Two and Twenty Dark Tales (4 page)

“This is the way to the realm of glory,

All through the night.”

He swayed and shivered. “So cold,” he said. Then his eyes closed. He would have fallen if she had not helped him to the bed, where he curled on his side like a baby and slept.

She touched his cheek. It felt like ice.

“Darkness is a different light,

That exposes true beauty.”

A scuffling sound made her turn her head. The mustachioed man in the tracksuit was stealing toward her, ignoring the body on the floor. His tiny eyes were narrowed as if against a gale force wind, and she understood it took all of his will to resist the power of her song.

“I… mean you no harm,” he said, wincing at every note. “The bag he has. The velvet bag.”

Still singing, she stepped back, allowing him to move past the body of Matthew to get closer to Arawn. His fingers wiggled into the big man’s coat, now cracked with frost, and drew forth a heavy velvet bag full of something that clicked.

“Teulu’r nefoedd mewn tawelwch

Ar hyd y nos.”

Henderson focused all his thought on the bag, forcing himself not to see the rim of ice now gleaming where Arawn’s skin had been. He could not be bothered with impossible twaddle like that now. One slip and the girl’s song would take him too. Only the siren call of the gems was stronger, so he laid all his thoughts upon them. They winked as he poured them into his palm, whispering their promises.

A small hand reached over and scooped up half the gems. He dared glance at her face with its white skin and black eyes, nose like a beak, sharp over her mouth as she sang. The sleek black hair on her head resembled nothing so much as feathers now.

The song came to an end, and the silence was like a death.

On the bed lay a man made entirely of ice, sleeping as if he would never wake.

Aderyn slipped the gems into her pocket and made her way to the wreckage of the door. Henderson tried to hum the melody she had sung, longing to hear it again. But he was off by a note here or there. He knew he always would be.

“Have you ever been to Peru?” she asked, but not as if she was expecting an answer. “I bet Bengal is a beautiful place. There are two books on the bed you might find interesting. I leave them to you.”

She fixed the silver pin to her t-shirt and stood in the doorway, her silhouette black against the sunset sky. “Now I really must fly,” she said.

And she did.

– The End –

Sing a Song of Six-Pence

Sarwat Chadda

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye;

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

They all began to sing.

Now, wasn’t that a dainty dish

To set before the King?

The King was in his counting house,

Counting out his money;

The Queen was in the parlor

Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,

Hanging out the clothes.

Along there came a big black bird

And snipped off her nose!

– Mother Goose

B
LACKBIRD
watched the maid enter the Six-Pence. He sat farthest from the light, comfortable in the darkness. The other patrons, here in the lowest levels of the city, turned to watch her with eyes made of scales and desire, measuring the worth of what they saw, wondering whether to tempt and seduce, or to terrorize and devour. A few muttered then turned their backs, seeing her of little value. A poor, sad creature with few prospects in her short life. Neither looks—that much was obvious—nor intelligence. If she had possessed an ounce of the latter, she would not have come here.

To sell her soul.

What fools these mortal are.

She searched the gloomy tavern, peering into the shadowy hoods of the djinn, the demons, and the ghouls that frequented the Six-Pence. The tavern had earned its name because a mortal had once sold his soul for that meager sum, so driven by hunger that he’d given it up for the price of a single meal. Blackbird hoped it had been the most divine supper in all of existence, as he’d been collected the following night. The man’s screams now joined the choir of the damned that wailed beyond the city’s walls.

Blackbird clicked his talons on the tabletop, chipping slivers of wood from the surface. He peered at her, watching the flare of her soul shimmer and shift through his lens.

He groaned. He’d hoped she would be worth the effort, but no; it was a pale, flickering thing of little warmth. Despair dampened its colors, while her selfish desires and her small ambitions shrunk it. Envy and malice drained whatever taste there once might have been. It was a soul in name only. She was not evil, but she was petty.

A ghoul stalked across the room, bent so low he was almost on all fours. He sniffed at the ground, his eyes stitched shut for some past transgression, tongue clipped short, yet still slavering in a mouth of yellow teeth. The hairless demon was little more than a carrion creature—rarely taking a fresh soul but devouring whatever spirit might be left by the stronger demons once they’d finished with their meal. The ghoul’s body was pasty and sick with disease; large pustules oozed across his crooked back, seeping green ichor along his gnarly spine and down his ribs. The girl backed away as he smelt at her feet.

Blackbird stood up. A deal was a deal.

Sable wings unruffled across his back and shadows stirred as the darkness within his feathers deepened. Other demons grimaced and snarled at him, wary of one of the fallen within the Six-Pence.

Like his brothers he was no longer bright and shining, but a beast with talons and twisted limbs, his head narrow and feathered, his thin jaw both a mouth and a beak. The rustle of feathers sounded like the scales of armor shifting before battle, the melody metallic and somber. The ghoul twitched, his sharp ears picking up the threat in those fluttering wings. He clicked his teeth and hissed, then scurried off, head near the ground.

The girl stared at him. If she was looking for some golden hero, she was sorely disappointed.

This was not a place for heroes. This was a place for deals and betrayals and terror. All these things, Blackbird excelled in. That he was cast down to live amongst the other demons who had never known what it was to soar, well, that was what made him cheap. Once, he would have traded the souls of a thousand newborn babies. Now, a tainted, washed-up girl was all he was worth.

And now that she had seen him, she was afraid. What had she expected? Her mother’s tales of the host flying over the city, clad in bright silver and on eagles’ wings? How the winds howled at their passing and the terrible radiance of their eyes, too intense, too noble, for mortals to look upon?

He wore no shimmering armor nor carried a flaming sword. No, she saw something wretched and miserable. Perhaps that was why he hated her. He was no less petty than she.

“Sit,” he said.

The maid brushed her hand through her hair and, despite the fear radiating from every pore, smiled as she put herself on the stool opposite. Her clothes were clean and good quality, cast off from the princesses of the Counting House to be sure, but she or someone skillful with a needle had re-stitched them to fit her. To a mortal, was she pretty? Blackbird could not tell, nor did he care. They all looked the same to him, fragile and ill-formed, a mockery of what had been intended.

“I am from the Counting House,” she said.

Blackbird nodded once. “What is it that you want?”

“What else? But to be worth more than this.” She pulled at the thin sleeve of her dress. “A better life.”

“Then you should get up and leave here. If there is one thing I can guarantee, it is that your life will be all the worse for coming to the Six-Pence. For meeting me.”

“I have dealt with demons before. The King summons you and you come flocking and bowing and scraping.”

“If you mistake me for one of those pitiful beasts, then you are a fool.”

“Perhaps you are right. None of the King’s servants would be seen dead here.”

Blackbird bristled. How dare she? His talons twitched, carving a groove into the wood. He was of half a mind to get up and leave when he saw the wry smile on the girl’s lips. Whatever else she may be, she was brave. He clicked his tongue. “What is it you want? Beauty?”

“Am I not already beautiful?” There was a mocking tone in her question.

“You mortals all look the same.” Blackbird peered at her. Her skin still retained a freshness, uncommon to the city, and perhaps there was color and life and desire in her flush, taut flesh and those glistening eyes. Beauty. Why did they all want it so desperately? How many souls had he swallowed just to make the mortal that much taller, that much slimmer, or fatter, or straighter, or rounder? Just to catch the eye of the King or one of the other demon lords. The rules changed so often he had concluded everything and nothing was beautiful.

“Beauty does not interest me,” she replied. “I had it once and found it of little benefit.”

“If not beauty, then what? Wealth? Riches beyond your wildest dreams?”

“Freedom.” The answer was bold and aggressive. “I want you to take me beyond the wall.”

“Impossible. Your soul is not worth so much.”

The girl stiffened and her face paled. Then her gaze hardened and her thin lips drew a grim line. “I am not offering my soul.”

Blackbird laughed. “What else do you have? I care not for money and your form—attractive as it may be to some beardless virgin of a boy—raises neither my hunger nor my passions.” He stood up to leave. “I see I have wasted my time.”

“I can get you the King’s dish.”

Blackbird stopped dead. His heart hummed with excitement and the feathers along his wings rustled wildly. It took him a few moments to gather himself but eventually, slowly, he sat back down.

The King’s dish. A dainty thing, but powerful beyond all his other treasures. Blackbird shivered at the thought of it. He had glimpsed it once. Rusty and round, the dish was as old as the kingdom, older perhaps, and with it, the King ruled. To get his hands on it…

No. She was lying. He swept across the table, leaning close enough to see his reflection in her petrified eyes, and hissed, “Do not play games with me. The dish is guarded by one of the lords of flame, a djinn.”

“That is why I stole this.” She drew out a small object from a hidden pocket and opened her trembling palm.

Golden light shone within a delicate crystal vial. “The Queen’s own honey,” she said. “I serve food to many of the guards, including the djinn. With this…”

Blackbird nodded, wary of the poison within the crystal. He knew what happened when any immortal spirit consumed even a drop of the honey. Perhaps the maid could get the dish after all.

“He trapped my brothers within the reflection of that plate.”

“Four and twenty. I know the story well. Of how you and your kin rebelled against the king. Of how all, all but you, were imprisoned. They say you bought your freedom through betrayal.”

Blackbird scowled, ill at ease at being reminded of sins from long ago. “How will you get it?”

The maid sighed and sipped from his mug. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. “The Queen never leaves the Parlor now. She has the keys to where the dish is kept. After dinner she falls into a stupor which lasts for hours. A child could take the key from her then. I will collect the dish and return the keys to her chubby hands before she stirs.”

“Where will you be? The Counting House is all but impregnable.”

“The garden. No one uses it now. Meet me there. If I do not have the dish, you may fly off. If I have it, you will carry me beyond the wall.”

“Do you know what lies outside?” asked Blackbird.

The girl lowered her head. “It must be better than this.”

Her misery was palpable. Blackbird said nothing as he pondered the deal. Even if she could do it, they had many miles to fly to reach the wall, and the others of the Counting House and the Parlor would be after them. If they were caught, he’d be lucky to merely have his wings torn off. If unlucky, he would spend eternity inside the dish. He had seen the dish’s effects; it broke the spirits of the greatest fiends. Whether lowly imp or great lord, the dish was a nightmare realm for those who considered themselves masters of Hell.

Could he fly her beyond the wall? To the endless desert of wailing, lost souls and mortals too degenerate and twisted to belong within the city? They were outcasts who preyed on each other. And this was what the girl wanted? No, there was more. Someone out there she wanted to rejoin, perhaps? A lover? A parent?

“My child,” she whispered, sensing his question. “He is out there.”

“No. He cannot be. No child could survive beyond the wall.” Was it pity, a faint flicker of compassion in his shriveled soul that made him say it? “Forget this and go back to the Counting House.”

She shook her head. “You do not understand. Not knowing is worse than anything beyond the black gates. I don’t care what happens to me, but if he is out there, he needs me. If he is not, then I will know.” She raised her face and stared hard at him. “What difference does it make to you? Just take me beyond the walls.”

“What is a child doing beyond the wall?”

“It is the fate of all of the King’s bastards.”

Ah. The King had passions beyond his treasure and the Queen was no longer able to accommodate them. If allowed to stay, the Counting House would overflow with his illegitimate offspring. Too cowardly to kill them cleanly, he made them suffer an even worse fate: exile.

Blackbird held out his taloned hand. “Be in the garden at twelfth bell.”

The girl shook it.

***

Blackbird left the Six-Pence and wandered along the narrow, ramshackle streets. The streets emptied as the sky darkened from slate grey to charcoal, and the mortals took shelter before the bells chimed. The clouds rumbled. The rain fell hard, and large, swampy puddles swelled about him. The mud thickened and great, dirty torrents tumbled from the roofs, walls of water covering the crooked doorways and narrow alleys. He needed to return to his nest and prepare.