Sefiros Eishi: Chased By Flame Read online

  “That’s enough!”

  Immediately the fingers were gone. Mykel suppressed an urge to rattle the woman. Myna fell to her knees, eyes fixed to the floor-tiles. “Forgive me sir. Is it... just you don’t sleep here, and...

  This time Mykel grunted. Not moments before she had a Fury’s wrath. Now all of that authority was shattered by an ingrained fear. “Come on. Get up, I believe you.” She looked at his outstretched hand as though it was a viper. Mykel helped the maid to her feet. “Tell me Myna. Where is Lazarus?”

  “Milord is away on business.”

  Good. “What time is it?”

  “Six turns of the glass, milord.”

  “Stop calling me a lord.” They never did, and Mykel never stopped correcting them. It was a comfortable stalemate.

  “Shall I prepare your clothes today?”

  “No Myna. I haven’t the time. Return to your duties.” The confusion was plain on her face. “Lazarus is not here. I am. Understand?”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  “Don’t call me that!” Mykel shouted after the maid. No sooner than the door clicked shut Mykel became a frenzy of limbs and clothes. Come on, come on. You’ve got to be here somewhere. As usual, the required item was in the last place one looked. Mykel checked himself in the mirror. Decent for this time of the morning. Time to get paid.

  Minutes later the librarian arrived in the knights’ square, where the defenders of the realm trained ceaselessly to be the first line of defense against any foreign power. The librarian felt their eyes following him as he passed, knew the snickers and japes whispered at his expense. Some of those fools knew Caryl. His gut churned with the knowledge that they placed their filthy hands on her. They knew his standing with Caryl. The how and why were unimportant. They knew, and they unmanned him for his delicate care for a whore. Rage crackled in the soft murmur of fire.

  There. There was the man he needed to see. The sooner they concluded this bullshit, the sooner he could go back to bed. Maybe Caryl would be free on the way back. It couldn’t hurt to check.

  They met in a shadow cranny to best enact the trade. They never traded names; instead they shared a bond of supply and demand. The man, like all the others, couldn’t read or write. Mykel had to write the poems to the girls they wanted to fuck; that made their maidens believe their romance was fated by the stars. In essence the idiots paid him to seduce the maidens on their behalf. Verbally anyway. It was a surprisingly profitable business.

  “That was a nice touch last time. You know, with the scent.”

  Mykel grunted. Weeks ago he dressed the parchment with a flowery scent. The woman the librarian stole it from would not notice; she used so many perfumes and make-up that the smell was difficult to separate one scent from another.

  “So I was thinking. Maybe you can get the perfume again. A different one each letter. She’d be eating right from my hand.”

  Mykel made some vague promises then hurried off before the young giant could think of any more suggestions. He burned with irritation. That the giant needed aid to charm women made him as much a judge as a mongoose knowing a snail. Still, money was money. On the last outing he caught Caryl eyeing a particular piece of jewelry that would make the perfect present... Caryl! Crap. I’ve got to hurry!

  The problem was time. Caryl began her work at six and a half turn to the glass. That only left a window of fifteen minutes to meet her. The timing was especially important. Past six and a half, Caryl would not appear again until deep twilight. This one glance had to last the entire day.

  Fifteen minutes later found Mykel at his usual place, neck craned to match the sight of Caryl’s window. Strange. The wood shutters were closed with a lock. The librarian was shocked; he had never seen them closed. Logic pricked into him. Since her daily refusal to use the shutters was paramount, there had to be a deep cause to their use now. “Caryl! Caryl!”

  Ten minutes passed. Then twenty, then thirty. A wind rattled the shutters, unable to hide the faint moans of fucking. Unbidden the librarian envisioned a scenario.

  Enraged with need, Mykel kicked down the door and started towards the staircase. A dozen whores gaped at the destruction, often giving smoky-eyed stares despite their clients. They knew him, one and all, and there was enough romance within each of them to see the librarian as a white knight saving his maiden. The whores’ clients noticed the comparison of manhood and growled like animals marking their territory. Some lashed out to prove their muscular worth. Mykel’s wiry limbs came to life, breaking noses or rattling teeth loose. Those clients still conscious whimpered like whipped curs, fearful of the one obviously superior to them.

  “This is a place of business!” Mykel paused and turned. Old, wrinkled Olga. The old taskmaster, mother to her “daughters.” Mothers were always over-protective of their children. She could not break the other’s gaze, that damning gaze. She tripped over a stool and crashed to the floor. Her cries of pain brought a flush of satisfaction to the librarian.

  “You deserve that and more.” Mykel thundered. The words toiled the ears that heard it, drilling into thought itself until the people were left a husk of their former selves. With Olga dispatched Mykel ascended the stairs. Caryl’s cries led him to her chamber door. He fiddled with the lock, irritated that such a small object dared to bar his way. With strength borne of rage the lock was ripped away into kindling. The door itself revealed a similar fate.

  The scene was clear. The client was slapping her cheeks, and then twisted Caryl’s tits to the point of wailing. So involved in the half-rape the fool did not notice the librarian until he was suddenly hefted into the air. The fool squirmed uncontrollably. Huge, he was, and yet he could not match the strength from Mykel’s lanky frame. He screamed as Mykel threw him out the window, followed by the crystalline tinker of jagged glass. Then the fool’s scream was suddenly severed. It’s what he deserved.

  “Oh, Mykel.” The librarian cradled her to his chest until the cathouse’s stables, where they were away upon a horse, living happily ever after.

  “She won’t be free for a while yet.”

  Mykel twitched uneasily from the daydream. A doxy, obvious from the sheer silk bangle and the girdle of coin slung around shapely hips. Mykel groaned. The doxy smiled as though victorious. Her breasts swayed with a hypnotic rhythm as she snuggled up to the librarian, as though ready to fuck in the middle of the street. “No, Katelyn.”

  “No what?” Her wriggles were catching afire to passing men. “You want me. I can tell.” Delicate fingers traced a path to his manhood. “Don’t you want a woman? I have no child to hold your honor. Everything she can do, I can do better.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “How do you know without trying? Caryl doesn’t have to know.”

  “But I would.” Mykel removed her fingers from his manhood. Mykel hoped the gesture would repulse Katelyn, as it would to any lesser woman. It was too much to hope for.

  “I like being chased.” Her lips darted to press against his; the grin spread ever-wider at the librarian’s adamant rejection. “I’ll see you soon, librarian. Very soon.”

  Mykel shuddered. She was beautiful, but she saw everything as a game, enjoying the lavish abandon she used to ensnare men. Mykel liked not being the prize of her hunts. Instinctively his fingers went to the parchment folded neatly within one of his cloak’s inner pouches. She isn’t worth any writing, Mykel thought... who then frowned at Katelyn’s bulging eyes and her subsequent flight into a side alley. What the hell?

  From a dark alley emerged a trio of toughs. They wore the same mismatched armor, wielded the same short-swords, and smiled with anticipation of the easy kill. A glance over the shoulder revealed another pair of toughs blocking the alley’s exit. Delight-lac
ed laughter filled the dark alleyway.

  The laughter ignited a furnace within Mykel. For too long he had been at the mercy of others. For too long he was dismissed or ignored or thought inadequate. It ends now. The rasp of steel seemed almost hungry. The toughs stepped back in fear, and then launched an attack, sneers already set at the scarecrow-thin librarian.

  The first attack was an overhead slash that scored sparks along the cobblestones. Off-balance, the thug found darkness when the librarian’s boot smashed his chin. Smoothly Mykel took on a new stance; one khatar extended towards the footpads in either direction. The would-be assassins smirked, lunging forward when the librarian’s eyes pinned the other party.

  It was exactly what the librarian was hoping they’d do.

  The corridor rang with the song of steel upon steel. The khatars were darting snakes, beating aside thrusts only to vanish and then appear within a breath’s time. Twice now the assassin’s steel was broken... with the librarian’s back to them. Their confusion cost the human predators. With a speed so deft the steel blurred the footpads yelped in pain as their weapons tore from their fingers.

  Mykel was moving even as the cry of pain escaped the fools. Whipping arms pierced all but the last inch of leather and chain-mail. The lines of blood awakened the primal fear of death. Devoid of their steel the footpads scurried like rats until they hit stone and brick. Half-hidden in shadow, the rat’s fear melted from the footpads, replaced by the sickness of faith. “To the Fire and Flame!”

  “Fire and the Flame!”

  “Fire and the Flame!”

  One and all the footpads picked a small explosive, bending their faces to it as though kissing them. A strange beep sounded after the fools’ fingers turned the top halves of the device. Familiar memories itched too late. A breath before the beep chirped it’s loudest, the world became flame and smoke and terrible waves of heat. The smoke cleared quickly, revealing the footpads dead, their skin melted over bloody ruins of faces.

  “There! There he is!”

  Mykel cursed his luck. Fingers like iron clamped upon his shoulders. He was but a rag doll to the men, searching every inch of clothing. “Look!” A burly man thrust an even-harrier arm so all could see the trinkets glinting in the sunlight. A ring, a pendant, and a purse. All were the red of flame. “Shiisaa...” Mykel whispered. Those aren’t mine. An image snatched past his mind. The damn thing had been planted. Katelyn. Damn that whore.

  Mykel twisted about frantically. Something cracked hard against the librarian’s head, and the world pivoted with wild abandon. He was being dragged to a shoddy house, half-dead with rotting planks and seeping water and the scattered hills of shit with their odious stink. Not that any of the filth-encrusted human trash cared about any of that. All they cared about was the show.

  “Guess what we found!”

  “I can’t believe it! A full-live Weirwynd!”

  “He has to be a Weirwynd! No way had those guys died of natural causes!”

  “I hear their faces were burned right off. Only a Weirwynd could do that.”

  No one voiced the obvious question. If a Weirwynd’s power was so unmatched as their claims said, what could stop the said Weirwynd from breaking loose? Mykel saw it now. The fools were a hairsbreadth away from suicide. They were cold and hungry, cheated by life. Forced to live in squalor. Anything that distracted them of their fate was a remedy for their depression, if only for a little while.

  The commotion cut off abruptly at the loud rattle of horse-hooves. The noise now darted back and forth in confusion. Who’s coming? I didn’t call for anyone, did you? I bet there’s a large reward for the Weirwynd’s head.

  Mykel knew who it was. The crowd chattered at a brief glimpse of fringed gold. Their greed blinded them to the black cloak that bore such runes. Eyes widened with false hope as the new figure. John Jekai. Lazarus’ opponent two days before. The one who wanted to kill him. Mykel felt the nameless hatred throbbing from Jekai’s eye, the same as the three so quick to sacrifice themselves. He did it. He ordered them to die. Nothing tangible about it. Mykel just knew.

  Jekai was not done grandstanding. He made a gesture, and then as though a horn had been blown the doorways filled with a half-score of Solvicar, smiling as the ring of steel from leather tolled like a funeral dirge.

  One beggar rushed to Jekai’s side. “Sir Weirwynd. It is an honor to meet you. As you can see we caught a vagabond.”

  The backhand sent the bony man tumbling to the floor. Mykel grunted. He was surprised Jekai had let the man ramble on for so long.

  “Kill him.”

  The warrior-priests loosed a fighting howl as they rushed forward. Crap. Mykel threw himself through a window and hit the ground running. He needed not a glance behind to know the Solvicars in pursuit. He could only hope the gold-cloaked fools had not butchered the hapless beggars. Jekai was not that kind of man... but men possessed by hatred don’t notice those standing in his way.

  Mykel nursed the slaughter, let it cast his blood afire. The courtyard was clean of residents. In such quarters the Solvicar need only a good bow and sturdy arrows to end this farce. It was a wonder—wait. Slight noise, but growing stronger with each step. Mykel pulled himself around the bend, laughing.

  Some nameless noble was feeding his glory in a procession. Horses were armored, servants were performing stunts, and handfuls of gold coin were tossed at the cobblestones, turning friends into ravagers. Perfect. Mykel slipped into the crowd and ran like hell.

  It wasn’t enough. The fedora and attire marked him. His whole outfit was a beacon for hungry arrows. I need to blend. Staying along the rim of the crowd—while trying to make sure he didn’t look suspicious—Mykel hurried to an old oak. Half the roots were lifted, revealing a mouth teethed with wooden spikes. Into the mouth went the hat, the breastplate, everything down to his smallclothes. With the procession at the top of its hype it was almost painfully easy to snatch a random person, knock him senseless and steal his clothes. A moment later Mykel was a farmer, dusty and with a patient roll to his gait. The disguise was a bit big, but it worked. At the edge of the crowd Mykel cast a withering glare. You failed, you son of a bitch. Thus he darted into the gray labyrinth of the streets.

  Long did Jekai’s howl of failure echo across the windy corridors.

  X

  Mykel smiled at the echoing wail. Fool thinks he can best me? I’m too smart for him.

  Then why are you running?

  The librarian slowed his pace and melted into the faceless sea of whine-throated merchants and pomander-nosed nobles. I’m safe. A temporary condition unless further acts were taken. By the end of the corridor tactics were planned and ultimately rejected. The library would be the first place they would look for him. Lazarus would be dragged into this mess. He’d be disappointed in me. Just like his father, his teachers, and hell... just about everyone else.

  Mykel shoved the torment away. He had no friends to hide him, no hideaways prepared. All his shelters were found within the haven of the library. And here he was, huddling in a thin shadow in the heart of the ragged alleyways the nobility had politely ignored. Craven coward.

  “Shut up. Just leave me alone.” Talking was bad. Even the drunkards looked at him with a wary eye. Think, LeKym! Think! The obvious path was to go to Lazarus. No. It was clear Jekai paid no heed to the law. The grievances the Solvicar bore against him would push him farther than any ethics.

  That was another issue. What the hell does he want with me? I paid him no ill. Then again, it might not matter. All murderers were devout in the belief that their prey need killing; else they would not enjoy a peaceful slumber—Holy shit!

  Down the alleyways flashed a maiden in white wool, her auburn hair trailing after her like a
banner. The singer at the Red Boar. The one who knew his name. The one who knew about Caryl. What was it de Varin called her? Shayna? Yes. That was it.

  Mykel hesitated. Going after Shayna would certainly end with de Varin, and the innkeep would throw him out rather than giving aid. But the librarian couldn’t think of anything else. Huddling his new clothes Mykel hurried after Shayna. Darkness greeted him as he turned the corner. Not even one speck of white to off-set the thick shadows. I was a second behind her. Where could she have gone to—?

  Something hard smacked him to the ground. Damn... damn it. The white wool came into view, followed by the eyes seething with hate. This is not my day. Floored twice by a woman. Lazarus would laugh for hours.

  “Mykel?” Her face softened as she knelt over him, fingers seeking and finding the familiarity of the librarian’s dimensions. “Mykel, it is you!”

  “Quiet.” The last thing I need are guards flooding the alleys. As if on cue came the precision of boots marching in unison. “Son of a bitch...”

  “Oh, Mykel. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you, and there’s many robberies in the city lately... and I...” Her eyes hardened at the memory of their last meeting. “Serves you right, you rat-bastard. What’s the matter? Caryl wanted to fuck someone else?”

  Rage gave Mykel the strength to stand. Shayna backpedaled until she hit the wall. Grime and shit were ignored; the librarian pinned her with a knowing glare. “You speak of things you know nothing about. You will not call her that in my presence. Or ever. Are we clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Their gazes broke when Mykel stumbled back on drunken legs; his skull felt cluttered with half-thoughts. “I need a place to hide.”

  For long moments Shayna did nothing. Then, gripping his hand with slender fingers, the pair darted through the shadows. Rather, Shayna darted through the darkness; Mykel worked feeling back into his legs. It wasn’t easy, as the path was lined with sleeping drunks, and somehow or other the librarian tripped over every one.