Bah! to such conceits! Such anal self-serving affectation! Wax extravagant and let the world swirl thick and pungent about you! Tell the tale of your life as you would live it!
A delighted waggle of fingers now might signal mocking cruelty when you are observing this fingerless man who stands silent and expressionless as he studies his woman. Decide as you will. His woman. Yes, the notion belongs to him, art shy;fully whittled from his world view (one of expectation and fury at its perpetual failure). Possession has its rules and she must behave within the limits those rules prescribe. This was, to Gaz, self-evident, a detail that did not survive his own manic editing.
But what was Thordy doing with all those flat stones? With that peculiar pat shy;tern she was building there in the dark loamy soil? One could plant nothing be shy;neath stone, could one? No, she was sacrificing fertile ground, and for what? He didn’t know. And he knew that he might never know. As an activity, however, Thordy’s diligent pursuit was a clear transgression of the rules, and he might have to do something about that. Soon.
Tonight he would beat a man to death. Exultation, yes, but a cold kind. Flies buzzing in his head, the sound rising like a wave, filling his skull with a hundred thousand icy legs. He would do that, yes, and this meant he didn’t have to beat his wife — not yet, anyway; a few more days, maybe a week or so — he would have to see how things went.
Keep things simple, give the flies not much to land on, that was the secret. The secret to staying sane.
The wedges of his battered fingerless hands burned with eager fire.
But he wasn’t thinking much of anything at all, was he? Nothing to reach his face, his eyes, the flat line of his mouth. Sigil of manhood, this blank facade, and when a man has nothing else at least he could have that. And he would prove it to himself again and again. Night after night.
Because this is what artists did.
Thordy was thinking of many things, none of them particularly relevant — or so she would have judged if pressed to examination, although of course there was no one who might voice such a challenge, which was just as well. Here in her garden she could float, as aimless as a leaf blown down on to a slow, lazy river.
She was thinking about freedom. She was thinking about how a mind could turn to stone, the patterns solid and immovable in the face of seemingly unbearable pressures, and the way dust trickled down faint as whispers, unnoticed by any. And she was thinking of the cool, polished surface of these slate slabs, the waxy feel of them, and the way the sun reflected soft, milky white and not at all painful to rest eyes upon. And she was remembering the way her husband talked in his sleep, a pouring forth of words as if whatever dam held them back in his wakefulness was kicked down and out gushed tales of gods and promises, invitations and bloodlust, the pain of maimed hands and the pain of maiming that those hands delivered.
And she noted the butterflies dancing above the row of greens just off to her left, almost within reach if she stretched out a dirt-stained hand, but then those orange-winged sprites would wing away though she posed them no threat. Because life was uncertain and danger waited in the guise of peaceful repose.
And her knees ached and nowhere in her thoughts could be found expectation — nowhere could be found such hard-edged proof of reality as the framework of what waited somewhere ahead. No hint at all, even as she laid down stone after stone. It was all outside, you see, all outside.
The clerk at the office of the Guild of Blacksmiths had never once in his life wielded hammer and tongs. What he did wield demanded no muscles, no weight of impetus atop oaken legs, no sweat streaming down to sting the eyes, no gusts of scalding heat to singe the hairs on the forearms. And so, in the face of a true blacksmith, the clerk gloried in his power.
That pleasure could be seen in his small pursed lips turned well down at each end, could be caught in his watery eyes that rested everywhere and nowhere; in his pale hands holding a wooden stylus like an assassin’s dagger, the tip stained blue by ink and wax. He sat on his stool behind the broad counter that divided the front room as if guarding the world’s wealth and every promise of paradise that membership in this most noble Guild offered its hallowed, upright members (and the fat man winks).
So he sat, and so Barathol Mekhar wanted to reach over the counter, pluck the clerk into the air, and break him in half. Over and over again, until little more than a pile of brittle tailings remained heaped on the scarred counter, with the stylus thrust into it like a warrior’s sword stabbing a barrow.
Dark was the amusement in Barathol’s thoughts as the clerk shook his head yet again.
‘It is simple — even for you, I’m sure. The Guild demands credentials, specifically the sponsorship of an accredited Guild member. Without this, your coin is so much dross.’ And he smiled at this clever pun voiced to a smith.
‘I am new to Darajhistan,’ Barathol said, again, ‘and so such sponsorship is im shy;possible.’
‘Yes it is.’
‘As for apprenticeship-’
‘Also impossible. You say you have been a blacksmith for many years now and I do not doubt such a claim — the evidence is plain before me. This of course makes you over-qualified as an apprentice and too old besides.’
‘If I cannot be apprenticed how can I get a sponsor?’
A smile of the lips and shake of the head, A holding up of the palms. ‘I don’t make the rules, you understand.’
‘Can I speak to anyone who might have been involved in devising these rules?’
‘A blacksmith? No, alas, they are all off doing smithy things, as befits their profession.’
‘I can visit one at his or her place of work, then. Can you direct me to the near shy;est one?’
‘Absolutely not. They have entrusted me with the responsibilities of operating the administration of the Guild. If I were to do something like that I would be disciplined for dereliction of duty, and I am sure you do not want that on your conscience, do you?’
‘Actually,’ said Barathol, ‘that is a guilt I can live with.’
The expression hardened. ‘Honourable character is an essential prerequisite to becoming a member of the Guild.’
‘More than sponsorship?’
‘They are balanced virtues, sir. Now, I am very busy today-’
‘You were sleeping when I stepped in.’
‘It may have appeared that way.’
‘It appeared that way because it was that way.’
‘I have no time to argue with you over what you may or may not have perceived when you stepped into my office-’
‘You were asleep.’
‘You might have concluded such a thing.’
‘I did conclude it, because that is what you were. I suppose that too might result in disciplinary measures, once it becomes known to the members.’
‘Your word against mine, and clearly you possess an agenda, one that reflects poorly on your sense of honour-’
‘Since when does honesty reflect poorly on one’s sense of honour?’
The clerk blinked. ‘Why, when it is vindictive, of course.’
Now it was Barathol’s turn to pause. And attempt a new tack. ‘I can pay an advance on my dues — a year’s worth or more, if necessary.’
‘Without sponsorship such payment would be construed as a donation. There is legal precedent to back that interpretation.’
‘You’d take my coin and give me nothing in return?’
‘That is the essence of a charitable donation, is it not?’