Bruce Cordell: Spinner of Lies

THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL

16 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

One rainy evening, while Demascus was playing a game of tiles on his rooftop balcony, the memory of killing his lover returned. He was studying a game board that spelled out improbable actions, fiery emotions, and especially dubious curse words. The latter were courtesy of his absent opponent. He nodded thoughtfully, then laid down several square playing pieces, each carved with a single letter, to spell the word conspire across a space marked with crossed wands. That multiplied the value of his play by two … and he realized he’d just catapulted into the lead! When Riltana sees this, he thought, she’s going to curse me out as a rat-hearted cheater. He grinned.

Riltana had a flare for laying down high-scoring words, probably thanks to the windsoul’s colorful vocabulary. He’d discovered her talent a few months ago when she’d decisively beat him at a game that she said he “might find interesting.” Since then, they’d set up each game on the roof. It was convenient for Riltana; she could drop in and make her play whether he was home or not.

Demascus was fascinated by tiles, despite the fact that Riltana trounced him five times out of six. It wasn’t only that he enjoyed a challenge and anticipated the day his skill would rival his friend’s. No, the real reason he couldn’t get enough was because sometimes the words on the board unlocked splinters of memory.

For instance, CONSPIRE. That was a word to conjure with. The two syllables suggested a wanton trespass, a meeting high above an unsuspecting-

A gust of wind sprayed cold rain in his face. His chain of thought collapsed. “Shadow take it,” he muttered. He rubbed water out of his eyes. And just like that, the world went gray, as a recollection flung him somewhere else.

A woman stood in a hallway, her features soft in trembling candlelight. Her shoulders were bare and her eyes smoldered like distant storm clouds. Her name was Madri, and Demascus loved her.

He stood a few paces from her, and he wore only loose trousers, baring his elaborate ash-gray designs. The marks ran down his arms and across his back like the ghosts of tattoos. His bone-white hair was wet and his pale skin tingled from the bath.

“Coming to bed?” she asked, winding a curl of hair around one finger in languid circles.

His blood surged higher. It pounded in his temples like a drum. I can’t go through with this, he thought. I can’t …

“What’s wrong? You’ve been quiet all night. It’s not like you, Demascus.” Madri’s impish expression wavered.

“I took a new commission,” he said, his voice dull as a worn blade. “One I wish for all my lives I hadn’t accepted. If only I’d known who …”

“You accept commissions without knowing the target?”

“Sometimes.” Because whomever the gods choose always deserved death. And when had he ever refused? Never. Even …

Oh, Madri! What secrets do you keep? How awful they must be.

“You’re not frightened, surely,” she said, misreading his reticence. “If I’m to believe a quarter of your stories, even demigods fear your name, if they’re unlucky enough to learn it.” She laughed and came to him. Her scent, a sort of orange-peach fragrance with undertones of cedar, was solace. He breathed it in for the last time. Then he took her supple shoulders in his hands.

“It’s not that I’m afraid, Madri. I’m paralyzed by … grief. And I regret that it’s come to this.” Her arms went around his waist to draw him close. He slid his hands up from her shoulders, tracing the line of her neck until he cupped her head. “I’m sorry,” he said. Even as she gazed at him with incomprehension, he gave a savage twist.

Pelting rain brought Demascus back to the rooftop patio. Water streamed down his hair, under his collar, and saturated his smallclothes. He was standing beyond the protection of the awning with no memory of having moved. And his throat was sore, as if he’d been screaming. The city lights were nebulous beneath the sleeting downpour, and the wind tugged at him with icy fingers. A few more steps and he’d pitch over the roof’s edge. From somewhere below, a wailing child cried for its mother.

“Burning dominions,” he whispered. What in the name of all the gods of shadow had he just witnessed? That woman-Madri-he’d seen her before. Images only, flashes of memory with no context. In each of these, she’d glared at him with naked animosity. Now he knew why.

One of his former incarnations had been snakehearted enough to kill his own lover. By all that’s holy and sovereign, he thought, I’m a monster. I …

No, no- I’m not-that wasn’t me! That was an earlier incarnation of me, not me . I’d never do that. He shook his head in accompaniment with his denial. The atrocity of the recollection was not his to claim. He’d never even imagine it!

Except … except he must have. He’d done more than consider committing such an atrocity. And if the reasons were irrefutable, who’s to say he’d been wrong? Especially if a lord of creation commanded him. Disposing of those selected by the gods had been his purpose. He was an instrument of fate, as he’d discovered when he pulled his blade from the mausoleum of his last life. What he had become, however, with his reduced abilities and incomplete memory, was disputable. If any of his former selves felt gnawing remorse over the vision of Madri, he doubted they could have long claimed the title Sword of the Gods.

The cold rain still streamed down. Rain dripped under his boot cuffs and pooled around his toes. Whatever else, he thought, I’m not the person who did that! That person … shared my name, that’s all. If I believe otherwise, I’m only a stumble away from the sanatorium. It’s time to stop rooting for memories. It can’t be worth this.

Except that was a lie. Necessity required he continue striving to remember his previous lives. Learning all he’d once been, and everything he’d once done, was the only way to protect himself from a potential cavalcade of enemies he didn’t even remember making. Enemies his previous selves had made, he corrected himself. That distinction mattered, if only to him. Unfortunately, the events of a few months ago had revealed that his enemies would continue to pursue him, life after life, incarnation after incarnation.

They weren’t after his life; they were after his soul.

He stared up into the rain, as bleakness settled over him. Even if he jumped and smashed himself along the cliffside city below, it would be no escape. I’ll just reform into a new mortal shell somewhere in a few years and lose all the progress I’ve gained this time around. Which was maybe what his worst enemy-his nemesis-intended. The Madri recollection might be the very thing Kalkan had manipulated him into recalling, thanks to the rakshasa’s unholy knowledge of the future. The rakshasa, though dead, had proved to be the ultimate puppeteer. Perhaps Kalkan foresaw he’d kill himself in a fit of despair and so seal the fate of Demascus’s next incarnation. Kalkan wanted to turn Demascus into an unforgiving fiend exactly like himself. Why? But Kalkan would be out of the picture for a few more years, until the rakshasa returned to renew his blasted purpose …

Demascus glanced once more into the night, then stepped back from the edge. He gasped, after releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His hands trembled as he recalled the touch of the woman’s shoulders and the trust in her tumultuous eyes. Madri … Who were you? Is this awful vision all I will ever know about you? Probably. You’re long dead, and have been for who knows how many years …