Iron Quill (Time and Lies) - Almost Over

[admiralvorkraft]

Iron Quill - Time and Lies

Ingredients; The Lovers, the Guild Quarter, a Broken Clock

Words 1748

 

Almost Over

 

She sits at the edge of the water watching small lizards dance. They send ripples across the pond. She think’s that they’re beautiful, shimmering iridescent in the emerald night.

 

 

Here, alone in all of Malifaux, she feels safe. The lizards, imported from Earthside are harmless, no wide grinning mouths with rows of teeth, no subtle whispers pressing on her mind. Father would throw a fit, she thinks, but she feels more at home among the reeds than she ever has in his high towers, behind his walls of alien stone.

 

She doesn’t jump at the rustling behind her.

 

“Anne...” The man’s voice is husky, but he pitches it high as though he’s calming a nervous animal.

 

“You’re late,” she says, trailing a hand through the murky water. In the depths eldritch minnows flash and flee like frightened stars. The lizards won’t eat them, or anything else, and replacements must be imported monthly at great personal expense.

 

“I’m sorry, Shields…”

“Your sergeant held you late for some reason, of course he did.” Anne still doesn’t look at him, “It has nothing to do with the flask in your coat, or the broken watch that you won’t let me have fixed.”

 

“I’ll have the money soon. I’ll fix it, and we were pulling extra patrols thank you very much. Shields says there’s no room in the budget to hire more guards ‘till spring.” He sits beside her, and pulls off his heavy boots. His feet are long and hairy, much like the rest of him, and Anne can’t help but smile as he flexes his toes with a sigh of satisfaction.

 

“He’s full of it. Da wouldn’t let the guards go wanting.” He’s much too paranoid for one thing… Anne relaxes, leaning into the finely spun wool of her lover’s uniform. “You should tell him to give you a rest Char.”

 

Charles watches their reflection in the water. He looks a fine enough figure, in his long blue coat and red britches, he’s tall enough for an honor guard but his hair is too dark and wild. Anne is curled up next to him in a dress like Oxford in the summertime, floral explosions of vibrant blue and yellow, and around her neck is a brooch with two stones, one jet black, the other like bone burning with some inner light. That stone had activated the night her mother was dragged from her carriage during the winter riots when Anne was still a little girl and the winds of December brought bloodshed and cannibalism to holly decked streets.

 

“I need the money, we need the money,” Charles says.

 

 

“I have all the money we could possibly need,” Anne says, “As I’ve told you time and again…”

 

“But…”

 

“But nothing, so father doesn’t want me marrying some sweaty guardsman, so what?”

 

“We’re not running away together, not in Malifaux.” It’s an argument Charles is tired of having, he tosses a stone into the pond, and the lizards begin to sing with voices like candle flames.

 

“They don’t do that at home,” Anne says.

 

“Sing?” Charles says.

 

“No, their voices are silent until the cross the Breach. It’s magic, their song, it comes from somewhere far away or deep inside.”

 

“It’s a pretty sort of magic,” Charles says, “If that’s what it is.” He kisses her on top of her head.

 

“Most magic is,” Anne says, and she nestles back, into the crook of his arm.

 

“Careful who hears you saying that.”

 

“Who’s going to tell that I like magic? The lizards? You?” She laughs and tilts her head back, the moonlight nestles in the hollow of her throat and her lips are blush red.

 

“Of course I’m not,” Charles runs his fingers through her hair and she shivers, inching closer to him, “Anne, I need… I’m serious. I save enough to buy a commission and we’re getting married, like we planned.”

 

“But what if we didn’t have to wait? Sooner would be better, right?” Anne says. She’s staring up at him with wide, glassy eyes.

 

“Sure.”

 

“Tonight would be better.”

 

“Anne, what…?” He tries to pull away but she’s wrapped tight around one of his arms.

 

“Tonight would be better, right? Because you love me, you do, you love me no matter what.” her fingers are digging into his arm and he can feel her nails even through his heavy coat.

 

“Of course I do, what’s going on?”

 

“Just promise me, whatever happens…”

 

“Whatever happens,” Charles says, “Mind, body, and soul. Like when we were kids.”

 

There’s a moment of silence, even the lizards are still, and then Anne laughs. “Remember,” she says, “I would steal meat-pies from the kitchens?”

 

“And we’d eat them together on the roof,” Charles finishes her thought.

 

“I said you were too skinny to be a proper bodyguard.”

 

“I was thirteen, I took it very hard.” He grins at her.

 

“Now look at you, all filled out and handsome,” she knocks his cap off and musses his hair, “In your grown-up’s uniform.”

 

“It’s what made you fall in love with me,” he says with a wry smile.

 

“It’s not.” It’s Anne’s turn to pull away, and she looks out over the pond, distracted.

 

“Anne, love… I was joking.”

 

“It wasn’t funny.” Her voice is hollow, “I hate it, you know.”

 

“The uniform?”

 

“What the uniform means. I hate you walking the streets at night, I hate your long patrols. It’s dangerous.”

 

“Five days out of six Shields has me walking the heart Guild quarter, because of my mom, because I grew up around you rich folk and can be trusted not to offend any potential donors… I’m probably the least at-risk Guard on the force.” Charles finishes talking and turns his head to spit into the reeds.

 

 

His mother brought the family to Malifaux on a personal protection contract, now she runs a private security firm that provides specialized services to the Guild’s wealthiest paranoides. She hasn’t talked to him since he pinned on the badge, something about competing with the family business.

 

“No one is safe,” Anne says, “There’s a storm coming that doesn’t care about walls, or guards, or guns. A storm carried on the wind like breath, seeping through the smallest cracks to freeze you in your sleep. You can’t fight it, I can’t… The only way is to run, and soon.” Her voice sounds as though it’s coming from a long ways off, hollow, echoing from the mountains.

 

“Anne, what are you saying?” Charles feels his hairs stand on end.

 

“We don’t have time for you to buy a commission, or save away money. It’s coming, we need to run.”

 

“What’s coming, what are you talking about?” He wrenches himself free and stands upright.

 

“Don’t you see, they’re already here.”

 

“Who’s already here? Where? What do they want?” He swallows back the panic that threatens to engulf him, “Tell me what you’re talking about and I can tell Shields. Or, hell, mother. I can make it to a station in seven minutes, I can have a hundred men mobilized in ten.” Anne crumples to the ground as he’s talking, and he stoops to pick her up, “Just tell me, please, where they need to go.”

 

“It’s too late.” Anne says, weeping, “It’s already done.”

 

“How, what…?”

 

“They found me months ago, riding on a breath of ice. Everything they needed I gave to them, keys, code words, the timing of the guard rotations.”

 

“Why?”

 

“You. They promised me, they promised they would pass you by.”

 

“And you believed them?”

 

Anne doesn’t answer, she’s shaking so hard he fears she’ll fall apart.

 

“That’s why it doesn’t matter,” she says, “About the money. It just matters that you…” Her head snaps up and she fixes him with blackly burning eyes, “You said, you promised, no matter what happens...”

 

“I did.” The voice comes from somewhere deep inside him.

 

“And do you…”

 

“I do.” His mouth is dry as he gathers her into his arms. The first explosions light up the night like a fireworks show. He doesn’t even bother putting his boots back on.

 

Charles tracks the blasts, it’s reflex, trying to guess the homes being hit. It’s no one too high up, no one in the Guild inner circle. It’s all the second ring homes, the successful merchants, the bankers. The sorts of people that hire his mother. He closes his eyes and he can see blasts tearing through tiled roofs, obliterating courtyards in showers of stained glass.

 

Now the screams are starting. Not the authoritative shouts of Guards organizing an evacuation or bucket brigade, but cries of pain and panic. Battlefield cries. He tries not to imagine how many of his brothers are out there, freezing to black on bloodsoaked cobblestones.

 

“What happens now?” Charles says.

 

“We wait. They won’t come here. Once it’s done we’ll be able to leave, start a new life. Together.” Anne won’t look at him.

 

“How do you know they won’t… They promised. Whoever they are you told them you would be here and they promised not to…” He pulls away, drawing his sword. The lizards start up again, singing the only funeral dirge these people will ever get. Their song gets slower as the air gets colder, and the sound of the last explosions rolls away.

 

Charles stands at the ready, with his back to the water, eyes probing the darkness. His fingers are already growing numb around the cold hilt of his sword.

After long minutes no one comes, but the air is freezing, hoarfrost creeps along the blade of his sword and his breath clouds in front of his face, catching on his beard and mustache and freezing in splintered tendrils.

 

At last Anne stands up. Her skin glows pink in light of the distant fires, even barefoot she doesn’t seem to mind the cold. As she walks toward him Charles tries to move, but he’s rooted to the spot, he can feel his eyes grow wide. He concentrates on his left hand, moving by inches.

 

She knocks the sword from his unfeeling hand and wraps her arms around his neck. “It’s done,” she whispers, as the second stone on her necklace flares to life, “I’m sorry about all this, let’s go.”

 

His vision is fading at the edges as he whispers, “Me too,” and wills his fist to close. He doesn’t hear the pistol shot, but there’s something warm drenching his arms, his front, as the two lovers sink to the ground.

 

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Thanks for reading! Questions, comments, critiques are more than welcome.

 

[Lord Byron]

Touching, I like the way it twists and gets sad at the end. Kind of a somber tone throughout. A very well written tale.