Chapter 7 "A Man Lost"
Malon despised the office of Mayor. Every time a farmer argued with his neighbor, who listened to them both blather on about property lines or grazing rights or whatever else dirt-diggers found to argue about? Malon Tarkiss. And any whore who couldn't keep her legs closed cried to none other than he about getting the child tithe out of the man she accused of seeding her garden, and countless other mind-numbing trivialities of life in Broptov. Would that he could give back the black-and-gold checked vest of office, and stop being forced into listening to the vile minutia that was his neighbor's lives. He reminded himself that Broptov was on its way up in the world and he smiled. He needed to talk to Ifan and Buris today; they would either join him today or he would send them to meet the Great Lord.
He finished the last of his kaffe and rose, returning to the bedroom to get dressed for the day in the candlelight that struggled impotently to keep the dark at bay. He pulled on the green wool breeches that matched his fur-lined cap that would cover his bald pate today, and then shrugged on the white shirt with a bit of green vine embroidered along the sleeves and collar. As he bent over to grab the ugly vest that he wore every, day an inhuman voice spoke up behind him and froze his heart, breath, and stomach.
"Are you ready human?" The voice was the sound of snakes slithering through dead leaves on a freezing autumn morning.
Malon dropped the gaudy vest and turned to prostrate himself, but never made his way to the ground as a white hand, icy-cold and iron-hard, clenched his throat and slammed him back against the back of his wardrobe. The shirts and coats hanging about his head did nothing to obstruct the eyeless face that filled his vision and clenched his heart in its icy grip. He could not have breathed if that hand grabbed his shoulder any more than he could now that it threatened to crush his throat. He had never seen pallor to match it; if the deathly-white shade of its skin along with that waxy tone was stomach-wrenching, the smooth skin that covered the place that eye sockets should have been was terrifying.
"Are you ready to do as you were bid? The Great Lord's patience is…less than infinite." When the Myrddraal released him he crumbled to the floor of the wardrobe like so many ragged shirts. Gasping for air he reached for his throat trying to assure himself that it was whole. "Well?"
"I am here to serve the Great Lord of the Dark. I have already persuaded many to the Great Lord, and am close with others. Some though will not be persuaded, those will be dealt with when there are less unfriendly eyes to see and make trouble. I am faithful, I swear it. I need just a little longer. Please, just a little longer; I will not fail, I promise."
"The Great Lord grows weary of your excuses, human." The voice hardened now; it took on a deadly edge. It was no longer the snake slithering, but a sword slicing through that snake and biting into the cold ground beneath. "You are not prepared to pay the price of failure, but pay it you will. The Great Lord does not allow unpaid debts. You will bring the rest of the humans here to us, or you will get rid of them. Or I will get rid of you." The bloodless lips twitched upward then and conveyed just how much the Fade would enjoy that. The eyeless face was more than scary, there was no word Malon could think of to describe the pure evil it showed then, or the sheer terror he felt.
"It will be as you say, of course it will, I will do my duty, I will not fail Him. I swear it, I do…" As he continued to babble out assurances the Fade stepped into a shadow in the corner, turned, and was gone.
When he was done crying, Malon wiped his face with his hands and climbed up off the floor of his wardrobe. He disrobed and donned new clothes before he returned to the wardrobe to clean the urine that his bladder had been incapable of holding in its terror. From underneath his bed he retrieved a large chest that held daggers. He had already half-emptied it. Some of the daggers that were missing were now in the possession of people who had agreed to follow him on this new path to greatness. Some sat in a much smaller chest, which he had hidden more thoughtfully under the wooden planks of his kitchen floor. Those daggers all had bits of paper tied to the red hilts with initials on them; they were to be given more violently than the others.
The first time he had received the honor of a visit from one of his master's creatures, the Myrddraal had ordered him to take the office of mayor. The Meeting of Men had just reelected Borst Prudin as mayor and would not hold another election meeting for two years. He had arranged the accident that left Borst at the bottom of his own stairs with a broken neck. The fall hadn't quite done the job so he had to break his cousin's neck himself, the bad dreams that followed lasted two weeks; better the dreams than finding out exactly what the Myrddraal kept alluding to about failure. He was elected mayor two weeks later; the next visit came on the night of his election.
Malon breathed a sigh of relief and pulled his cloak tight against the breeze that carried the biting chill of early spring in Sibern as he walked out of the common room of The Frozen Stag. He had been confident walking into the meeting that he would be elected, but as the vote started he'd begun to dread the result. He had certainly called in enough favors to get elected twice over, he hoped, but his nerves began to fray nonetheless. In the end he had won more than twice as many votes as any of the other men whose names were in the discussion.
The new mayor shut his door behind him and turned to the stand next to the door to find his flint and the lamp he kept there. Once the flame was flickering nicely in the lamp he replaced it and turned for the fireplace. His was choked off by the bony white fingers of a Myrddraal.
"No screaming human. Do not call your neighbors to their deaths with your bleating." The Halfman's voice turned his bowls to water just as his eyeless visage froze his heart in his chest. The Fade released him, starting a chain of humiliation that hurt, but felt natural in the presence of his inhuman guest: he crumpled to the floor so that he was lying where his water pooled as he lost control of his nether region, his scream came out as a pathetic whimper, and he heard himself begin to cry. In short, he reacted with the total aplomb which he had mastered in his first encounter with this creature. Recovering enough to rise to his knees, he kept his head bowed so that he could avoid that eyeless stare. He focused on the Halfman's black boots. The creature turned on his heel and walked to the corner of the room. The mayor had to look away even from the Fade's feet: the bottom of the thing's cloak didn't move at all as it walked.
"Tonight the other humans in your village agreed for you to be their leader. You have done as our master commanded you. I have brought you a reward." Malon brought his eyes up to where the Myrddraal stood across the room. In the thing's right hand was a curved dagger with a small ruby set in the silver wire-wrapped hilt. "This is your true badge of office, human. This is the token that marks you a servant of the Great Lord to his other faithful. Stand up you quivering meat sack. Come to me and claim your prize. Most are not so ornate as this."
Malon gained his feet, if somewhat unsteadily, and walked hesitantly toward this creature that every fiber of his being told him to run away from. The Myrddraal held the dagger out on the flat of his palm. Tentatively, oh so slowly, incrementally, Malon stretched his hand toward the dagger. The milky white snake that flashed out from under the thing's black cloak and grabbed Malon's wrist confused him at first. The he realized that the snake was the Fade's left arm, and that was what was holding his arm out in an iron grip. The creature shoved black the sleeve of his thick coat to expose his arm almost to the shoulder.
"And this," The Halfman drew the flat of the dagger blade along its own tongue, "is your first Da'rol." He rasped. The blade didn't cut deep, but the Myrddraal ran it across his upper arm for three inches. The pain was searing. "A Beauty Mark. It will fester for a week. The pain will last four. It will heal black; proof of your standing in the Great Lord's eyes. Collect them with pride, for when we have scoured the world Da'rol will mean power. When you meet a sack of meat with more Da'rol than you, obey. One with fewer, order. The same number? It pleases the Great Lord that his followers be inventive; eliminate them or bend them to your will or be bent by theirs."
The thing had left the large chest with instructions that he give a dagger to every man and woman of Broptov; either to wield as a servant of the Great Lord, or to sheath in their heart. The daggers in the chest were less worthy than his: there was a raised metal nub that rose through the leather grip that had been lacquered red, but they all had the same curved blade. The festering wound left on his arm had been foul and the intense burning pain had lasted all of the four weeks that the Halfman had promised. He did not get any sleep that month. Of the eighty-three curved daggers he had been given he had presented fifty-one and tied initials to eighteen. It was time to decide the fate of the rest. He slid his own dagger into the top of his right boot and two of the lesser into his left.
He slid his vest on and then grabbed his deep blue coat, opened his front door, and stepped out into the early morning chill of mid-autumn. He threw his coat over his shoulders as he walked along the dirt street that led to Ifan Irlank's shop. Ifan had always intimidated him. The blacksmith had been large long before he started his trade and gained the muscle of the forge. Malon was optimistic about his meeting with Ifan, but had prolonged it out of fear; Ifan was known for his violent rages, and had killed the man whom he had been apprenticed to in an argument over pay. A Questioning had been pursued, but painstaking it was not: no one in Broptov had liked the old blacksmith much, and were they supposed to execute the only blacksmith they had to replace him?
The forge was quiet as he approached, but the glow of fire told him that Ifan was there. He walked through the front of the shop and called out Ifan's name as he entered the back.
"Mayor." Ifan grunted in response. Large did not come close to the blacksmith of Broptov. Immense was closer. He stood head and shoulders over every other man in town, and if he laid his left shoulder on the ground his right would tower over most of the children. His height was the smallest part of his enormity. His leather jerkin strained to cover his massive chest and his thighs were bigger around than most of the trees in the forest surrounding the town.
"Can you spare a moment? I have an offer for you."
Malon could not help but grinning as he exited the forge and headed toward the mill. Ifan had been almost eager to pledge himself for the Great Lord of the Dark. Even more to the mayor's liking the blacksmith had asked him for two more of the daggers so that he could approach his brother and their uncle himself. His Uncle Tormin already had his own token, but he told Ifan to stop by his house in the evening for his brother's dagger, and one for his good-sister too. With the exception of the miller, Buris Stromke, and mayhap one or two others, the rest of his list were folks he couldn't be sure of. The rest could sheath their daggers for all of him. Unless one of his number spoke up for them, he would call them forfeit and consider Broptov ready for the next step.
The sun had risen a bit and the air didn't carry the chill that had accompanied him to Ifan's door. He nodded to a few of the townsfolk in passing, smiling at one or two of his true followers. His feet carried him toward the river as he congratulated himself on his handling of Ifan Irlank. He felt like dancing, maybe he would organize a festival before he called due the Great Lord's price. He followed the path out of town and toward the river and at the fork he kept left, heading for Buris's mill instead of right towards the farm of Rasput Infrek. When he reached the mill he rapped twice, quick and hard, on the door. Buris's son, Jorow, opened the door of the mill.
"Mayor Malon, hallo. Come to see Pa?" The youth was a black-haired tragedy; shorter even than his father and fat to boot. His striking yellow eyes only made him more of an oddity.
"Yes Jor, will you tell him I'm here?"
"Of course mayor, please come in. Have a seat by the window, I'll fetch Pa." The boy's smile would have been fetching if he hadn't been so fat. And if it weren't for his strange eyes. Malon sat down in one of two roughhewn alder chairs that were arranged in front of the only window. He slid the miller's dagger out of his boot and concealed it up his sleeve: enough of the townsfolk were his now that he could risk shoving the steel into the man's heart if he proved reluctant.
"And grease the wheel!" Buris shouted back, over his shoulder as he came into the room turning his attention to Malon, "I'll make a miller out of that fat son of mine yet mayor. He may not know it, but I do." Buris Stormke was a hand and a half shorter than Malon, and skinny like a sapling; all sinew and bone. "What can I do for you today Malon?"
"Buris!" Rising out of the chair he shook hands with the miller. "I have a question for you."
"Oh, and what is that?"
"Are you tired of giving a third of your toil over to Lord Moscov and Drangonsweep?"
"You know that I am, I've told you as much over ale at the Stag, yes?"
"Buris I want to make you your own man. I am going to keep what I earn, and I think that you should too."
"Hmm?"
"Why should we pay for Moscov's feasts and suffer the hard winter in poverty?" He paused, trying to gauge the reaction. "I would have you keep what you earn, burn Moscov."
"Sounds like a revolution, yes?" The miller's dark brown eyes narrowed. "I'll not be part of a revolt Malon. I don't like paying what Lord Moscov thinks is his, but I'll be no part of rebellion. What you're talking is dangerous."
"It is dangerous, for Moscov. I do not mean that we should take up arms and march on Dragonsweep. I have pledged us to a great army, and most Broptov has agreed to follow me. We will be entitled to rewards you cannot even imagine."
"What kind of rewards Malon?"
"We will live forever, and instead of being ruled over by Moscov, we will rule over all of Sibern, or even all of the Borderlands!" He could feel the heat rising within him, knew that his eyes showed the passion that filled him. "No longer must we please others, Yes? They would please us!"
"You are scaring me Malon." Buris said as he took a step back, "You want to kill the pig when all we should do is keep a little more of the slop for ourselves. I think mayhap you should rethink whatever it is you are doing, yes?"
"You do not realize the power I am coming to you with Buris, I'm not asking you to join some rebels who want to overthrow the Lord of Dragonsweep and the King of Sibern you fool. I am offering you the chance to say yes to the Great Lord of the Dark!"
"No! I don't know what foolishness you have tangled yourself up in Malon, but it is not good. You must needs explain this to the Meeting of Men, yes? This is not what we raised you to mayor for."
"You do not understand old friend," stepping up close to Buris he planted the cheap curved dagger into the miller's chest, "Answering no is not an option." He let the scrawny corpse fall to the floor, the dagger he had given him pointing to the ceiling through the man's back. "I wish that you were smarter."
He retrieved his own dagger from its hiding place and moved to the doorway, "Jor, come in here for a moment." He slid to the right and waited. As he came in from the mill, the fat youth screamed when he saw his father's body on the ground, Malon slid in behind him and sliced his throat open from behind. "Your father was too stupid for you to live." He would need to go to Rasput's place and tell him that he had been visiting at the farm all morning, but that would not be a problem; Rasput had been one of the first men he had given a dagger to.