The King's Thief

Chapter 10

Kaliss grabbed hold of Ryn’s arm. The group were walking over a windswept hill, occasional outcroppings of gorse and bracken being the only scenery. The ground alternated between deep mossy grass and bare stone, the very bone of the land laid bare by erosion.
“Something’s bothering me, Ryn.”
Ryn turned his head to look at Kaliss. After three days on the road, the thief had asked infrequent questions, but the Sylva was surprised it had taken the thief this long to notice the fact he was about to question. Ryn merely cocked and eyebrow, indicating that Kaliss should ask.
“Your feet. You don’t wear boots, but you’re able to walk across stones without discomfort… and then, on that last bit of stone we crossed you… well, you clopped, that’s the only way I can put it.”
Smiling a little, Ryn stopped walking and, putting a hand on Kaliss’s shoulder, lifted his right foot up for the thief to see. Underneath the foot, the flesh of his leg blended seamlessly into what appeared to be solid wood. It was as if the soles of his feet had developed hard wooden calluses, but they were evidently as much a part of the Sylva as his arms or head.
“I expect you’re wondering about our eyes, too, Kaliss.”
“Well, yes, but I couldn’t think how to ask…”
The Sylva’s smile turned slightly mocking. “You think nothing of stealing and perhaps murder, but you didn’t want to be rude. How touching.”
Kaliss blushed and turned back to the path. “If that’s how you think, then forget I asked.”
Ryn gently shook his head, and in three quick strides caught up with the man. “Your pardon, Kaliss. In Sylvan society, we are taught to question everything, and there will always be someone with the patience to answer. Our lives are long, and the knowledge we can gather in that time is great. Whatever your question, just ask.”
Kaliss looked askance at Ryn, then sighed and said “Alright then; why are your eyes apparently wooden?”
“They aren’t apparently wooden, they are wooden. The legends tell us that the first Nazrir, Yaftness Saer, journeyed to the centre of this world at the beginning of time. The Nazrir is our spiritual leader, as indeed we have a cultural leader and, of late, a war leader. They are three of the Council of Thirteen, they being our leaders, but chief among them is the Nazrir.”
Kaliss simply stared at Ryn, the wash of information too much for him to take in all at once.
“I digress. Much of this will become clear to you in time.” Ryn was silent for a few steps.
“Go on with your tale, Ryn. What did the first of your leaders do?”
Ryn took the tale up again. “Yaftness Saer lived in a world riven with chaos; the first of your race were taking their place among the older races such as the Pyghane, the Ragnathor and the Klep. Humanity was yet another burden on the world, and Yaftness sought guidance from the Lior. You might wish to think of the Lior as a god, for there is no direct analogy in your tongue.
“The journey was long, for Yaftness was not young, and his life had been hard. He journey through the Caves of Yor and bested many dangers until finally he stood before the Lior. Imagine, for a moment, a tree the size of the palace of Theria, and then imagine that the tree has silver bark and golden leaves. A king’s ransom in living riches.”
There was a pause while Ryn gave Kaliss some time to soak this in. Then he continued the legend.
“Yaftness asked the Lior, through meditation and prayer, for guidance as to how to deal with the new races, for humans were not the only newcomers. The Lior’s answer was to bind our race to the very land itself, granting us stewardship over all plants, trees and flowers that exist in the world. Such was the sight of the Lior’s radiance as it proclaimed us so, that Yaftness’s eyes were transmuted to wood. They allowed him to see the life of a plant, to see ills that harm and to see a plant’s natural lifespan, so that he was better able to do his allotted job. Upon returning to his people, Yaftness discovered that the change was passed by touch, and he began a journey to reach all the Sylva of the world, that he might pass on this gift.”
The two men walked in silence for a few minutes.
“Kaliss, if you are thinking of making a joke about wooden expressions, you can carry my pack for the rest of the day.”
Kaliss adopted a wounded expression. “As if I would,” he said, then burst out laughing. Ryn laughed along with him. Then, when the moment had passed, he stopped Kaliss with a hand on his shoulder.
“Seriously, Kaliss, if you have a question, ask. We will always answer, for our patience is great.”
“Thank you, Ryn.”
The two men set off, moving a little faster to catch up with the rest.

*    *    *

Beck stood naked in front of his mirror. The large piece of polished metal still stood in his room, and he in turn stood looking at both his own reflection and that of the four women laid out on his floor. He was unshaven, a three-day growth darkening his chin, and he had once again sent a message that he was ill. No-one had been to check the veracity of his claim.
“Am I that invisible? Well, soon,” he told his reflection, “Soon they’ll all notice me. And that man, that creature, will be gone.” His gaze meandered down past his own taut stomach and groin to fall on the women. The three brass-headed women were nearest, Sayela being closest to the bed. Staring at his own eyes, he built a picture in his head of the thief; holding that image steady in his head, he activated the spell he had prepared with the mirror. His entire body seemed to flicker and suddenly the eyes he was staring in to were dark, the face now with a neatly-trimmed goatee and moustache, the hair no longer blond and closely shaven, but long and black. The man was still naked, and indeed the body below that was still Beck’s own, as he had no idea of what sort of condition  Kaliss’s own body was in. He scowled at the image of the man whose name burned in his mind, who occupied his thoughts; it made his skin crawl and his bile rise to have to wear this man’s face, but it was necessary.

He slowly moved around the foursome, taking in every detail. Sayela, her rounded silver head framed neatly by the fiery hair, fanning out around her; next to her, the square shoulders of Sibel, the barmaid, her hair looking dingy against the burnished brass of her helmet, her breasts sagging as gravity claimed them, her belly swollen in the final stages of pregnancy; the next, a prostitute from the slums, Lydia, her form slim and dark, her hair black and long, arranged so that it covered her tiny breasts. Her pregnancy, also, was obviously nearing the final stages. The final girl, Niella, was less far along that biological path, but her beauty made even Sayela appear plain, for she was the daughter of a General, home alone as her father went to war.
Beck had sourced the names and descriptions of each of these women from Sayela’s mind, for the girl had made sure she knew the details of Beck’s dalliances. A few discrete questions in the right ears had made it easy to find them all, and Beck had captured the second two with the same relative ease as the first. He nodded, for all that he had made was good.
He picked Sayela up, grunting under the weight, for although she was slight, the silver bonded with her ravaged face made her top-heavy. The head lolled backwards as he lifted her onto the bed, laying her almost gently on top of the duvet, head propped up on a pillow. Separating Sibel from the other two girls, Beck went to his pile of clothing thrown idly behind the door, and extracted a dagger from its sheath.
“Time for you to work, bitch. I know you can hear me, inside that metal.” He rapped his knuckles on the brass, hearing it ring hollowly. The grin on his face was ragged, showing all his teeth and some of his gums. “You have a physical connection to that bastard, the thief; magic won’t find him, but you’ll not be using magic, you’ll be using his scent, his blood, the very stuff of life.”
Beck ran his hand almost lovingly over the shiny brass and, rippling as if liquid, the brass drew back around the eyes, allowing him to see two wide, staring eyes. The eyes were moving wildly around, the claustrophobia and unnatural breathing having driven the girl half mad, and Beck knew that if he hadn’t prepared, she would be thrashing around; the seals which kept the women alive also had paralytic effects on them.
Beck kissed the mouth area of the helmet, almost tenderly, then moved down to the swelling at Sibel’s midriff. In no rush, he drew the blade across the flesh there, cutting from left to right, gently parting the skin, then beginning the cut again to sever the muscles beneath. Blood welled to the surface, and a strange keening noise could be heard as the woman’s vocal cords tried to scream against the paralysis.
His concentration absolute, Beck again drew the knife across the woman, revealing the labour of her love, a baby. The child had turned in the womb, ready for birth, and was covered in the fluids of her womb, as well as the blood from the cuts. The child barely had time to breath before Beck had lifted it out, and as he cut the umbilical that tethered it, the child’s mouth opened in a screaming wail. Holding the baby one-handed, Beck moved back up to the eyes that wandered around the room; upon seeing the baby, those same eyes locked on to it, drinking the sight down. A measure of sanity seemed to return to Sibel, and then suddenly the eyes widened in panic as Beck stabbed down with the knife.
To Sibel, it appeared her lover, the one who had burdened her with such a gift of life, had come back to taunt her and finally to deliver a terminal blow. Something snapped inside the woman’s mind, and she finally found her voice, a scream rising in her throat, ringing inside the brass helmet, and even as Beck magically re-sealed the eyeholes the scream continued, beyond the limits of normal human voice. The echoing screaming seemed to resonate with the helmet in some way.
Beck passed a hand over the cut in her, sealing it; the magic was quick and untidy, and an ugly scar was left, seeming to glow an angry red. With a suddenly vicious, quick movement, the dagger stabbed again, this time aimed for the breathing seal. The wax cracked under the blow, and the paralysis was broken.
As if dragged upwards by wires, the empty body of Sibel rose from the floor. The strange, unearthly ringing scream continued unabated. The brassy head moved left and right as if an animal were scenting the air. From his knelt position, Beck watched as his creation moved. A fusion of human, metal and magic, it stood, swaying slightly, over the prone man.
“Beautiful. You are beautiful. My screaming blonde-haired Banshee.”
He got up, picking the remains of her progeny from the floor, and gave it to her. As if she were suckling the child, the Banshee clutched it to her breast, blood running between her fingers. He flung the window open and stood aside.
“Seek him, Banshee, the one who did this to you, your enemy…”
The wailing scream following her, with one bound she leapt from the window and ran into the night, faster than the eye could follow.
Beck turned to look at the remaining potential soldiers in his personal army. He needed to move premises if that noise was going to be repeated.