your dead child and you took your own life. Now you rot in the torture pits and you’re pissed I’m not there with you; so you haunt me through the mirror. Go ahead, bitch. Do your best. Do your worst. I do not care. Life and death; who gives a fuck? What’s left for me? Nothing. Nothing at all. I am as you see me: an empty shell.”
People came and went. Time accelerated, then went slow. Infinitely slow.
Kiki lay, slumbering, twisting and turning in an uneasy half-life.
Lights flickered. Candles and firelight. And then, the dawn.
A shadow blocked out the light, and she covered her eyes.
If this was the King’s Guard – well.
She chuckled to herself.
She was totally wasted.
“Collect your weapons.”
“Who are you to tell… me… tell me, what to do?” Life, the world, infinity, all swam in and out of focus. She went as if to place another honey-leaf under her tongue, but a large hand knocked it from her grasp.
She tutted, annoyed, but did not have the energy to scrabble on the floor. It was gone and done.
Once, she would have killed the bastard for that.
A face loomed close, and if the drugs hadn’t been so strong she would have flinched in disbelief. She struggled backwards on the couch, seeking to be free, and suddenly cowering in on herself, folding in on herself; suddenly brittle, and weak, and breakable, like kiln-fired porcelain.
It’s the leaf, she told herself.
It’s the leaf.
But it wasn’t. And he slapped her and she screamed and struggled, but he picked her up and Kiki lay cradled in his powerful arms like a child, crying bitter, salted tears, as he carried her from the smoky den up the narrow stone steps and out into the rain.
She gazed up into his face.
“Father?” she said.
“No,” he said, words more gentle now. “But I’m close enough. Come on, Kiki. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
WINTER SHADOWS
It was the Guild of Spice Merchants’ Annual Dinner, and flurries of snow kicked down the street past the ancient Guild House. Six hundred years old, of ancient stone and black carved oak, the building was one of the oldest, and most architecturally admired, in the Vagandrak War Capital of Vagan.
The cobbled streets and lanes were dark, empty and decorated with light sprinklings of snow. Not so in the Guild House. Cheers went up and the five fat chimneys pumped smoke into a charcoal sky.
Inside, down corridors of thick, richly patterned carpets, past panels of oak and marble busts of Guild Masters dating back three centuries, drifted snippets of conversation and song, the aroma of a whole roasting pig and the clink of crystal containing Vagandrak’s finest port and brandy. The main speaker, one Lord Deltari, current Guild Master, huge and bulbous, red of cheek, bald of head, and wearing a black velvet coat adorned with glittering jewels normally only found on ladies of ill repute, was just winding down his annual speech with a tale of how he’d made his fortune by identifying a niche in the market for ground and dried exotic spices from deepest southern Zakora, and from thence importing one of the most current and popular hot spices after an argument with his brother over a dog. The tale had an ironic, slapstick ending that made Lord Deltari appear witty and smart, and his brother the village idiot. And Deltari ended up with the dog. A poodle, apparently, called Charles. Another cheer went up and, amidst clinking glasses and guffaws and a discrete applause, Deltari sat down to an animated table of sycophantic chatter and over-friendly back-slapping.
In the corner sat Great Dale, William de Pepper and Lord Rokroth, from the House of Rokroth, whose main trade was eel meat from the Rokroth Marshes, but who also traded in various spiced variations of dried eel, his buying power thus earning him a place in the Guild, and therefore attendance at the Guild Annual Dinner.
“… an idiot,” Great Dale was saying, and buttered himself a warm roll.
Rokroth nodded, rubbing his
People came and went. Time accelerated, then went slow. Infinitely slow.
Kiki lay, slumbering, twisting and turning in an uneasy half-life.
Lights flickered. Candles and firelight. And then, the dawn.
A shadow blocked out the light, and she covered her eyes.
If this was the King’s Guard – well.
She chuckled to herself.
She was totally wasted.
“Collect your weapons.”
“Who are you to tell… me… tell me, what to do?” Life, the world, infinity, all swam in and out of focus. She went as if to place another honey-leaf under her tongue, but a large hand knocked it from her grasp.
She tutted, annoyed, but did not have the energy to scrabble on the floor. It was gone and done.
Once, she would have killed the bastard for that.
A face loomed close, and if the drugs hadn’t been so strong she would have flinched in disbelief. She struggled backwards on the couch, seeking to be free, and suddenly cowering in on herself, folding in on herself; suddenly brittle, and weak, and breakable, like kiln-fired porcelain.
It’s the leaf, she told herself.
It’s the leaf.
But it wasn’t. And he slapped her and she screamed and struggled, but he picked her up and Kiki lay cradled in his powerful arms like a child, crying bitter, salted tears, as he carried her from the smoky den up the narrow stone steps and out into the rain.
She gazed up into his face.
“Father?” she said.
“No,” he said, words more gentle now. “But I’m close enough. Come on, Kiki. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
WINTER SHADOWS
It was the Guild of Spice Merchants’ Annual Dinner, and flurries of snow kicked down the street past the ancient Guild House. Six hundred years old, of ancient stone and black carved oak, the building was one of the oldest, and most architecturally admired, in the Vagandrak War Capital of Vagan.
The cobbled streets and lanes were dark, empty and decorated with light sprinklings of snow. Not so in the Guild House. Cheers went up and the five fat chimneys pumped smoke into a charcoal sky.
Inside, down corridors of thick, richly patterned carpets, past panels of oak and marble busts of Guild Masters dating back three centuries, drifted snippets of conversation and song, the aroma of a whole roasting pig and the clink of crystal containing Vagandrak’s finest port and brandy. The main speaker, one Lord Deltari, current Guild Master, huge and bulbous, red of cheek, bald of head, and wearing a black velvet coat adorned with glittering jewels normally only found on ladies of ill repute, was just winding down his annual speech with a tale of how he’d made his fortune by identifying a niche in the market for ground and dried exotic spices from deepest southern Zakora, and from thence importing one of the most current and popular hot spices after an argument with his brother over a dog. The tale had an ironic, slapstick ending that made Lord Deltari appear witty and smart, and his brother the village idiot. And Deltari ended up with the dog. A poodle, apparently, called Charles. Another cheer went up and, amidst clinking glasses and guffaws and a discrete applause, Deltari sat down to an animated table of sycophantic chatter and over-friendly back-slapping.
In the corner sat Great Dale, William de Pepper and Lord Rokroth, from the House of Rokroth, whose main trade was eel meat from the Rokroth Marshes, but who also traded in various spiced variations of dried eel, his buying power thus earning him a place in the Guild, and therefore attendance at the Guild Annual Dinner.
“… an idiot,” Great Dale was saying, and buttered himself a warm roll.
Rokroth nodded, rubbing his
Similar Books
