Chapter One

  Once, when Mer was eleven years old, he had found himself inside an old tunnel. It was dark, and the rays reflecting on the ashen bricks pointed to a door of brown mahogany. There was light behind that door, frantic and fearful, as if something was keeping it locked up under threats of violence. It didn’t leave even when Mer had wrenched the door open. Instead, he had found a man lounging on an easy chair, reading a book. He couldn’t remember the man’s eyes, only that they reminded him of the tunnel. No, they were even darker — and his smile, it was a road without an end.

  “Come sit with me,” the man had said. “This time of the year, human beings are pretty terrible.”

  “Oh yeah, people are trash,” Mer had returned, gladly biting into the sandwich he was offered.

  “I am not people, though,” the man had said. “I am Achin.”

  “Glurg-urgh-burgh.”

  “Yes, yes. The sandwich is good, Merovar. Almost everything is good in life when you’re alright.”

  Was he alright? Well, he supposed he could eat, breathe, and still walk down a tunnel barefoot. Wasn’t that what the word existed to describe?

  “What do you think, Merovar? People are so mean and nasty to each other. What if they end up being bad to the very people they should protect, even in the name of self-preservation? What if that person were you? What if every ‘mistake’ made in the world were made against you? Do you feel the black bile running in your blood? The swallowed-up tears that became sulphur instead? It won’t cool even if heads rolled and bones broke, you know? Once made, it never goes away.”

  “I... I think I just want to sleep.”

  “Ah.” Achin’s face had softened.

  “But what if you never can?” he had murmured, even as he moved and made space for him to lie down.

  “Then... then I’ll just stay here.”

  And he had felt it then, somewhere between the black holes in Achin’s eyes and the cozy night that came rushing for him. There was something much more fearsome in the room, and it came from Mer. It borrowed his voice and pronounced “People are trash” with the clarity of a saint turned judge. Everywhere it looked, people in question quailed, and even Achin looked pale. But it was inevitable as a law of magic turned loose, and Mer was only eleven back then.

  He could still easily fall asleep.

  1.

  At present, the moonlight lulled, their boat lurched, and his neighbour on the planks snored like a gagged squeavil. There were eleven people sharing space on the narrow vessel, not counting the good boatman who refused to waste a single glance at his useless load.

  “What do you think people make of life?” Mer asked his neighbour.

  “Maybe some of them do things because their fathers did it, too? Maybe it was a choice they made when they were younger? Either way, wouldn’t it be far better to throw caution to the wind and start again, if your only choice was to be always grumpy, even to the wind?” he asked, when no answer came.

  “Yeah, so easy to say when you’re what — nineteen?” someone said from the shadows, no doubt squinting to get a good look at him. “Have you even failed at shaving your beard yet?”

  Mer laughed.

  The merhumans were known to be an easygoing lot. They loved the sea, they loved to fish, and that was about it. They valourized life and adventure, and unlike the other races, community was an afterthought. Many of their stories featured human or birdling heroes, and it was considered prestigious to marry out-race. It was a strength and a weakness, because in the city Mer had grown up, the kids loved to go “Merhuman, merhuman, smelly fish almost man!” The merhumans themselves wouldn’t know, because they loved to live near the sea, and would rarely venture that far inland, but everyone else would, and keep to themselves the moment they saw those scales peeking out under their collars or the webs in their hands that made them outstanding craftspeople.

  The village they were being ferried to lay a bit off the riverbank, but close enough that one could still see the Unity Day fireworks over Suva on the other side. It was just another humble coastline hamlet of the merpeople, unlike the bustling port behemoth of Suva, home to a majority of human traders, architects, and soldiers, and magnet to many a young merhuman seeking to escape the shackles of the old life only to end up as a sailor belowdecks on some ship lugging fish and grain somewhere in the name of unity and progress. The village was also probably without a name, known as just “the village” to its inhabitants, a faint lantern almost lost in the shadows dragging on to whisper its existence to the boat.

  “Lo and behold,” the old boatman grumbled. “Old load hasn’t even moved yet, and they have a new one ready.”

  “Careful, Gollum,” a passenger cautioned.

  “It’s collection day,” another observed, whatever that meant.

  Five people waited on the shore, soldiers by their bearing and the hardening of their faces — deployments to the four corners of the Empire had a way of doing that. Their leader had a hand out, though, quite unlike a soldier, and pushed it forward even as the boat touched the mushy ground.

  “Good day, Gollum?” he called out jovially.

  “For you, sure. Face like my crinkly ass and job like a squeavil gathering nuts — sure it’s a good day for you, Lilek. Or should I say paint-boy?”

  “Oh, come on. You’re just pissed that nobody called you to race their boat in Suva this year. Age catches us all, huh? Now pay up,” the soldier said, even as his face hardened farther.

  “You know what?” Gollum pushed his chin up, “I thought about it, and upon thinking further... no.”

  Lilek sighed. “We both know how this will end. Why must you be so difficult? Despite how things look here, nobody wants to put an old man through a hard time.”

  “Have you ever truly smelled the sea, Lilek? Forget that, have you ever even looked properly at it since you came here? What kind of merhuman are you?”

  “I am not one. You guys write the poetry. We gotta make sure things run properly. It’s all about Suva. That city gives you folk jobs, makes sure the lights stay lit in your homes. You know the quotas are high this year. Even Unug is under pressure.”

  “You know what? Maybe they don’t need to be lit,” Gollum looked back at Mer. “This guy said something. Something important — it made me... realize I am tired. I don’t care anymore.”

  “Um, what about me?” Mer tried to interject. “I still have to pay you for the ferry.” He looked back, and it looked like everyone else on the boat had scampered off as soon as they had reached land, save the one guy still snoring away into the water.

  “Think about it, old man,” said Lilek. “You should go home and get some rest. With your grandsons.”

  “Yeah, they’ll do just fine. What about your Unug? That rat wouldn’t do so well without you sensible lot around. Maybe the lights shouldn’t really stay lit. What would the rat do when he only smells fish and sees nothing?”

  “Alright, that’s enough —” Lilek waved, and two of his people grabbed an arm each, dangling Gollum between them.

  “Wait, what about me? I still need to pay!” Mer called after them, then followed when nobody noticed.

  2.

  They were brought to a two-story structure on the north end of the village, probably one of the biggest in it. The hay in its roof smelled nice, as if it had bathed twice and then applied perfume for a court performance. The light inside it wasn’t afraid — merely disinterested, and perhaps a touch disgusted. A small man sat before a desk on a floor mat. Mer counted twelve soldiers on their way in, although there were doubtless many more positioned elsewhere, patrolling the village, or doing whatever they did on their off shift.

  “What?” the man said to no one in particular, eyes still on the papers before him.

  “What?” he said to Lilek when nobody answered.

  “He, uh, he refuses to pay, sir.”

  “What, does he want a receipt now?” a corner of the man named Unug’s mouth went up.

  “Would you even be able to read a receipt, old man?” he asked Gollum, who said nothing. “Is he... has he ever created an issue before, Lilek?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Alright. One night in the vault. We’ll revisit in the morning.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  And so, Mer and the old man were thrown in a dark room that smelled of piss, vomit, and buzzed with flies for the night. It was not as if Mer would have slept anyway, but if he could even see tiny moon bits through the woven bamboo wall, it would have given him something to do. Instead, all that could be seen was Gollum’s sullen silhouette on one side, and what was likely streaks of someone’s lightfruit spit on the other. So he did the only thing he could do, calling on the darkness in him.

  He let it slip through the tiny holes on the wall, then blanket over the entire village, feeling the warmth of every intake of air in cozy homes and the glee of every bird spotting prey beneath the trees. There were three soldiers and one woman in one room. An old merhuman woman was putting out the gentle hanging lights in another home. A family laughed and laughed and forgot to cook until it was very late. A young merhuman girl was reading a book while her sweaty father slept on the cot. A pretty picture. If only people stayed pretty — human, merhuman, or something else — they all had a problem with that.

  Gollum understood that too, didn’t he? Mer felt a strange sense of kinship with the old merhuman. “And what about you?” he asked softly, not expecting to be answered. But he forgot that it was the darkness speaking.

  Gollum turned to him slowly. “She just wanted to be,” he said. “Just wanted to be there. She wanted to sit and do nothing, just watch the sun rise and set, and I wanted to give it to her. I wanted to take her to the deepest part of the ocean, where the breeze was just the breeze, and let her be.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I happened,” Gollum said. “My ship got looted. Just off Suva. Why wasn’t I on it, my own ship? Where did she go? Maybe she disappeared into the water. Maybe she wanted to be there.”

  Mer said nothing then, and his darkness wanted to hold this frail old man the most in the entire village for that night. He wondered if Gollum could tell.

  Then, when the sunlight was strong enough to fall on their faces through the stubborn apertures, Gollum looked at Mer’s face and got shocked. “Sir! What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have been caught!”

  “Listen, there’s been a misunderstanding! This man needs to go!” he insisted before the guards again and again when they were brought out, but Lilek wasn’t there, and he only found deaf ears.

  Unug was sitting at the same spot. Well fed, rested, and better clothed. No papers this time.

  “Gollum Festerkind,” he intoned as they entered. “Once married. Lost wife in sea-raid twenty-seven years ago. Drinks mulch, loves racing, ferries people.”

  Gollum pointed his chin up.

  “Two grandsons. Pretends to dislike them. Secretly saving money for them to go to Suva. Hate to tell you, it’s not even nearly enough.”

  “How do you know?” Gollum whispered.

  “Calls his old boat Sherry. Thing should have been scrapped long ago. Public hazard. Sherry was also the name of your wife, no?”

  “Well, you don’t have to care about that anymore, do you? I saved this for you,” Unug picked something out of his pocket and set it on his desk. A piece of old wood. Slime on one side.

  “Let him go,” Unug said to his soldiers, and Gollum sunk to his knees. “We can’t collect taxes from a jobless vagrant, can we? Besides, he has grandchildren to look after.”

  “Oh, and Sherry, right? I was a young clerk back then, and this nobleman who needed a lot of papers passed liked me a lot. He took me to the red houses one day — in Suva, as you know. Maybe he wanted a weakness on me? But I got one on him. And I saw the woman opening the door to him. Such a pretty young thing. But I must tell you, the state she was in, she couldn’t have survived more than six months in there. Such a shame, no? Such a cute little shape to her nose too, one side a bit bent.”

  “Dismissed,” Unug said. Gollum was on all fours, and Mer thought he could still see the man breathe. Mer definitely needed to breathe. Get a handle on the bubbling laughter inside him. “See? I told you,” it wanted to say to him. “It always, always comes to this.”

  “Dismissed,” Unug said again. “And as for you, young man — you owe this ex-sailor money from what I hear. And he owes me money. Just submit whatever you have on hand — you also found yourself in quite the unfortunate circumstances last night — let us run a quick identity check on you, and then you can go.”

  “Why, though?” Mer couldn’t resist asking. “You’re running a successful operation, from the looks of it. Why do so much on account of a cranky old man?”

  “This entire village is made of cranky old people and suckling babes, young man. Because all their younglings have left for Suva, trying to be what they’re not, instead of staying and developing their villages. You let one of them go, you let all of them go.”

  “But why? It’s not your money. You are just the messenger. And the land... that’s theirs as well.”

  “You speak dangerous words, whoever you are,” Unug said with a heavy chin. “I will say this just once. Unity. The Empire runs on it. These people — they’re not capable of building a roof over their houses. They will just drink and dance and breed like rabbits. They need us. And the Empire needs their labour. To keep all of us safe. Including them.”

  Mer couldn’t hold it back then. The laughter came whooshing. “Safety,” he tried to say, and promptly lost control again. “Hahaha, safety,” he said at last. “You seem quite concerned about economics though, Unug...”

  Unug started becoming a bit rigid, then. Perhaps recalling all the mountains of paperwork he had waiting in service of the Empire. He had already wasted too much time on one old man — a good or bad example to the rest of the village, depending on perspective. “Young man,” he said evenly. “I have work to do. I am a friend to friends of the Empire. I am a demon to those who try and rot it from the inside.”

  “You are the rot though?” Mer couldn’t hold back the childish retort.

  “Identify yourself, pay up your dues, then get lost. There are plenty of two-bit youngsters fashioning themselves reformists these days.”

  “Alright, alright. I am sorry for my behaviour,” Mer said. “My identity? Let’s see... I am Sikandes Unug. Forty-three. Originally from the capital, Onsoona, sent to the south on punishment posting. Why? I have a tendency to collect a bit zealously, out of concern for the Empire’s macroeconomics. But I tend to keep three for every ten I pass along, out of concern for efficiency, of course, because it would push the people to earn even more and pay even more taxes. But three in ten... that’s a bit too much for my paygrade, or at least that’s what the ones farther along on the gravy train thought, and all my tact couldn’t save me. Now I find myself in this mosquito ridden fishing village which doesn’t even have a bank! Even the local mosquitoes leave the merhumans alone, coming only at us humans! Such cruel fate!”

  “Who are you? Who sent you?” Unug sounded angry and insulted, but there was a bit too much air in his voice now, if one listened closely.

  “But I told you,” Mer said. “I am Unug Sikandes. Forty-three. I used to love butterflies a lot when I was a boy, and I even read up a lot on them. I saw a man having sex with a cadaver once and felt nothing — not just then, but ever, in my life. Which is to say, I’m impotent. In more than one way. I have no friends, no family, no reason to make poor people suffer and pile up mountains of gold — but I do it anyway. Why? I don’t know. Does anybody?”

  Unug opened and closed his mouth.

  “Yeah, I know,” Mer said. “You have nothing to say.”

  “Capture him! Throw him in the vault! And give him a good thrashing!” Unug gasped.

  Mer didn’t resist when their escort started to bind him up with thick rope. His hands and legs, but not his mouth, so he kept talking to himself: “Why did you turn out this way? You had a good childhood. You had love, kindness, and prosperity. What pleasure did you get in bringing us here? Because it was always going to end like this. You should have known. Even a child would have known.”

  One of the soldiers brought his meaty arm down on his stomach, and another kicked right on his spine as he doubled over. Mer wanted to speak more, but the blows kept falling. So he kept laughing, and asked Gollum the one question he had thought he would never ask anyone. “What would you like? The last thing you got to see?”

  “Blood,” the trembling old man answered without hesitation. Mer closed his eyes and inclined his head in assent.

  And then the world came to a stop. Because Mer’s darkness descended on it.

  The blows stopped. Then the limbs twisted, the mouths of the soldiers frothed, their eyes darkened, and they keeled over like dead showpieces.

  Unug had his hand inside his drawer again, and this time a magical pistol came out. The man clearly had thought some things through, and this was a heavy-duty model that could fire dozens of times in quick succession, a manifestation of his ill-gotten gains funding his paranoia.

  He didn’t hesitate to fire. One, two, three, and then Mer stopped counting as points of attributeless magic raced at him. For any ordinary person, they would sever the nerves and bruise the internal organs. For Mer though, they got lost in his darkness somewhere, which was only too eager to embrace and taint this new source. He took one step forward, and Unug took one back. He fired at his head next, then his joints, lungs, and finally his feet.

  Unug reached the door a moment after his shots ran out and only puffy smoke came out of the barrel. He grabbed on the door handle and heaved on it like a monkey at the bars of a cage. To his horror, though, the darkness sifted into the gaps around the door and sealed it like icky concrete. Shadows came out to glue his feet to the ground and his hand to the door handle.

  “Please,” he whispered, even as his cheeks reddened and a tear ran down his nose.

  Mer had picked up the piece of wood on his way by the desk, and he now carefully placed it between Unug’s teeth. “Why?” he asked the man softly.

  Unug, eyes wide and teeth chattering, held no answer for him. Blood came out of his nose, eyes, and ears. He shivered and shivered as the blood first pooled and then reached Gollum’s feet. The old man looked up in a long time and looked befuddled. And just like that, Mer’s darkness vanished like a spirit down a bottle.

  No. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. He only meant to pay his ferry fees. And now, he had drawn blood from a village official. An official of the Empire. This was going to go far.

  “Old man!” he whispered harshly at Gollum. “You should leave here. You should all leave.”

  “I don’t care,” Gollum said. “This is my land. I am tired. Let what happens happen.”

  “You can’t be like that! You know how this ends! Every child would know how it ends!”

  “I am just an old boatman, sir. My boat has met an end too, now. Who are you, by the way? I am sorry, I don’t keep up with news, so I wouldn’t know you even though you are a famous mage.”

  A mage. Wouldn’t that have been much simpler? He would have known where to go, what to do, what to say.

  “At present, let’s get out of this mess first,” Mer said instead.

  “He looks far better dead. Oh, and what about my fees?” Gollum asked as he picked up the body’s feet and Mer held the shoulders. Not a body, to be fair, because Unug still breathed and faintly trembled sometimes. But it wouldn’t be long now.

  “As if I am going to pay you now,” Mer mumbled as they passed their first set of astonished guards near the courtyard, perhaps not taking action because they thought it was some kind of medical situation. They went straight to the middle of the courtyard, where there was a targeting mannequin. They set up the fast-fading Unug along its height, so that time could do its job. There were questions hurled at them, hands that itched for the sword, and spit that wanted to land on the ground. There was a protocol for everything, though, and the miscreants were not going anywhere.

  The village garrison had clearly never faced anything like this, and it took a full twenty minutes for all the soldiers to gather in the courtyard. A hundred and thirteen for a village that housed only six hundred and seventy-two souls, excluding the four fetuses currently dreaming of future exploits, as Mer knew from his explorations last night. “Don’t become like me,” Mer noted mentally to the four, “I wonder what Achin would think of this.”

  Even if this was an unthreatened remote garrison in the underdeveloped south, almost half the soldiers still wore semi-clean uniforms, with the other half simply being lax in discipline or considered not good enough for the early lots of regalia. Interestingly, their leader wore the unpretentious garbs of a civilian and looked remarkably calm given the bizarre situation.

  Gollum kept looking at the corpse in amazement, then looking away. It was not a story he was reading in Achin’s library. It was not a dream, either. Mer had drawn blood, and now he was facing a hundred soldiers. At least it was good blood. He looked at Gollum, and mumbled, “Well yeah, you are trash. I am trash. But at least you’re not the bottom of the pile, like our friend from Onsoona here.”

  “What was that?” Gollum part-yelled at him.

  “I said that you are trash, old man!” Mer yelled back, with half a grin and half a frown, because the sun was rough, and it was going to be a long, long day.