the evening streets, dressed in their festival best, their faces concealed behind masks meant to mimic the fallen gods. There was music in the air, and the breeze hung heavy with smells of spiced meats and spilled drinks. Although the sky writhed with night serpents, lamplight reflected from the scintillating water to cast the city in sunset tones.

In the distance, Doge Remivaldi’s palace shone with colored light, the Exegesis Day Ball already in full swing. The palace’s central tower rose like a spear from the chest of the slumped and headless god on which Limini was built. Golden blood pumped from the neck of the mountainous corpse, flowing around the palace in waterfalls and rivulets to feed the canals that gave Limini its gilded epithet.

Once they’d caught the arterial current, Nastazo set the pole aside, sitting down across from Calix, saber across his lap.

“Tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know the whole of it.” Calix ran a hand through her lank hair. “My master sensed dark portents swirling around Limini. He came to investigate. When he did not return, I became concerned and followed.”

“Your master is a sorcerer?”

“Suzozus the Cryptic–Atelier Mystic of the Fourth Order, Protector of the Intransigent Veil, Master of the Canticles of Psellus, and so on….” The small woman dabbed at one eye with the sleeve of her filthy robe. “He was a sorcerer, yes.”

“And I suppose it was he who summoned–”

“Never!” Calix shot to her feet, almost capsizing the barge. A wave of Nastazo’s saber convinced her to sit back down.

“He came to stop creatures like the Breaker from slipping through.” Calix shook her head. “It should never have been able to. We need to discover who called it here. There may be notes in my master’s study.”

“We should focus on the thing coming to rip us limb from limb,” Nastazo said. “My blade was useless against it.”

Calix straightened. “I may have something for that in the auracularium.”

“Is that in Limini?”

“Mostly,” Calix replied.

“Take me there.”

“You’ll help me?” Calix’s patchy eyebrows crept up her forehead. “Just like that?”

“When the alternative is being gutted by some nameless horror? Yes, just like that.” Nastazo scowled. “Although I reserve the right to behead you if I change my mind.”

“Seems fair enough.” Calix’s grin showed teeth sharp as a deep sea predator’s.

Before Nastazo’s doubts could begin to surface, the small woman had snatched up the oar, and was quickly poling them down one of the capillary channels.

Nastazo sat back as the boat bobbed along, the aggrieved rumble of his stomach a sullen counterpoint to his darkening mood.

Given how the night was shaping up, it seemed very unlikely he would make his dinner reservation.

 

#

 

In imagining Suzozus’s abode, Nastazo had expected a mist-shrouded manor, gargoyles clustered like pigeons upon its weary crenellations, or perhaps a sea cave aglow with luminous crystals. What he had very much not expected was a nondescript rowhouse, one of a hundred such uninspiring structures packed like salted cod along the banks of a sluggish canal.

“Prepare yourself.” Calix said as they tied up the barge and ascended to street level. With a flourish, she produced a tarnished brass key from her robes, making to cross the uneven cobbles.

Nastazo held her back. “Something is wrong.”

Calix peered down the street. Although not as crowded as the central avenues, it nonetheless hosted its share of revelers. Small groups muddled their way from door to door, hoarse voices heaping curses upon the gods as they exchanged wishes of health and prosperity for mugs of cheap venom and assorted sweets. If their masks were rougher and their festival costume a bit shabbier than those in more affluent quarters, they made up the difference in sheer enthusiasm.

“There.” Nastazo gave the slightest nod. “Standing by the alley entrance two doors down. No, don’t look. That’s one of the Doge’s men.”

“How do you know?” Calix asked.

“His costume and mask may look scruffy, but the boots give it away.” Nastazo guided Calix back into the shadows. “See how the soles curve to fit each foot? It’s a recent innovation by the Doge’s personal cobbler. Only Remivaldi and his Avant-Guard can lay claim to such sophisticated boots.”

Calix raised an eyebrow. “You’re quite the shoe aficionado.”

“Comfortable footwear is paramount in the dueling circle.” Feeling a flush creep up his neck, Nastazo quickly changed the subject. “Why would the Doge’s men be interested in your master?”

“High officials seldom look kindly upon sorcerers.” Calix shrugged. “Mostly because sorcerers tend not to concern themselves with local laws.”

“Be that as it may, the guard was posted here for a reason–one that will almost certainly result in you and I being taken into custody if we are spotted trying to enter your late master’s dwelling,” Nastazo said. “Is there any other way inside?”

“There is a sluice grate down by the canal.”

It was not what Nastazo wanted to hear. The only small comfort was that his suit was already ruined from its encounter with the Breaker of Names. A plunge into whatever eldritch effluvium emanated from an enchanter’s abode was unlikely to further erode its value.

The grate was rusted, and gave a tremendous groan as Nastazo levered it from the lichen-spotted wall. Fortunately, the noise was lost amidst the general revelry.

“Don’t worry, we only used this for old bathwater.” Calix grinned before squeezing into the slick tunnel. “Master did love his baths.”

Nastazo considered fetching one of the canal lamps to light their way, but wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he was crawling through. The smell was almost pleasant, closer to the sweaty, floral tang of a bathhouse than the boggy reek of sewage. Still, it seeped into Nastazo’s clothes and hair, clinging to his skin like oil. When he finally clambered from the tiled grate in the sorcerer’s washroom, he had quite resolved to burn his suit when this was all over.

The innards of Suzozus’s lair were far more in keeping with Nastazo’s expectations. The washroom hall opened into a chamber far too massive to fit within a single row house. Every table was stacked with leather-bound tomes, scrolls, and muddled sheaves of paper. Tubes and glass beakers bubbled with variegated concoctions, the peeling plaster walls inked with all manner of arcane sigils.

After lighting the lamps, Calix fell immediately to rummaging through the clutter, kicking up clouds of dust thick as bonfire ash. It eddied on invisible currents, settling on Nastazo’s torn and sodden clothes like a musty cloak.

“Is it always this…untidy?” he asked.

“Not usually, no.” Calix didn’t even look up. “But everything got jumbled when the Breaker came.”

“Suzozus was killed here?” Nastazo craned his neck, searching for telltale smears of blood and finding none. “Did you dispose of the body?”

“Sorcerers don’t die like we do. No body, no blood.” Calix waved at the swirling cloud of dust. “Master is all around us, now.”

“You mentioned you had something to kill the beast?” Nastazo pressed a sleeve to his mouth. The potpourri reek of Suzozus’s bathwater seemed much preferable to inhaling the man himself.

“In the auracularium, yes.” Calix unearthed a plain-looking box from amidst the wizardly detritus. The box was perhaps a foot on all sides, carved of unadorned wood stained a deep, warm crimson. It had a single brass clasp, which Calix flipped, opening the box with a satisfied smile.

From inside came the babble of voices, punctuated by the clink of glasses and the occasional spray of bright laughter. Although Nastazo could not pick out individual words, it was clear they spoke an unfamiliar tongue.

He edged away. “What is it?”

“A window to ancient times. Well, not a window exactly.” Calix cleared space on a nearby table. Setting the box down like a treasured heirloom, she cocked her head, grinning. “Do you hear?”

“It sounds like a party.”

“A thirteenth birthday party, to be precise.” Calix nodded. “A very ancient thirteenth  birthday party, chronicled before the Exegesis. My master spent his lifetime studying it.”

“How exactly is this going to help us defeat the Breaker of Names, let alone discover who summoned it?”

“The auracularium is a pre-Exegesis keepsake, a box not only full of sound, but of mementos from a time its owner wanted to remember.” Calix reached inside, her arm sinking all the way to the shoulder as she dug around.

“Ah, there it is.” Calix drew forth a sword.

Straight and wide-bladed in the old Imperial style, it was a little longer than Nastazo’s forearm. The sword’s sheath was colored the deep blue of an ocean sky shading into night. Branches of twining silver crisscrossed to form a stubby hilt, the pommel studded what looked to be chips of sapphire.

Nastazo took the proffered blade, surprised by the lightness. His amazement only deepened as he drew the sword. It was forged not of metal, but translucent crystal. Colors danced down its length like a sheen of oil atop a flowing river.

“Is that…?”

“Hateglass.” Calix’s toothy smile widened.

Nastazo turned the blade, shaking his head as it almost disappeared in profile. Said to have been ripped from Elsewhere, impossibly strong and sharp, hateglass had no mundane equivalent. Weapons like this had been what the old empire used to dismember the gods.

As Nastazo affixed the scabbard to his much-abused belt, Calix rummaged through the drifts of parchment. Holding two sheaves to the wall, she turned them to match the spiraling web of arcane script.

Calix frowned up at the mad scrawl. “It seems my master was investigating some manner of ecclesiastic assignation.”

Nastazo was about to inquire as to what she meant, when there came a rattle from the front door.

“The guard must have seen light through the shutters.” Calix stuffed the parchment into the auracularium and closed the lid.

“Bastard has the eyes of a treecat.” Nastazo cursed, turning to face the door, hateglass sword raised. “At least there’s only one. We can overpower him and ask–”

The door burst open to reveal a dozen of the Doge’s men. They looked to have come straight from the Exegesis Ball, suits pressed, buttons shining, masks freshly lacquered, and not a hair out of place. For all the frippery Nastazo could not help but notice they moved with the languid ease of well-practiced killers, spreading out to cut off escape.

“We surrender.” Nastazo held up his hands. Being apprehended seemed much preferable to being run through. Clearly the Doge had some inkling of the dark deeds afoot in Limini, perhaps Remivaldi might even know of some way to rid them of their unnatural pursuer.

The lead guard offered a quick nod, face hidden behind the leering fangs of some mutilated god. He came forward, saber low but ready.

“Drop your blade and you won’t be harmed.”

Nastazo saw the man’s balance shift a moment before the lunge came. On instinct, he brought his blade down, hoping to knock the stab aside. The hateglass sheared through the guard’s sword just below the midpoint. The severed portion did not clatter to the floor, but simply winked out of existence with a soft pop.

Not meeting any resistance, the guard continued forward, and Nastazo stepped aside to hammer the pommel of his blade into the man’s temple.

That was when the hateglass started screaming.

It was a shriek of rage, high and clear as the call of a battle horn. The screech resonated up Nastazo’s arm, his body vibrating like a struck bell.

He set the foremost guards stumbling back, their blades useless as willow switches before his sword’s invisible edge. But magic and aggression could only stretch so far when one was sorely outnumbered. A guard leapt from Nastazo’s right, hands closing around his sword arm. Another grabbed him around the chest. He beat at the woman on his side, trying to tear his arm free, but hard hands caught his wrist, bearing him back. All the while, the hateglass screamed its terrible scream.

“Calix, do something!” Nastazo shouted as he was dragged down.

“I–I don’t…” Calix stared back, eyes wide as she clutched the auracularium to her chest like a newborn babe. She turned to kick over a small table, glass shattering as potions and unguents spilled across the floor.

A fist smashed into Natazo’s jaw, and he lost sight of his unhelpful companion. Someone drove a knee into his midsection, another caught the lapel of his jacket, ripping the much-abused fabric free in a shower of buttons. Dimly he heard more crashes, Calix’s cries muffled by the unreasoning shriek of hateglass.

Fingers pried at Nastazo’s fist. He clung to his blade, grip weakening. A moment, and they would wrestle it free, probably pummeling him to death in the process.
The wall of the sorcerer’s chamber exploded in a spray of plaster and lathe, ropey limbs uncoiling from the darkness beyond. Nastazo felt the guards’ grips slacken as the Breaker of Names tumbled into the room.

Seizing on the momentary respite, Nastazo wriggled free of his captors, who had staggered to their feet, mouths agape.

A hand caught Nastazo’s shirt cuff, and he almost lashed out before recognizing Calix.

“I called it to us.” She tugged at Nastazo’s arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.”

The Breaker flowed around the stunned guards, ropey tendrils slipping between them to slash at Nastazo and Calix.

Pushing Calix back, Nastazo flicked his blade up, grunting in satisfaction as it sheared through one of the Breaker’s hooked talons. Rather than fall twitching to the ground, the limb simply vanished.

If the loss discomfited the creature at all, it gave no sign. Fanged mouths snapped and slurped, yellow, lidless eyes wide as a score of curved claws came slashing down.

Nastazo swept the hateglass blade in a wide arc, and three more of the beast’s flailing limbs were exiled to nothingness. This seemed to give the Breaker pause, and it reared back, remaining tendrils poised like serpents prepared to strike. The last of the Doge’s guard scrambled clear of the looping tangle to join his fellows, their backs pressed to one of the crumbling plaster walls. Although their faces were hidden, they seemed transfixed by the beast.

To be fair, Nastazo could hardly blame them.

“Down the sluice!” Backing down the hall, he grabbed Calix by the collar of her robe and propelled the small woman toward the washroom.

For once, Calix did not argue, hopping into the sluice, the auracularium cradled protectively in her scrawny arms.

Like a worm, the Breaker’s twisted body flexed as it squeezed into the washroom. Tendrils looped past Nastazo, a forest of serrated hooks bobbing between him and the sluice grate. He tried to dive below them, only to stumble back as one cut the air where his head had just been.

Jaw tight, he brought the hateglass blade down, hacking at the arms as if they were a curtain of thick brush. There was no hint of resistance as the hateglass shrieked its way through rubbery flesh. The Breaker’s high scream joined that of Nastazo’s blade.

The creature had no body to speak of, so he lunged for the knot with the most eyes. The Breaker gave a very satisfying howl as Nastazo’s sword punched through. It snapped at him, flecks of hot saliva spattering his cheek as jaws closed a mere handbreadth from his face. A slash from the hateglass’s impossible edge neatly bisected the Breaker’s mouth.

Nastazo pressed his advantage, arm burning as he launched a series of cuts that relieved the beast of a half-dozen more of its rubbery appendages. It tried to push back through the washroom door and into the larger chamber where it could bring its remaining tentacles to bear, but Nastazo did not relent.

He hacked at the thing, all the anxiety and frustration of the last several hours lending his blows strength. The Breaker bunched up in the doorway, coiling over and around itself in an effort to squeeze through. With a panting howl, Nastazo brought his blade down to cut the bulk of the beast in twain.

Then it was simply gone, the chamber silent but for the hateglass’s furious wail. From across the room, twelve pairs of shocked eyes watched him from behind festival masks.

Slowly, one of the guards raised his sword to point at Nastazo. “Seize him.”

Sheathing his blade lest it decapitate him on the way down, Nastazo turned to leap into the sluice.

Although no less cloying, the journey back down the wizard’s drain was mercifully swift. Nastazo slid from the aperture, skidded across the stone walkway, and plunged headfirst into a river of divine gore.

 

#

 

Nastazo had first come to Limini as a prisoner, captured along with the bulk of Brazzi’s Blades during an abortive Hate Season campaign by the Republic of Tullia–Limini’s perennial rival, and Nastazo’s former employer. He and the survivors of that sorry expedition had been treated to accommodations in Limini’s famed “Coffers”, an edifice named not for an excess of coin, but rather its proximity to the Gilded Canals.

The lower three feet of each cell was submerged in thick, sticky god’s blood. In addition to preventing the prisoners from laying down, it caked their clothes and hair, lapping against their faces whenever they sat.

The three weeks it took for Tullia to deliver the agreed upon ransom had been some of the worst in Nastazo’s life. Sometimes, he could still taste the syrupy, metallic tang in the back of his throat, feel the crackle of dry blood on his skin and hair. Had it not been for the dearth of positions for defeated ex-mercenaries, he would have left Limini and never looked back.

As it was, he simply vowed to never let the stuff touch him again.

While he lay gasping on the dock, Calix coughing beside him, Nastazo considered this particular personal promise would probably not be the last in tatters by night’s end.

At least the hateglass had stopped shrieking. Its aggrieved howl had dwindled to a low mutter, almost completely muffled by the sheath.

“Does the Breaker pursue us?” Calix managed between wheezing pants.

“Not unless it can knit itself back together.” Nastazo winced. “It can’t knit itself back together, can it?”

“Not for quite some time.”

“Then it seems our business is concluded.” Nastazo felt the knot in his stomach unclench as he lay back upon the sodden boards of the dock. “Shame. I have so enjoyed our time together.”

“Yes, about that.” Calix shook her head, seemingly oblivious to Nastazo’s sarcasm.

Nastazo sat up.

“This is no mere natalist cult,” Calix replied. “According to my master’s notes, they’re attempting a full renascence.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The gods,” Calix replied. “More specifically the god on which Limini is built. Whoever summoned the Breaker is trying to reconnect its head.”

“But that’s impossible,” Nastazo said. “The head is gone.”

“Not gone, Elsewhere.” Calix chewed her chapped lips for a moment. “You saw what happened to the guards’ swords when you cut them with hateglass?”

“They disappeared,” Nastazo said. “Like the Breaker’s arms.”

“Not quite. Hateglass doesn’t remove so much as shift things Elsewhere. The blades and arms are still attached, they just aren’t here anymore.”

Nastazo frowned.

“I don’t have time for a lesson in supernumerary cosmology,” Calix said. “Imagine putting your hand in a basin of water, except beneath the surface is a completely different place, separated by both time and physical space.”

“And the god’s head…?”

“Divinities are immortal, but the old Empire found a loophole.” Calix drew a finger across her throat. “Not dead, but certainly not alive either. Most consider it a good thing, but a few misguided souls believe reuniting the gods with their scattered bits represents a road to ultimate power.”

“Is it?”

Calix shrugged. “Whatever the gods once were, I doubt spending several bodyless millennia trapped in a realm of unrelenting nightmare has improved their temperament.”

“And what exactly does this have to do with me?”

“They need to be stopped,” Calix said.

“Shall I repeat my previous question?”

“I can’t defeat them alone.” Calix swallowed, pallid face scrunching up. “I don’t even know who they are.”

“All the better reason to put Limini behind you and never look back.”

“The return of a god won’t just affect this city,” Calix replied. “It could mean the end of the world as we know it.”

Nastazo regarded the odd woman for a long moment. Since making her acquaintance he had been almost eviscerated, beheaded, drowned, and beaten to death. And yet, the Doge’s guards had seen his face. It seemed his career with the Limini Public Defender’s office had come to an ignominious end.

Also, there was the end of the world to consider.

At the thought of the Avant-Guard, a half-formed idea tickled at the back of Nastazo’s thoughts. “These natalists, they are powerful?”

“It would take a substantial amount of wealth and influence to secure the necessary components, not to mention keep the whole thing secret.”

“And the Breaker?” Nastazo’s gut felt heavy, his chest tight. “You said it would kill anyone who stood between it and us. What about its summoners?”

“The Breaker would not have harmed them willingly.”

Nastazo felt a groan building within him. He squeezed his eyes shut, bringing up two fingers to massage his temples.

“What?”

“I know who the natalists are,” Nastazo replied.

Calix clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful news!”

“It gets worse.” Nastazo gave a pained sigh. “I know exactly where to find them.”

 

#

 

The Avant-Guard’s blade hissed from its scabbard, the draw transitioning smoothly into a lunge that would have skated across any normal sword and straight into the chest of the guard’s opponent.

Fortunately, Nastazo’s blade was far from normal.

The hateglass sheared the tip from the guard’s sword. Nastazo followed up with a quick back-cut that left the man with little more than an ornate basket hilt. Blessedly, the hateglass remained silent. Apparently, its ire was only roused by living targets.

To his dubious credit, the guard reacted quickly. His kick caught Nastazo just below the knee, and caused him to stumble back, cursing.

Until now, noise of the scuffle had been thoroughly eclipsed by sounds of revelry from within the Doge’s Palace. The guard drew in breath to shout a warning, but the cry died unaired as Calix stepped from the shadows to neatly brain him with the auracularium.

After a quick glance around, Nastazo limped over. “Help me get him to the canal.”

Together, they dragged the moaning man down into the shadows where a boat waited in the golden current. After relieving the man of his costume, which was a bit too baggy for Nastazo, and his boots, which were exceptionally comfortable; they wrapped the naked guard in a tangle of sailcloth, gagged him, and laid him in the boat. Now, he might be mistaken for any number of inebriated gondoliers cast adrift on festival night.

“You are sure the Doge is behind this?” Calix asked.

“Only Remivaldi has the power and wealth to pull off something like this, and his soldiers were watching your master,” Nastazo replied. “Not to mention the Breaker ignored the Avant-Guard back in your master’s study.”

“Right or wrong, there’s no going back now, I suppose.” Calix watched the guard drift away.

“Now we just need to get you sorted.” Nastazo gave a brusque nod. “Although I don’t think you’ll pass for a soldier.”

“No need.” Calix opened the auracularium and, after rooting around for a bit, produced a tall pointed hat; elegant set of purple robes; and a broad mask that seemed almost a helmet, its eyeholes covered with lenses of cut crystal, its mouth encased in some manner of mesh screen.

“You had costumes this whole time?” Nastazo gestured at the vanished guard. “Why did we need to assault the Doge’s people?”

“Wouldn’t fit you.” Calix donned the robe which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be sized for a teenage boy. She favored Nastazo with a needle-toothed grin. “Besides, you look more dashing this way.”

“You there!” The call came from up on the street. Nastazo saw a pair of Avant-Guard peering down, eyes narrowed behind golden sun masks.

“Why aren’t you at your post?” The guard with the more ostentatious costume pointed back toward the palace.

“I fear one of the Doge’s honored guests enjoyed themselves a bit too much.” Nastazo threw an arm around Calix to guide her back up the embankment. Obligingly, Calix leaned against him, feigning a stumble as if she were quite overcome with drink.

“Get her back inside, and be quick about it,” the lead guard said as they staggered past. “Only two bells ‘til midnight. You know Remivaldi needs everyone inside.”

Of all the ways Nastazo imagined gaining access to Doge Remivaldi’s Exegesis Day Ball, sneaking in disguised as a member of the palace guard hadn’t made the list.

The guards at the entrance looked about to question him, but Calix gave a convincing lurch, one hand pressed to the mouth of her mask as if to forestall a flood of bile. The guards passed them by with a sympathetic wave.

The Doge’s palace was full of light and music. Windows of colored glass stained the festivities in prismatic hues. Motes of glittering light flitted across the ballroom like golden fireflies, reflected from the waterfall of gilded blood that fell beyond the veranda overlook. Hundreds of Limini’s high officials hobnobbed with wealthy merchants and nobility of all stripes, the air hot and close despite the myriad servants with crank fans and buckets of fresh ice. The aroma of assorted delicacies coaxed a growl from Nastazo’s much-neglected stomach, but before he could make a brief detour toward one of the tray-laden servers, Calix gave a low hiss.

“Impossible.” She craned her neck to stare at the ceiling.

“I believe that’s my line.” Nastazo followed Calix’s gaze, but saw nothing apart from a spread of intricate, and no doubt staggeringly expensive, geometric patterns.

“Ministerial fractals, The Golden Mean,” Calix muttered, her face gone paler than usual beneath the mask. “This whole palace is a recombinant focus.”

“Care to elaborate?” Nastazo noticed several of the guard watching Calix gape at the ceiling. He caught the small woman by the elbow and steered her toward a knot of chattering courtiers.

“Economics gives weight to wealth, warfare privileges blades. With sorcery, power comes through potential, the creation and destruction of narrative force,” Calix replied. “The gods cared nothing for sword or coin, they only wished to be entertained. There are many paths to sorcery, one can accumulate sufficient personal energies, as my master did. A less savory, albeit quicker way is to expend the energy of others.”

“And how exactly does one expend energy?” Nastazo asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Various ways.” Calix shrugged. “Although most involve ritualistic murder.”

Nastazo sucked air through his teeth. “Such as sacrificing the high society of an entire city?”

“That would do it, yes,” Calix replied. “These are the movers and shakers of Limini, their deaths would expend tremendous sorcerous power.”

“Enough to reunite a god with his head?”

“Perhaps.”

“We must find our esteemed host.” Nastazo scanned the crowd, but it seemed Doge Remivaldi had yet to make an appearance. He did however notice several guards discreetly wending their way through the crowds in he and Calix’s general direction.

Nastazo pulled Calix behind a nude statue of a man of truly epic proportions. Safely shielded from view by a pair of marble legs, Nastazo got the lay of the grand ballroom. He had been to court on precisely two occasions, the first when he had been dragged before the Doge as a prisoner of war, the second when he was sworn in as a public defender. In both cases, Remivaldi had entered from a door next to the dais at the rear of the chamber. Although the dais was empty at the moment, he had no doubt the guards would move to apprehend any who set foot upon the steps.

“We need a distraction,” he said. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in that box that would help.”

“There was a sack of gem scorpions.” Calix sighed. “But they died a long time ago.”

Nastazo glanced from behind the statue. The guards had spread out, still unhurried, but steadily closing in from multiple directions. Wincing, Nastazo drew his sword. Fortunately, the hateglass’s angry buzz did not rise above the babble of conversation.

“Get ready to run for the dais.” Nastazo knelt to drive his sword into the statue’s ankle. The blade slipped into the stone as if Nastazo were dragging it through still water. The statue’s foot disappeared. A pop of displaced air was followed by an ominous crack from the statue’s remaining leg. With a nod to Calix, Nastazo ducked past the teetering effigy, pausing to add a quick hamstring slice so it fell away from the nearby guests.

Cries echoed the ripping boom as the statute snagged a fall of thick purple curtains and obliterated a nearby fountain. Water sprayed across the crowd, provoking cries of outrage from men and women unused to being jostled.

Nastazo and Calix skirted the edge of the growing scrum. He looked back as they mounted the dais, but their pursuers had become involved in preventing various noble personages from inflicting serious bodily harm upon one another.

A quick slash of Nastazo’s blade made short work of the lock, and they were through the door in a heartbeat, the rumble of the near riot behind them fading as they jogged up the tower’s spiral stairs.

There were no guards posted outside the Doge’s chambers, nor beyond the elegantly carved mahogany doors. If Nastazo had been thinking clearly, he never would have blundered into the large comfortable looking sitting room. But recent events had gotten his blood up, and it had been hours since he had anything approaching a bite to eat, let alone a moment to collect himself.

It was only when he heard the hiss of steel that Nastazo realized he had overstepped. The sight of several crossbow-armed guards lurking in the curtained shadows only served to confirm his burgeoning consternation.

“At last!” Doge Remivaldi rose from an overstuffed armchair, an expression much akin to relief on his sharp features. The Doge was a tall man, resolutely goateed and mustachioed in defiance of current trends. He had the lean musculature of a duelist, a belly just beginning to strain the confines of his silken shirt. Although he wore no armor, there was a sword belted at his side, the winking sapphires on its hilt belying what was, no doubt, a blade meant for bloody work.

“I thought you’d never arrive.” The Doge’s smile seemed to involve every tooth in his mouth.

Unsure of what else to do, Nastazo pointed his blade at Remivaldi.

“Not quite yet.” The Doge flapped a beringed hand. “There are still forms to follow, after all.”

Nastazo glanced at Calix, but the small woman was shoulder deep in the auracularium, muttering under her breath as she rooted around inside. With a grunt of triumph, she removed what appeared to be a smooth obsidian egg and brandished it at Remivaldi.

The Doge’s smile curdled. “Must we, Calixandra?”

You know each other?” Natazo took a step back.

“What did this wretch tell you? That she was Suzozus’s apprentice? Scullery maid, more like.” Remivaldi spread his arms. “I am Suzozus’s apprentice. Or was, at any rate.”

Nastazo looked to Calix. “You knew it was the Doge this whole time?”

“Well, yes.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter.”

Nastazo narrowed his eyes. “Doesn’t it?”

“I’m not powerful enough to face him alone.” She chewed her lip, gaze flicking from Nastazo to Remivaldi. “The Breaker would have run me down, and you seemed competent with a blade, and I…”

“You lied.”

“No.” Her throat bobbed. “I just didn’t…elaborate.”

“You played me for a fool.”

Remivaldi chuckled. “Swindled by Suzozus’ scullery maid.”

“I’m sorry, really I am.” Calix avoided Nastazo’s gaze. “If there had been any other way to stop him…”

“Very touching confession.” Remivaldi gave a slow clap. “Now, if we could move things along. That ridiculous scuffle at the lab put us behind schedule.”

With a click of his tongue, the Doge gestured at Calix. Six crossbow bolts thudded into the small woman’s chest She crumpled like wet parchment, the force of the impacts spinning her around.

Nastazo dropped to his knees and tore off her strange mask. Calix’s eyes sought his as Nastazo leaned close.

“Put on…my mask.” She clutched the fabric of his shirt. “Please.”

Frowning, Nastazo regarded the strange woman. His gaze flicked to Remivaldi, who watched the scene with the expression of a man forced to endure amateur theater.

Calix had lied, true, but when it came right down to it, Nastazo realized he genuinely did not like the Doge.

He stripped off his mask, and, shaking his head, slipped Calix’s strange helmet over his face. It was a murderously tight fit, and made it hard to both see and breathe, but, as last wishes went, Nastazo had certainly endured worse.

With a toothy smile, Calix raised her other hand, still holding the obsidian egg, then dashed it upon the ground.

“Unbelievable!” Remivaldi pressed a sleeve to his mouth, retreating toward the rear door as bilious yellow mist filled the chamber.

Retching sounds filled the chamber as guards voided the contents of their stomachs upon the elegantly tiled floor. Doubled over, their eyes streamed with tears. Strangely, the noxious fog seemed unable to penetrate Calix’s mask.

Nastazo hurried past the prone guards to where the Doge had disappeared. Throwing open the door, he found a long hall lit with lamps in recessed sconces. The sound of footfalls drew his attention to where the Doge was just mounting a staircase at the end of the hall.

Peeling off Calix’s mask, Nastazo sprinted after Remivaldi, taking the stairs two at a time. He passed from the hall and into the open air. Ahead, a wide marble staircase wended between streams of golden blood–one of several such switchbacks that led to the columned stone overlook above the god’s titanic corpse.

Remivaldi had a good lead, but Nastazo had perhaps a decade on the Doge, not to mention a career that relied more on physical stamina than political acumen. Still, he was puffing by the time he made it to the veranda overlooking the god’s severed neck.

Remivaldi leaned against the marble balustrade, face flushed, bent almost double as he heaved great wheezing gasps. Lit braziers ringed the veranda, firelight reflecting from the golden rivers below to cast the expanse in warm shadows.

“Wait.” The Doge held up a hand. “This is the part where I offer you immortality.”

“I’ve seen immortality.” Nastazo nodded to the fountain of gleaming gore cascading from the decapitated divinity. “Doesn’t seem to work out too well.”

“The gods were fools. Heroes and monsters, princesses and towers, talking animals, heaps of cursed babies.” Remivaldi scoffed. “Uninspired dross.”

“And yet you would return them to power?”

“Return them? I’m going to replace them.” Remivaldi gave a breathless laugh. “My head atop this body. The powers of a god, the mind of a true artist. Just imagine what I shall accomplish.”

Nastazo cocked his head. “Seems to be a bit of a size discrepancy.”

“It will grow, idiot.” Remivaldi tapped his forehead. “I’ve spent years incising my skull with expansive enchantments.”

Nastazo sighed. Now he had truly heard everything. “And what of the people below?”

“Those preening fools?” Remivaldi gave a dismissive wave. “The world is better off without them.”

“Be that as it may, I quite like the world.” Nastazo took a fighting stance, hoping to move things along before Remivaldi recovered his breath.

“We are rats on a rudderless ship, bound to a broken wheel. I would see us set free.” The Doge straightened with a shrug. “Join me or die, either way you aid my cause.”

“Fortunately, I don’t plan on doing either.” Nastazo brandished his hateglass blade.

Seeming to notice the sword for the first time, Remivaldi chuckled. “Calix gave you a child’s weapon? How perfectly appropriate.”

With a flourish, the Doge drew his own blade–a long, double-edged broadsword. Nastazo swallowed against the knot in his throat as he recognized the oil-on-water sheen of tempered hateglass.

Remivaldi lunged, covering the distance between them with surprising speed. Nastazo barely got his sword in the way, and the two blades clashed with a manic howl, spitting multicolored sparks where the edges met.

 

 

 

Nastazo aimed a cut at the Doge’s wrist, which Remivaldi deftly avoided, using his longer blade to drive Nastazo back with several harassing cuts. Normally, a longer, heavier blade would have made for slower recovery, but the near weightlessness of hateglass meant the Doge’s attacks came blisteringly fast.

Nastazo gave ground, searching for a way to close the distance. One of the Doge’s slashes caught the billowing cuff of Nastazo’s stolen uniform, and the whole sleeve disappeared with a soft pop.

It took only a few passes for him to realize Remivaldi was the superior duelist.

Feinting high with his blade, Nastazo aimed a kick at the Doge’s knee, sending Remivaldi stumbling back a pace. As the Doge caught his balance, Nastazo stepped inside his guard to deliver an open-handed slap to one of Remivaldi’s ears.

The Doge responded by butting Nastazo in the nose, and he flinched back, tears prickling his eyes even as blood streamed down his chin.

Remivaldi gave a mock salute, before launching a twisting overhand that almost took Nastazo’s arm off at the shoulder.

Stepping back, Nastazo brought his blade up to block, but the Doge had angled his attack such that the edge was almost invisible in the golden half-light. The tip of Remivaldi’s sword shrieked past Nastazo’s face, parting the upper tip from his left ear.

There was no pain, only a cold numbness that seemed to envelop Nastazo’s head. He clapped a hand to the wound, and felt nothing–no blood, no injury, just a smooth expanse of flesh where the upper curve of his ear had once been.

The scream of hateglass was Nastazo’s only warning as Remivaldi’s blade whirled back around. He threw himself back. The shock of hitting the ground drove the air from Nastazo, his head rebounding painfully from the cold marble. He tried to sit up only to have Remivaldi kick him in the face. The Doge twisted to stamp his elegantly cobbled boot down upon Nastazo’s sword hand.

This time, there was quite a lot of pain.

Nastazo lost his grip on the sword, snatching his hand back to cradle it against his chest. Reflexive as the move might have been, it was the only thing that saved him from losing an arm as the Doge’s sword came screaming down to split the stone of the veranda.

“You seem a decent enough fellow. I’d much prefer to make this quick.” Remivaldi’s blade poised like a viper before Nastazo’s face. “Unfortunately, the ritual requires that I gloat.”

Nastazo tried to crawl back, but was brought up short by a twitch of the Doge’s sword.

“So it ends. At last, my dark plan has come to fruition. I shall bring a new age unto this world, one that will elevate true artistry over threadbare fables and regurgitated monomyths. There is no escape. Your doom is sealed, and so forth…” Remivaldi gave an apologetic nod as he drew back to run Nastazo through. “Now you understand how truly insufferable this all is.”

With a scream worthy of hateglass, Calix rose from the shadows behind the Doge, slamming the open auracularium over Remivaldi’s head.

“Nastazo!” she yelled, hanging onto the ancient box as the Doge thrashed and twisted, blade whipping blindly through the air as he fell against the railing.

Groaning, Nastazo rolled over to snatch up his blade with his good hand. A wild slash of Remivaldi’s blade almost bisected him as he rose, but he ducked the swing. Coming up inside the Doge’s reach, Nastazo flicked the tip of his sword across Remivaldi’s neck.

Calix stumbled back, snapping the box closed even as Remivaldi’s headless corpse toppled over the balustrade, taking his blade and boots with him.

They waited, breathing hard. Nastazo half-expected the Doge’s body to climb back over the rail like some revenant from the old stories, but when he peered over the lip of the veranda there was nothing below but churning blood.

Nastazo glanced back at Calix, surprised to see her robes torn, but bloodless. “I saw you shot half-a-dozen times.”

“I was stabbed, too, if you remember.” She offered a tentative smile.

“Why play dead?”

“How else was I supposed to make it up here just in time?”

“I don’t appreciate being lied to,” Nastazo replied.

“Even if it saves your life?”

He sighed. “Point taken.”

“Truly sorry about putting you through all this.” She pushed to her feet.

“I only wish the night could’ve ended with me keeping my job–I doubt breaking into the Exegesis Ball to assassinate the Doge was a good career move.” Nastazo sucked air through his teeth. “Like as not there will be a price on both our heads come morning.”

“You’re welcome to accompany me.” Calix looked at her feet. “I’m no sorcerer, not yet. And I could use someone to watch my back while I learn what I need to know.”

Nastazo glanced toward the city, then back to Calix, a strange, prickly feeling in his chest. Bodyguard to a would-be wizard seemed in keeping with the unfortunate tenor of his professional career.

“What does it pay?”

“We’ll figure something out.” Calix thrust her chin at the hateglass blade. “In the meantime, keep that. It’ll fetch a doge’s ransom in any city.” She clucked her tongue. “Shame we lost Remivaldi’s over the falls.”

“What of the rest of him?” Nastazo sheathed his blade.

“Not sure.” Calix eyed the auracularium. “Never heard of anyone being decapitated while their head was already somewhere else.”

Shouts drifted up from below. Peering over the balustrade, Nastazo saw a dozen figures in black and gold hustling up the switchback

“We might want to take the back way out.” He gestured to one of the other stairs leading down from the veranda.

Calix nodded. “Perhaps it is time we left Limini behind.”

With his good hand, Nastazo clapped Calix on the shoulder. “Not before I get some godsdamned dinner.”

 

END

 

________________________________________

By day, EVAN DICKEN studies old Japanese maps and crunches data for research at The Ohio State University. By night, he does neither of these things. His fiction has most recently appeared in: Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Strange Horizons, and he has novels forthcoming in both the Warhammer and Legend of the Five Rings settings.

Karen Menzel earned an MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine. She teaches and mentors students at Iowa State University and Western Technical College. She serves as the Assistant Editor of the Pseuodopod Horror Podcast Magazine. She is the 2016 recipient of the Horror Writers Association Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship. Her poems, short stories and novellas appear in more than 40 publications and her first novel, SWIFT FOR THE SUN, debuted from Dreamspinner Press in 2017.

Pen Anders is a digital artist with a focus in illustration and animation, and occasionally dabbles into comics. She uses art as a tool to create new worlds, bring fantastical characters to life, and create a space for escapists and dreamers. She does not limit her skills to any one program, medium, or style— willing to cross between 2D and 3D, even traditional to digital and back