a date with his maker.” The dour Guard strode nearer still. Now near enough to kill. “It is his bloody destiny,” growled Syar-ull.
Vaam held up a slender gray hand against the ghastly engine — a silvery shield in the gold oil-glow.
“No,” she said in a calm, firm voice. “No. I am the first to go.”
“Do you not know where you are, foolish miss? This is a sacred place. A place where the greatest beasts are led to sacrifice their blood and bones…” He waved a hand toward the vessels and piles. “To give us their very souls.”
The pike master tipped his head to one side. “Is this what you wish for yourself?”
Vaam held steady. She did not respond.
Syar-ull looked her in the eye through his narrow visor. “Odd maiden… stranger girl… you give me no reason to show you mercy or play the fool myself again.”
She squinted back and hard at him. “Mercy is not what I seek from you.”
“Oh, such an insolent youth!” he laughed — but his laugh was dark, his eyes hot white. “Then you shall have my best instead. Prepare to be let along with that…”
His mask turned coldly to Morio. It was blank and full of pitilessness. In that instant a chill came to fill the hall and the black Guard shook as if possessed or visited by the dead unblessed. The voice of a misty past poured from him, talked out in tongues of a lost tribe and time. An old and unnerving sound. The hum of an ancient unknown tune he droned in harmony with the room.
o shadow of lorde kyng pyr pray rule me ~ priests of the sempyre spake yore law ~ that not shall your flock be harvested wilde ~ but offered up cold to the soile in calm ~ in the dew when yon eye in the skye a-peers young ~ drink deep pale prince of this one
One ray of yellow found its way from the open door or hand-shaped window to land on Syar-ull’s well-armed fist. It lit up the implement glossy black for an even more menacing look. An aura of ghoulishness.
“Welcome my sun,” he said to it.
The Guard of Guards took this sun as a sign. So he flashed his contraption in the air and cocked back the trigger to attack, taking dead aim at the alien pair. It shone in their eyes both vile and clean.
“Welcome to the machine.”
But before a single leecher latched, a voice called from the bleak Guard’s back…
“Hark there! Sir my sir!”
A Guard it was in sea-green armor, namesake of a south shore state. He stood in the doorway bathed in sun tide, two fellow coast Guard in tow behind.
Syar-ull chose not to hear him.
“Sir my sir! I bring word from the Treasuror!”
The shoulders of the main Guard slumped though he did not deign to turn around. He kept his back to the beckoning voice and activated the device. Tubers and blades began to flail as if they’d come alive.
“It is an emergency master!”
“I’m busy Taan-syr. Set sail. Ship out.”
“The heir of Hurx calls his council, sir. At this very hour.”
“Not now coast Guard, cast off. Ahoy and anchors aweigh with you.”
“A leaver has been apprehended.”
Syar-ull’s helmet spun around like a lookout way up in a tall ship’s crow’s nest, quick as a knight owl who’s spied his prey. “A leaver? Why didn’t you say so?!”
“There’s more. He’s ordered the soldier stranger — that one — brought before him too.” The sea-shade Guard pointed out John Cap. “Why? I know not. Yet one can assume…”
The night-shade Guard answered with a grunt and turned to his handy men. His eyes burned whiter, more livid than ever. “I envisioned the end of these two in red. Now let it be green instead.” He glared toward Morio and Vaam. “Treat both to a round of devil’s moss then. I trust this will be farewell for them.”
He quizzed the assistants. “Understand?”
“Sir our sir!” they barked in unison.
“We’ve had our fill of their foreign fare. So go make this a barbecue pit and roast the pair upon a spit. Skewered like oddcat and hogdog meat. Two servings of strangers. A devilish feast. Cooked up in the heat of hell’s kitchen…
“And don’t forget to toast your guests, this beauty and the beast.”
“Surely sir!”
He’d seen and said enough by now. He turned his eyes away. Yet they inadvertently caught the gaze of the stuckling man who still winked his way.
“Be sure to leave no leftovers,” he added with a sneer.
“Gladly, sirliest sir of all. Sir my sirly leader!”
Taan-syr called out once again. His tone had an added urgency. “Master Guard — the Treasuror awaits!”
Syar-ull’s sneering turned to rage. He roared and hurled his machine, still thrashing, into the hungry muck. It sank in seconds and slipped from sight, all but for a thin single finger blade that scratched and fought a valiant fight. Then down it went too, gone and not seen again, sucked up by the pit.
“There shall be blood for this.” The dark Guard whirled and stormed to the ledge. “I don’t care whose it is.”
Morio watched him ascend the ramp and leave the Letting Pen behind. “Until we meet again,” he sighed.
With a mighty effort did Taan-syr’s two pull the young man from the greedy mud. He was too exhausted to do battle. His limbs weighed heavy as lead. They dragged him off toward the ramp by both arms, though it took every ounce of strength they had.
“Ho! This one’s thick as a chevox bull.”
“Hoo! Like old Sovereign himself.”
“True, but you know what the Finder says.”
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall!”
John Cap stole a last look at his friends. As loud as he could he pledged to them. “Stay alive! I will find you…”
Then he was taken, bound in vines, and gone through the storied door.
“Stay strong John,” whispered Vaam.
Morio waved the map. “See you soon!”
The men who remained encircled the twain with a special roll of sweetgrass, one that knew how to make a loop. Then they each reached for pouches slung at their sides and pulled from them smartly a handful of something. These were grains or seeds or corns of some kind. They popped them into their mouths.
Morio felt the need to pipe up. “I don’t know if these popcorns are part of the feast that was promised just now by your master chef, but it would be sweet if you’d share some with us.”
Not a word said either Guard. Instead they orbited the friends, spitting the seeds at their feet as they went. Seven times they walked around until they were all spit out.
“Do you know of devil’s moss?” at last asked one of the pikesmen. “Well you’ll soon learn more than you’d ever like…” But he suddenly stopped mid-thought. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes.
That’s because for a moment the whole room had rippled, as if gone liquid, turned to pool. And the ripples came from where Vaam stood, strange beauty still unsoiled by the mud and yet untouched by the muck. Young lady of the lake of wakes. Pebble of gray on golden pond aflood in oilweed light. But the moment passed and the waters went calm in the time it took for a single wink… or a double take.
The first piker asked, “Did you see that?”
The second simply shook his head.
“No matter. Let’s get on with this.”
The quieter Guard tugged a strap on his hip and produced a flask made of boven bladder, one that fit in the palm but thick. They shared it. Each man took a drink, a long quaff cool and deep.
Morio licked at his parched, cracking lips. “How refreshing that looks! Mind if I try a sip?”
Then they spat that too, every drop it seemed, onto the corned and seedy ground. This mix did the trick, a magic. It conjured from the ugly mud a circle of soft, sweet-smelling moss. But a moss that suddenly burst into flames. A ring of green fire around the strangers.
Morio spoke to his virtual niece. “I do mind the heat Miss Vaam. Would you please help me stand and get out of this kitchen?”
But the real Vaam had displaced herself leaving nothing behind but an echo, a shape, a false impression made in space.
“Psst, Uncle M. I’m over here.”
Morio snuck a look to his right and saw her glow outside the circle, safe from the flames and out of harm’s way. “That’s my clever girl,” he smiled.
“Talk all you like,” mocked the first Guard at them, “at least while you still can. This moss will have all the say in the end. You’ll get an earful from its fiery tongues before it does you in.”
He paced the loop that entrapped his captives, eyeing their faces for signs of fear. Just as a wildewolf would.
“Brilliant how it works, this plant… the flower of some hotter, darker world and an under one no doubt. Its spores must be spit and wet just so but then — treasure me! — there’s no way to stop it. The stuff grows and grows like a weed gone wild or lichen consumed with hunger and thirst, not to mention a taste for flesh and blood. It’ll lick you to death for yours. You’ll see.”
He paused to study the young shadow woman, the pale reflection of Vaam. “But a pity… such a pretty face. A beautiful bride gone to waste.”
Morio’s cheeks were fever red. He felt the hot upon his skin, more of a melt than a sweltering. The devilish crop was creeping in. Inches away. Tormenting him.
You’re but a butt of your sorry soul
A flick in a bucket of soot
To be kicked
Down into history’s ash hole
Off of your duff, you cinder fella!
Arse son, rear your ugly head!
And dance to the torch song
Of our band
The Conflagrateful Dead
The flames rose high as a funeral pyre — rite from the kings of yore — and reached to