Black Halo

So dense they were, she might never have found him amongst the flocks if not for the sound of his fingers diligently folding another. He straightened up from his squat on her balcony, casting a glower over his bare, brown back.

‘That wasn’t precisely easy to fold, you know,’ he said.

She started, suddenly realising she still held the wrinkled paper crane in her hand. Doing her best to carefully readjust the tiny creature, she couldn’t help but notice the unnatural smoothness to the parchment. Paper was supposed to have wrinkles, she knew, tiny little edges of roughness. That paper had character, eager to receive the poet’s brush.

This paper … seemed to resent her touching it.

‘None of these could have been easy to fold,’ Anacha said, placing the crane down carefully and pulling her hand away with a fearful swiftness that she suspected must have looked quite silly. ‘How long have you been up?’

‘Hours,’ Bralston replied.

She peered over his pate to the black sky beyond, just now beginning to turn blue.

‘It’s not yet dawn,’ she said. ‘You always get fussy if you don’t sleep enough.’

‘Anacha,’ he sighed, his shoulders sinking. ‘I am a hunter of heretic wizards. I enforce the law of Venarie through fire and frost, lightning and force. I do not get fussy.’

He smiled, paying little attention to the fact that she did not return the expression. She was incapable of smiling now, at least not in the way she had the first night she had met him.

‘This is a lovely poem,’ he had said, as she lay on the bed before him. ‘Do you like poetry?’

She had answered with a stiff nod, an obedient nod scrubbed and scolded into her. He had smiled.

‘What’s your favourite?’

When she had no reply, he had laughed. She had felt the urge to smile, if only for the fact that it was as well-known that wizards didn’t laugh as it was that they drank pulverised excrement and ate people’s brains for the gooey knowledge contained within.

‘Then I will bring you poetry. I am coming back in one week.’ Upon seeing her confused stare, he rolled his shoulders. ‘My duty demands that I visit Muraska for a time. Do you know where it is?’ She shook her head; he smiled. ‘It’s a great, grey city to the north. I’ll bring you a book from it. Would you like that?’

She nodded. He smiled and rose, draping his coat about him. She watched him go, the sigil upon his back shrinking as he slipped out the door. Only when it was small as her thumb did she speak and ask if she would see him again. He was gone then, however, the door closing behind him.

And the urge to smile grew as faint then as it was now.

‘This is … for work, then?’ she asked, the hesitation in her voice only indicative that she knew the answer.

‘This is for my duty, yes,’ he corrected as he set aside another paper crane and plucked up another bone-white sheet. ‘Librarian helpers, I call them. My helpful little flocks.’

She plucked up the crane beside her delicately in her hand, stared into its irritated little eyes. The dye was thick, didn’t settle on the page as proper ink should. It was only when the scent of copper filled her mouth that she realised that this paper wasn’t meant for ink.

‘You … This is,’ she gasped, ‘your blood?’

‘Some of it, yes.’ He held up a tiny little vial with an impressive label, shook it, then set in a decidedly large pile. ‘I ran out after the four hundredth one. Fortunately, I’ve been granted special privileges for this particular duty, up to and including the requisition of a few spare pints.’

Anacha had long ago learned that wizards did laugh and that they rarely did anything relatively offensive to brains from those not possessing their particular talents. Their attitude towards other bodily parts and fluids, however, was not something she ever intended to hear about without cringing.

She had little time to reflect on such ghastly practices this morning.

‘Why do you need so many?’

At this, he paused, as he had when she had discovered wizards could lie.

‘What is your duty?’ she had asked, their sixth night together after five nights of reading.

‘I’m a Librarian.’ He had turned at her giggle and raised a brow. ‘What?’

‘I thought you were a wizard.’

‘I am.’

‘A member of the Venarium.’

‘I am.’

‘Librarians stock shelves and adjust spectacles.’

‘Have you learned nothing of the books I’ve brought you? Words can have multiple meanings.’

‘Books only make me wonder more … like how a Librarian can go to Muraska and afford whores?’

‘Well, no one can afford whores in Muraska.’

‘Why did you go to Muraska, then?’

‘Duty called.’

‘What kind of duty?’

‘Difficult duties. Ones that demand the talents of a man like myself.’

‘Talents?’

‘Talents.’

‘Fire and lightning talents? Turning people to frogs and burning down houses talents?’

‘We don’t turn people into frogs, no. The other talents, though … I use them sometimes. In this particular case, some apprentice out in the city went heretic. He started selling his secrets, his services. He violated the laws.’

‘What did you do to him?’

‘My duty.’

‘Did you kill him?’

He had paused then, too.

‘No,’ he had lied then, ‘I didn’t.’

‘No reason,’ he lied now.

‘I’m not an idiot, Bralston,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘You read books.’

‘Don’t insult me.’ She held up a hand, winced. ‘Please … you never insult me like clients insult the other girls.’ She sighed, her head sinking low. ‘You’re bleeding yourself dry, creating thousands of these little birds …’ She crawled across the bed, staring at his back intently. ‘Why?’

‘Because of my—’

‘Duty, yes, I know. But what is it?’

He regarded her coldly. ‘You know enough about it to know that I don’t want you to ever have to think about it.’

‘And you know enough about me that I would never ask if I didn’t have good reason.’ She rose up, snatching her robe as it lay across her chair and wrapping it about her body, her eyes never leaving him. ‘You want to be certain of carrying out your duty this time, I can tell … but why? What’s special about this one?’

Bralston rose and turned to her, opening his mouth to say something, to give some rehearsed line about all duties being equal, about there being nothing wrong with being cautious. But he paused. Wizards were terrible liars, and Bralston especially so. He wore his reasons on his face, the frown-weary wrinkles, the wide eyes that resembled a child straining to come to terms with a puppy’s death.

And she wore her concern on her face, just as visible in the purse of her lips and narrow of her eyes. He sighed, looked down at his cranes.

‘A woman is involved.’

‘A woman?’

‘Not like that,’ he said. ‘A woman came to the Venarium … told us a story about a heretic.’

‘You get plenty of stories about heretics.’

‘Not from women … not from women like this.’ He winced. ‘This heretic … he … did something to her.’

She took a step forward, weaving her way through the cranes.

‘What did he do?’

‘He …’ Bralston ran a hand over his head, tilted his neck back and sighed again. ‘It’s a gift that we have, you know? Wizards, that is. Fire, lightning … that’s only part of it. That’s energy that comes from our own bodies. A wizard that knows … a wizard that practises, can affect other people’s bodies, twist their muscles, manipulate them, make them do things. If we wanted to, we wizards, we could …

‘This heretic … this … this …’ For all the books he had read, Bralston apparently had no word to describe what the rage playing across his face demanded. ‘He broke the law. He used his power in a foul way.’

‘That’s why they’re sending you out?’ she whispered, breathless.

‘That’s why I’m choosing to go,’ he replied, his voice rising slightly. She took a step back, regardless, as crimson flashed behind his eyes.

She could only remember once when he had raised his voice.

‘What happened?’ he had asked as he came through the door.

It had been a month since he had begun paying for her, not yet to the point when he began to pay for exclusive visitations. She had lain on the bed, the poetry smeared across her breasts with greasy handprints, her belly contorted with the lash marks upon it, her face buried in her pillow, hiding the redness in her cheeks.

‘What,’ he had raised his voice then, ‘happened?’

‘Some …’ she had gasped, ‘some clients prefer to be rough … I’m told. This one … he brought in a cat.’

‘A whip? That’s against the rules.’

‘He paid extra. Someone working for the Jackals with a lot of money. He … he wanted it …’ She pointed to the hall. ‘He’s going down the halls … to all the girls. He had a lot of …’

Bralston rose at that point, turned to walk out the door again. She had grabbed his coattails in her hand and pulled with all that desperation demanded. No one troubled the Jackals. It wasn’t as hard a rule then as it was now, the Jackals being a mere gang instead of a syndicate back then, which was the sole reason Bralston never had to raise his voice again. No one troubled them; not the nobles, not the guards, not even the Venarium.

Bralston pulled away sharply, left the room. His boots clicked the length of the hall. She heard the scream that ensued, smelled the embers on his coat when he returned and sat down beside her.

‘What did you do?’ she had asked.

He had paused and said. ‘Nothing.’

She had barely noticed him pulling on his breeches now. He did not dress so much as gird himself, slinging a heavy belt with several large pouches hanging from it and attaching his massive spellbook with a large chain. He pulled his tunic over the large amulet, a tiny red vial set within a bronze frame, hanging from his neck. It wasn’t until he reached for his final garment that she realised he wouldn’t be stopped.

‘Your hat,’ she whispered, eyeing the broad-rimmed leather garment, a steel circlet adorning its interior ring. ‘You never wear it.’

‘I was requested to.’ He ran a finger along the leather band about it, the sigils upon it briefly glowing. He traced his thumb across the steel circle inside it. ‘This is … a special case.’

She watched him drape the great coat across his back, cinch it tight against his body. She watched the sigil scrawled upon it shrink as he walked to the balcony. She never thought she would get used to the sight of it.

*

‘You’ve … come back.’ She had gasped not so many years ago, astonished to find him standing on her balcony, clad in his coat and hat. ‘You said it was a special case.’

‘It was. I came back, anyway.’ He smiled, shrugged off his coat. ‘I’ve already paid.’

‘Paid? Why?’ She pulled away from him, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘I thought … you were going to take me away when you came back. You said …’

‘I know … I know.’ The pain on his face had been visible then, not hidden behind years of wrinkles. ‘But … the case got me noticed. I’m being made …’ He had sighed, rubbed his eyes, shook his head. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I won’t lie again.’

‘But … you … you said …’

‘And I never will again. It was stupid of me to say it in the first place.’

‘It wasn’t! You were going to—’

‘It was. I can’t. I’m a Librarian. I have duties.’

‘But why?’ she asked then. ‘Why do you have to be a Librarian?’

‘Why?’ she asked now, shaking her head. ‘Why do you have to be the one to avenge her?’ She held up a hand. ‘Don’t say duty … don’t you dare say it.’

‘Because I have a gift,’ he said without hesitation. ‘And so rarely do I get the chance for that gift to be used in a way that I consider more worthwhile than duty.’

‘Will I see you again?’

He paused as he opened his coat and held open his pocket.

‘Maybe,’ he answered.

His next word was something she couldn’t understand, something no one else but a wizard could understand. She certainly understood what it was, however, for no sooner did he speak it than the sound of paper rustling filled the room.

Silent save for the rattle of their wings, the cranes came to life. Their eyes glowed in a thousand little pinpricks of ruby; their wings shuddered in a thousand little whispers. They fell from bookshelf and basin, rose from tile and chair, hung a moment in the air.

Then flew.

She shrieked, shielding herself from the thousand paper wings as the room was filled with bone-white cranes and the sound of tiny wings flapping. In a great torrent, they flew into Bralston’s coat pocket, folding themselves neatly therein.

She kept her eyes closed, opening them only when she heard the larger wings flapping. Opening her eyes and seeing nothing standing at her balcony, she rushed to the edge and watched him sail over the rooftops of Cier’Djaal on the leather wings his coat had once been. And with each breath, he shrank until he wasn’t even bigger than her thumb.

And then, Bralston was gone.

Four

THE PRISTINE MADNESS

‘Pretty,’ he whispered.