Pepper / INK /

claire

Claire was off work for once. At home, behind closed blinds she had her black hair down, her wig neatly on its dummy, her headdress on the vanity nearby. She lounged in a golden-tan shift, her preferred garb for around the house.

With her arms bare it was still possible to see the discoloration from where the skin had once been worn bloody by the solar garb. The star at the back of her neck where the bar that had once held up the heavy fascinator and solar orb had rubbed her neck bloody, the bands on both wrists where the gauntlet she had once worn had rubbed raw the skin.

Today, she lay in her house for the first time since her release from the Healer’s, she was alone and not working. Sun blazed through the window and yet she carried a blanket over her shoulders, still cold from so long being malnourished.

She was partaking in one of her favorite past times, reading, in this case, a new magical fantasy book where the western protagonist suddenly finds herself able to use magic, shunned and hunted for her powers. She’d made it half way through the book and the dates she was eating when she heard the commotion. Unsure of what was going on she pulled a robe over the shift and went to look out the window. In the street below stood a man she had never seen, but had certainly heard of.

She watched in awe as he changed, first from a young man, into an older, taller, heavier one, and then into Olum, Death, and then again as the spell wound down and he turned into a simple Alchemist again. But she saw him hit the ground hard as he turned to leave, and she had seen the Necromancers coming toward him. She couldn’t leave him, not the guardian of justice.

Without a second thought or a moment to change she unlocked the door and went out, fortunately, even hiding in the wisps of anti-magic they called ’the malaise’ the workers of blood were not willing to come after him with witnesses, and they fled.

She checked her pockets, pulling out chalk she drew a circle around them both. It took a minute or two, the spell was complicated, and before she tried to activate it she paused.

"Lady of the sun, grant me the grace to use my abilities wisely." She whispered. "Anu-manet, lady of the moon, and Ay Dede, her consort, hear me, grant me the strength to carry him and the debts he holds, protect us both while he sleeps that he may not wake in danger." She touched her hands to the circle, and while she didn’t feel stronger, she trusted that her prayer worked. Gathering the lithe man up in her arms she carried him inside. He wasn’t heavy, per-se, but those who used heavy magic seemed... more dense as if the magic itself and the responsibility with it weighed them down.

She carefully placed him on the bed in her small apartment, closing, locking and spelling the door that none who meant him harm could enter. She sat next to the window, shades open, singing the song of daylight, the version she had re-learned after she had moved there. All the magic things in her house began to glow a bright gold, and she realized the problem. She didn’t know how to ’change up" the energy. It was useless to the Lunar, as both his clothes and the blue-white glow of his tattoos which had started to move uneasily under her hand, told her.

Finally she went to the joined door and knocked. "Jacob?"

"It’s too early" came the sleepy reply.

"Please Jacob." Her accent turning his name into a musical "Yakob"

A moment later the door opened.

"I am sorry to wake you but I have a lunar I rescued from the workers of blood and he needs moonlight, but I don’t know that song yet."

He nodded and approached, stopping short when he saw the tattoos that moved and writhed. "Inkwalker?"

She nodded. "That is what they called him on the street."

"I can’t help you." He turned to leave.

"If you do not help, he will die." She said, taking his hand. "And you know what that means for any magic user. We have to help him."

"Its dangerous."

"So is letting him die." She shook her head. "I thought you people were better than that."

Jacob flinched. Without using the word she had compared him to the Presidium and its people, so bent and twisted that they sent any lunar out of the city to die in the blowing sands.

"Ok, but I was never here." He sat down next to the man. Brown eyes with golden rims half-opened as he attempted to protect himself. "Easy honored brother." Jacob said quietly. "I’m here to help." He placed a piece of moon quartz against the Inkwalker’s chest and began the song that would change the sunlight into moonlight. The white crystal turned blue-white and the tattoos began to glow too. He stayed and sang as long as he dared, using as much of his own magic as he dared to help pull the Inkwalker from the brink of death.

When he was done the man was breathing steadily and the Tattoos had stopped writhing. "I’ve done all I can. Did you hear that song?"

She nodded. "I think I can sing it."

"Good, I’m spent." He walked off back toward his place. "Put up your wards, and give him some Moon Water when he wakes, he needs it."

She nodded and sat in the window, singing, at first the new song was halting and a little off key, but as she began to feel it, she sang more strongly, and the small piece of quartz still clutched in the Inkwalker’s hand began to glow again.

Jacob watched a moment longer before going back to sleep. Claire sang for a long time, until the last rays of the sun, but it was just before sunset when she heard him wake.

#

The fog was thick around him, he couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t your normal fog, it was made to hide things, and there were voices, some seemed to be having fun, familiar voices that he thought he would know if he could only see them. But he couldn’t. The fog clung to everything.

There were no tulle bits that were light enough to see images through if you squinted, no there was nothing but the same, dense, white, obscuring fog. It covered everything.

And then there was that voice. He knew it, and it made him sad and angry, but he didn’t know who it was. "Akhwan!" The voice was terrified, heard dimly as if through the wind and rain. One of his siblings, but he’d had so many over the decades, it was hard to place them without a picture. And the thought brought up the same anger and sickness it always did.

There was cold rain, and hot tears, and slick blood and warm sand and hot sun, and the rain. The loud booming crash of thunder, the brightness that whited out the world. And then, in the spaces between he could see glimpses before the fog came crashing down again.

He could still feel their blood, sticky on his hands, as he ran from one to the next, praying that they were alive. That even one of them had been spared. And as he came closer, he could feel the horror as he realized what had happened, there, in the middle of a blood circle was his father, a knife sticking from his chest, his mother, still clutching the hilt though her eyes were milky, she was dead, had been for hours, but somehow she’d realized what her husband was doing, or had done, and had used the knife he had once kept as his ceremonial knife against him. An Inkwalker’s own blade could kill him easily without harming the Ink

He knelt in the burning sands, raised his fist to the sky and swore at the ones who had let this happen, the ones who had let him hurt like this.

Daniel could only remember one thing clearly, his father’s ink still running off his body, knowing he was dead. His own ink writhing and twisting in anguish and revulsion at blood and dark magic, he could feel Azrail and Cerebus wanting to rise, but there were no dead to defend him from the undead were already dead, and the dead would not rise.

A scream ripped its way out of him like an animal wanting to be free, and he buried his hands in the hot sands, his tears falling and the rain crashing around him in response. Eventually the tears and rain subsided, the lightening and thunder tapered off to a grumble in the sky and the face of the Earth itself had been moved.

He’d slept in the grotto for a decade after using all his magic in one shot, so angry had he been. He’d almost died, but his Keeper, Aja had found him. And she had carried him to the grotto and let him sleep in the healing waters until he was well. And the waters had taken away most of that day. He still remembered it, but mostly like this, in bits and pieces as the fog ebbed and flowed over the rest of it.

With Aja’s death went the location of the Grotto, his tantrum had moved the warns that told others where it was, and changed the landmarks that had made it easy to find.

The fog began to fade and he thought he heard someone singing.

"’Umi?"

#

The first sound he heard as he began to wake was someone singing. The cadence and tone were the songs of moonlight, someone was gathering magic for him. The song, and the voice were beautiful. For a moment he listened trying to remember if this was his mother’s voice. But even after 138 years, he knew his mother’s accent, and this wasn’t it, it was foreign. But, he thought to himself it was probably the most beautiful voice he had ever heard.

He smiled, the song made him feel happy. He tried to open his eyes but they were scratchy. And he didn’t remember saying anything, but suddenly the song stopped, and he felt hands on him. They were soft, but trembling. Someone afraid of him. "Be still honored cousin." The voice said. "You have grit in your eyes,"

The voice was not one he knew, but he stopped trying to open his eyes. He felt them opened and then drops put in each eye, and a wet cloth across them. "Say your Ana Asif and you may open them."

He spoke the apology silently marking the time. It was common to speak it even if you didn’t know what you had done as a blanket apology to ward off bad luck. When he reached the last verse he slowly opened his eyes and blinked. It took two or three blinks for the world to come in focus around him. But when he did, his mouth that turned up on one side, making him look like he sneered at everything, relaxed into a smile.

He was in a small solar dwelling. "I found you on the stones, eyes-down." She wiped the last of the dirt from his face. "Do you have a name, honored cousin?" her grasp of the local dialect was still slow and spotty.

"Daniel."

"Claire." She said, with a dip of her head that said she was embarrassed.

"Iyi şarkı söylüyorsun" He said quietly. If she had been embarrassed before, now she was more so. She had never had an honest compliment like that, so unsolicited. "I was enjoying your song."

"Shall I sing again?" She handed him the small bottle of water that glowed blue. "Drink, drink it all, you need it." Her voice almost sounded stern and he smiled. Even stern it was pretty.

"Would you?" He looked at the bottle. It was Moon water, worth nearly a full day’s pay, it was capable of recovering large amounts of energy in just a couple of mouthfuls. Carefully he unscrewed the top and sipped it. He could feel the magic course through him with every sip and smiled, nodding to her.

She nodded in return, satisfied, and sat back in the window continuing the song. She couldn’t sing much longer, the light was swiftly fading from the sky and she had never learned the night songs. Just dawn day and now dusk.

"You call me honored Cousin, so you know me?"

"I know of you." She said softly, still unsure how to address the Inkwalker. "But in truth you are my first Inkwalker I had met. Where I grew up they were legend."

"Legend?" The smile faded. "Did you grow up in a haven?" That was the only place he could think of where men didn’t know about the Inkwalker, and that was because the Haven cities were for those, who by chance or design were wrongly accused by the Ink. It was rare, but it did happen. On occasion someone could be framed. If they made it to the haven they could live there until such time as they could prove the truth. For the Inkwalker did not know absolute truth, only the truth as it was known.

She shook her head, fear and disgust warring on her face. "Your pardon."

"There is no shame in where you were born."

"You will not say that when you know." She said, she was used to being shunned when any found out.

"Please?" He touched her, forcing her chin up to look at him, and the feeling was electric. He smiled, just to see her smile. "Please?" He repeated.

"I am from Presidium." She said. Knowing he would leave, not wanting him to because she liked his rich voice.

He smiled and then frowned in concentration. "Presidium, I didn’t know daughters of Presidium ever left."

"My sister was condemned to walk and so I followed." Her mouth turned down in a frown that nearly broke his heart. He knew the feeling but he didn’t understand the concept.

He looked puzzled. "I’m afraid I don’t know those words." It was his turn to frown. "What did she do wrong?"

"Sent out and the gate closed behind her because she was unclean." She frowned again. "She was a Lunar." She ran her hand over the tunic he wore, tracing the signs. "But we were all forced to sing the song of the everlasting dawn as he called it."

Daniel nodded, he understood. "You were found in the sands and brought here?"

She nodded. "For a long time they thought I was mortal, so twisted was the day song I knew."

He looked at her, mostly to gauge the truth he knew already. Her eyes were dark, like burnt coffee, but beginning to lighten, he wasn’t sure if they would be brown or hazel when she was done. She had put on weight but still looked malnourished. Her hair, once nearly black, had now started to bleach under the sun as it was outside the twisted town that claimed to be protecting itself from the end of the world.

"I wish I could save them, but the legend says that only an Inkwalker born of the city can save them, will save them."

"Then it will not be that way forever?" Her lips traced the ghost of a smile. "Trapped by the Eternal Prince."

"No, a seven will rise up from within and open the gates." He smiled.

His stomach growled. "Not to change the subject," he said, assuring her it wasn’t because of the topic. "But, is there food?"

She laughed, and he felt like it was the prettiest music he had ever heard.

"Ay Dede has strange timing if he strikes you with the bolt of love now." The ink chided. It was still annoyed, mostly at itself for nearly killing him. "Ana Asif." He heard the ink say in his head.

"You are forgiven." He thought to himself, or rather his ink.

"We cannot leave her like this, for those who wish to kill us will come to find her. And what little magic she has is not enough against them."

Inkaru sounded worried, but he didn’t use Daniel’s voice, instead he spoke silently to him. "It is not our way to leave them unprotected, but once the moon has risen we must leave."

Claire had failed to notice the conversation between the Inkwalker and his Ink, but she came back with food. It was simple food, Tikka masala, some sort of fowl. He thought.

"I hope you are not without meat?" She asked, astutely aware that sometimes they eschewed meat.

"No, cousin, I’m not without meat."

"Good, it’s simple food but it will give you strength. I’m sorry I didn’t have more."

He smiled, it smelled amazing and he realized how hungry he really was. "No, cousin, there is no apology needed, simple food is not bad food."

The two ate and talked for a while, long enough for him to have two bowls of the Tikka masala. And he thanked her when he was done. Finally he rose slowly.

"The moon has risen, and I must take my leave. But before I do, there is something I must do." He closed his eyes and placed his hands, palms together in front of himself. When he opened his eyes he spoke for her benefit, as his magic needed neither circle nor voice. "Cousin, child of the sun, hear me, you have protected me when I could not protect myself. For this, I give you the protection that I can give. What is more, you have stood in the presence of an Inkwalker and been found Righteous." He clapped and runes and sigils written in moon magic appeared around the room on every door or window, they faded from sight almost as soon as they had written themselves.

"Do you trust me?"

She nodded.

"Good." He placed a hand on the back of her shoulder. "You have been judged righteous, and for that I give you the Moon lily, a sign of those an Inkwalker trusts, and the protection of the Ink itself. As long as you are a righteous woman, the Ink will protect you from those who would hurt you. Call for me and I will hear you, no matter when it is or where I am, I will know your voice."

There was pain for a moment but it was quickly replaced by cold, like someone had put cold water on a burn. "You will not be swayed by my magic unless you let yourself."

The tattoo now on her back was a small flower, it’s black petals each bearing the crescent moon so that when the bud opened it revealed a perfect circle like when the moon covered the sun.

He sagged against the walking stick that was in his hand again, the spell had taken some magic to set.

Claire smiled and offered her arm to help him. "Will-" She looked abashed. After all, she thought, there was no way that she was worthy of him, not a presidium born.

"Speak."

"Will you let me walk you out?"

He smiled and nodded. "Yes. And maybe lunch sometime," He was a little embarrassed. "I--I mean I do owe you for the meal." He wasn’t sure she felt the same way, or how she would react when she found out how much older than her he was.

"You look nearly as bad as I did when they found me. Be careful." She said and walked him back to the edge of the Lunar section. She had never felt welcome in the Lunar Sections, not as a child of the forbidden city, so much so that she went the long way around from the central towers to avoid the Lunars. Not because she felt they were unclean, but because she was afraid they thought she was.

"Come find me at the Illustrated man," he said.

;>;;;>;;;>;;;

Next Chapter: nightmare night