Herald of the Black Moon by Stephen Deas

Author:Stephen Deas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781915202604
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

30

MASTER OF NOTHING

Seth crashed into the back room where the seamstress girls were all sitting in their chairs, stock still, not stitching at all as they listened to the ruckus from upstairs. He signed a sigil in the air and threw at them. “Stop the monk,” he said. “Don’t let her leave.” So, this was how it was, was it? When the Path had thrown him out, they’d told him the Sun no longer heard his voice. They’d lied. The Sun heard him fine. The Sun hated him. An actual God, looking down from the sky, taking the time and effort to pay attention just so it could fuck him up.

He ran into the front room where Lucius stared at him in wide-eyed surprise. Seth threw a sigil at him, too. “Stop the monk. Don’t let her leave.”

My God hates me. He crashed out onto the street. People stopped to look at him. He signed a sigil at the first to catch his eye. “Stop the monk,” he said. One, then another, then another. All three frowned, then looked up and down the street in puzzlement.

He ran a bit further and then stopped. What was the point? His strength had never recovered after the plague and hadn’t been much to begin with. Where was he going to go? A few dozen yards, maybe, before he collapsed in a wheezing heap? How, exactly, was that going to help?

Fings. Fings was almost certainly dead. Idiot. Idiot!

My fault. I did this.

What had he done in Deephaven? He didn’t know.

What the fuck was I thinking? I should have stayed. Let her have me. Then he’d be alive.

And there she was. The monk. Bursting out of the shop a dozen yards behind him, and he felt such a rage inside him, the same rage he’d felt for as long as he could remember, magnified, amplified, boiled into roaring fury. He turned and faced her because what else was there to do? Watched as Lucius bowled out of the shop, grabbed her, tried to pull her back, took two quick punches, fell to the ground in a curled-up ball of agony.

Seth clenched his fist at the sun. Not my God. Not my God! “NOT MY GOD!”

Never was, though, was it?

He signed a sigil and threw at the Earth. “Stop the monk! Kill the fucking monk who murdered my brother!”

As if that would do anything. As if the Earth would split open at his command and swallow her whole.

He blinked. Everyone around him had stopped. They were all staring, but not at him. They were staring at Tasahre. For an instant of pure stillness, Seth gawped in surprise, and then dozens of men and women dropped whatever they were carrying and ran at the sword-monk, and everything was chaos.

What have you done?

Whatever it was, probably best not wait to see how it ended. An unarmed sword-monk against an angry mob? Most times his money would be on the monk.

He couldn’t move. Fings was inside. His brother. He couldn’t leave Fings behind, not even with a Sunsteel sword stuck through him.

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