Mark Newton - The Book of Transformations

Those days are long gone, Vuldon, so let it be.

But he failed to abide by his own mantra. Every muscle that ached, every bone that didn’t sit quite right, he could assign the probable cause, or guess at things that may or may not have been the root of his pain: a broken-up knife fight or a clifftop scramble or slipping from a bridge whilst trying to save someone.

Thirty years ago, almost to the day.

Thirty years and now they were coming for him again, the Emperor’s men. Agents who worked behind the layers of the city, men that not even the Night Guard knew about. Vuldon knew them all right — he’d worked with their likes before, in whatever guise each city ruler decided to cast them.

Vuldon wasn’t stupid. He’d been waiting. He’d tracked their movements two hours before: their trademark loitering, the way they’d check street corners and grace rooftops. They were there if you knew where to look. They were heading for his home on the second level of Villjamur, a dreary third-floor hole above a closed-down tavern; about as far from his former glamour as he could possibly be.

They kicked open his door whilst he slouched on a chair in the dark, the bottle of Black Heart Rum on the floor beside him, a roll-up between two of his fingers, its embers glowing in the half-light.

In their long grey coats and wide-brimmed hats they stood around him, scarves across their mouths, mere shadows against the dusk spilling through his open doorway, five of them in all, tall and slender. They were lingering like wraiths, with their hands in pockets, cool and aloof. Same as always, they didn’t like to get too close to people like him who knew their way around a fight — didn’t want him to see who they were.

Fuckers.

‘What took you so long?’ Vuldon muttered. Arum smoke circled around his reclined form. ‘You lot are more cautious than ever. Least you’re not as clumsy as the city guard.’

‘Gotta be these days, Vuldon,’ one of them said, a harsh and wispy voice. ‘There’s a lot going on in Villjamur — most of it underground.’

‘Yeah? I don’t pay attention to any of that any more.’ A drag on the roll-up. ‘So what do you want?’

‘You, Vuldon. We’ve come for you.’

‘The hell do you want me for? You think you can use violence on me?’ He laughed, though the noise seemed more hollow than he would have liked.

‘No violence here, we know it won’t work — you’re too stubborn anyway.’ This voice was different — firm and polite, probably the leader. He spotted a tail wafting behind them — that meant a rumel, and that reeked of the Inquisition.

‘You got that right,’ he replied.

‘You’re a legend, Vuldon,’ the voice continued. ‘In fact you’re the Legend.’

‘Legends don’t live above a grotty tavern.’ Vuldon dismissed them with heavy hand gestures, palming them away, leave me alone. ‘I’m too old,’ he repeated in his dreary room, unable to see much but their silhouettes. ‘You only know me from the stories. Isn’t how it was. I’m getting on for sixty now.’

‘We have cultists who can sort that out,’ the rumel said.

‘We have new techniques,’ another chimed, one of the agents.

Vuldon couldn’t see their faces, not that it mattered. They gave him the creeps, the way they’d come in and invade people’s evenings like this. ‘Leave me to die in peace. I can’t do anyone any harm that way.’

‘Emperor Urtica has made a request for you to return.’

‘Urtica?’ Vuldon enquired. ‘What happened to the Jamur girls?’

‘Don’t you read the news? They’ve long gone, tried to kill all the refugees. Urtica took over, arranged to have them executed but they managed to escape. Urtica’s in charge of the Empire and Villjamur.’

Vuldon didn’t seem too bothered that the Jamur lineage had cleared out of the city. Jamur blood sent a rage burning in his heart.

Thirty years ago… ‘So what does Urtica want of me exactly?’ Vuldon demanded. ‘Have you taken a good look at this place?’ He struck a match and fumbled around to light a lantern.

Vuldon gestured at himself: he was standing there wearing a gown and loose, ragged breeches. Everything in his house was as crippled as he was: strips of curtains, stained carpets, dishes he hadn’t washed in ages, piles of paper in one corner. Grey hairs on his once-muscular chest seemed to stand out as a sign of his age, so he covered himself up, suddenly aware of what he had been — a long time ago.

‘You stink,’ one of the agents said. ‘This whole fucking place stinks.’

‘Not exactly made much of myself these days. Told you, this isn’t like the stories. You were probably kids when you were hearing those for the first time.’

‘You could be someone again, Vuldon,’ the rumel said, a brown-skin, with more than a hint of optimism in his voice. ‘If you come with us, we’ll see to it that you’re treated well.’

‘Why me?’ Whatever answer they gave wouldn’t satisfy him: it wasn’t how these people worked. These agents would tell you only what could influence you — truth and lies, well, they never came into the picture.

‘Because you were the first one and the best, Vuldon,’ the rumel declared. ‘You were the Legend. You know how it all works, you know how to play this game. You understand criminals better than anyone else — hell, we’ve all heard tales, even in the Inquisition.’

‘That’s the problem — plenty of tales, not enough fact.’

‘You’ve got your old job waiting for you, in a new guise. We’re offering a chance to reinvent the Legend — all you need to do is come with us.’

As they spoke he glanced to the floor, walking his mind back in time. ‘I don’t care for that name any more. I’ve not thought about him in decades — just leave me alone.’

‘You’re lying,’ the rumel said. ‘I can hear it in your voice. Think on — Legend. We’ll be back tomorrow evening.’

Vuldon eventually looked up but they’d gone and left the door open. The family next door were starting to surface, their kids screaming the place down. A cat trotted by in the corridor, looking in tentatively, nosing the air, then moved on, thinking better of it. Vuldon peered around his room at his meagre possessions: decrepit furniture, a few old books, a stack of blank parchment, empty bottles of alcohol and ink, unwashed plates.

Brushing his thick stubble, Vuldon chuckled. Not even an animal will venture in here.

He felt too jaded to close the door, but eventually he forced himself to do so.

With a groan he took the lantern and shuffled slowly to his bedroom, but pausing by a cupboard. A minute passed, maybe two, as he contemplated what was beyond.

When he finally nudged it open a bar of light fell across some of his old clothes — the ones from way back. Dust motes filled the air. His fingers walked across some of those items, across some of his memories. There it was, his old uniform, the one he wore when he was someone else, but he didn’t want to get it out just yet.

No, he wasn’t ready for any of that, and shut the door, and headed to his bedroom.

As he lay in bed that night, his own history came back to provoke his dreams.

Lan awoke in a cell, her body thronging in agony. The brick walls around her drifted in and out of focus. More than once she was forced to lie sideways on the mattress to relieve the pain, her hands bound behind her, rope around her torso, only to stare at the ceiling, her head aching as if she was on the bad end of a riotously good night’s drinking.

Everything since her return from Ysla had merged into a sequence of disconnected images. Had the cultists done something to her head and messed with her memories?