Tag: warlord

Day #20

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Planimeter: a measuring instrument used to determine the area of an arbitrary two-dimensional shape.

Infucation: The act of painting or staining especially of painting the face

Undergo: To go or move below or under

—–

Mr Wills hadn’t left his house for two decades after returning from the war. It was for this reason, along with the honeyed windows and the reams of cigarette butts that littered his garden, that most people assumed his house was abandoned. It was just another one of those buildings that the postman delivered leftover junk mail to, the council couldn’t care less about and whose neighbours were too busy collecting their weekly giro to really pay attention to anything outside of their taxpayer funded inner sanctum.

Truth be told, this suited Mr Wills perfectly well, for he had a task to complete. It was essential that he complete this task or He would not be happy.

The elderly man got by on very little, drinking only tap water and eating only egg and cress sandwiches, but without the bread. He kept several hens in his conservatory and grew cress in every available window, so he rarely went hungry. His appearance seemed unaffected by this curious diet and so he bore the same look of any man slightly past his prime –thinning hair and greying temples, skin slackening like worn jeans and a pair of rheumy eyes that were more at ease behind a set of strong lenses.

Mr Wills spent most of his time completing his task, rarely breaking for lunch. Instead he rose early for a snack at daybreak, then finished off any leftovers before he went to bed. Mr Wills didn’t particularly like sleeping, as this was when he had to undergo the nightly status report.

He would regularly berate the elderly man for his painful fastidiousness, asking why he couldn’t speed up and when did he think the task would be done. Mr Wills, who felt he lacked the authority to speak up and say that he had never actually been told how to complete his task, instead simply dreamed of nodding. It had taken many years to perfect, but Mr Wills now knew that to pacify the voices he simply had to nod and He would slowly dissipate into the recesses of his mind, like a sea mist under a midday sun.

Sitting at his desk one morning, Mr Wills was hard at work. He would scribble wildly on a piece of paper with a fountain pen, measure the area of this arbitrary, non-Euclidean shape with a planimeter, make a note of its area in a nearby ledger and then begin the tedious infucation process. He used paints made of crushed clay and dirt, mixed with water and then dabbed lightly into different sections of the scribble – any acrylics he’d once owned had been used up years ago. He then hung the final product on the wall with a pin in each corner, taut.

These strange paintings slithered over every inch of every wall of Mr Wills’ house like snakeskin, a haunting mural .

A short while later, with russet sludge dangling from the tip of a very fine paintbrush like snot from a nostril, Mr Wills was disturbed by a sudden buzzing. It buzzed twice then stopped, so he ignored it. When it buzzed again five minutes later, Mr Wills finally realized what it was. It was his doorbell.

Day #12

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Hadder: Heather, heath

Cerberean: Of or pertaining to or resembling Cerberus

Bazaar: In the East an exchange marketplace or assemblage of shops where goods are exposed for sale

—–

‘You there, stop!’

The soldier cantered forward, his stallion blazing a brilliant white matched only by the sheen of his brass chest plate. Plumes of ceremonial feathers sprung from his tightly fitted helmet, blowing like hadder in the early morning breeze. Slipping from the horse’s back, he gave his sword handle a quick half-tug to make sure it wouldn’t stick if he needed it. A deep breath helped muster a vague air of authority; the soldier approached the front of the caravan.

Immediately, he saw the two men leaning into each other, exchanging quick, secret whispers. Both were of swarthy, middle-eastern appearance, their dark hair thick as gorse, both beards immaculately oiled. They seemed nervous, but after all these were treacherous times.

The war had not long ended and it was uncommon to see men of a darker hue so far from home. Rumors of kidnappings were already rife and to make things worse a high-ranking official’s wife – a spoil of war, beautiful and exotic – had gone missing the night before, meaning patrols had been doubled.

‘Where are you going my friends?’ called the soldier, his voice loud and crisp, a deeply sonorous birdsong.

He had been patrolling the border since daybreak, cerberean in his duty yet encountering no one amongst the trickling, sandy hours. Boredom and youth had dulled the soldier’s sense of duty. He’d stopped the Arabs because it was simply something to pass the time with.

The whispering ceased and the two men peered inquisitively at the soldier, his pale skin and tight crop of blond hair a brutal reminder that they were far from home.

‘Salaam, friend,’ called one of the men, older and with thick, heavyset eyebrows. His companion was younger and had greasy, sweaty skin. The older man continued, his tone sharp, ‘why do you stop us?’

The soldier was taken aback by such directness. ‘What brings you this way, so early in the morning?’

The younger Arab looked quickly at his companion, nervous, eager to move on. A light sheen glistened on his face, as though he were a reflection; the tight curls of his beard, dark and foreboding ripples. The older Arab dismissed his apparent concerns with a hard look of annoyance.

‘My friend, we are simple traders seeking to reach the bazaar at Damascus by nightfall. We are spice merchants. Nothing more, nothing less.’

Damascus? The soldier knew the journey well, having made it many times as a child. There was no way in hell these traders would ever reach Damascus by nightfall on this route. If they were even going to Damascus…

‘You have a long…journey ahead of you – I would hate for your goods to spoil… May I take stock of your wares?’

‘Of course,’ replied the Arab, his voice now perfumed and cloying, intoxicatingly sickly and sprinkled with a hint of knowing malice. ‘Please sink your teeth into our forbidden fruits…’

The solider didn’t like the man’s tone. Something was off. He pulled back the caravan’s curtains to reveal a dark skinned woman, beautiful and exotic, teeth bared, eyes fearful and dagger drawn.

She hissed just four words, ‘I’m not going back…’

Day #11

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Panade: A dagger

Pericardium: The double baglike fold of serous membrane that encloses the heart

Cerebrifugal: The nerve fibers that go from the brain to the spinal cord and so transfer cerebral impulses; centrifugal impressions outwards

—–

You are a spasm on the face of the night; silently lithe, an oil slick seeping amongst rocks, ready to smother the wings of any birds you may encounter.

The guard’s cigarette burns brilliantly, a satirical star. You imagine the smoke curling in his lungs like old receipts in the bottom of a paper bag. A slow death. The light recedes, migrating, burning down until his lips are dully illuminated. You make sure the blood that spills from his lips extinguishes the nub. A gurgle of claret, a gushing waterfall, thick, sticky iron-rich plasma oozing like ketchup. You are the vampire bat; you are metal of fang.

Quick feet, a cat’s paws, every step a gracefully uncoiling spring. You ignore the paintings that hang from the walls, faces from history flashing past. You wonder if they approve of your task. They can’t judge you now. You melt into the shadows as two sets of footsteps stomp past. Right on time.

You know the floor plan; you know the number of steps on any given staircase; you know precisely where to stand in his room so that the silvery crescent of moonlight that slips between his curtains won’t fall on so much as a little toe.

Steady breaths, one staircase, then another, twisting, turning. You are Theseus pursuing the Minotaur, unspooling a reel of memorized directions.

Beneath the thin woolen mask that covers your face, beads of sweat start to form. You’re getting hot. You’re getting closer. You run over the plan once again…

Slip past the guards, removing their lives if necessary (you wonder whether any life is necessary, you chalk it up to collateral damage, you chalk it up to fun). Infiltrate his room, approach his bed then unsheathe your metal fang; the thin sliver of the panade, beautiful and deadly, a lone truth amongst the encroaching dark. You will slip the blade quickly into his pericardium – splitting the muscle in two. Then you will hold your hand over his mouth until the very last cerebrifugal pulse has faded from the spinal cord…

You’re standing outside his door, thick and wooden, a gloriously textured oak. The varnish stings your nostrils and your eyes spill a sudden film of tears that you quickly blink away.

You slip inside, an undetectable insect. Heavy breaths roll in like fog. You imagine the heady thud of your heartbeat acts like a bat’s squeals, your target caught amongst a net of sounds bouncing in the night.

Sleeping flags hang limply, the verdant reds, whites and blacks now a muted slurry of burgundy and grey, their iconography familiar, repellant.

You stand over his bed, his lumpy form already silent as a corpse, stiller than you expected. You unsheathe the panade and stab, stab, stab, stab, stab – all decorum consumed by a sudden intoxicating miasma. He doesn’t bleed at all…

And then, it is done.

Panting, you wipe a fleck of spittle from your lips, ‘Auf Wiedersehen Mein Fuhrer…’

You feel the cold, hard cigarette butt of a gun press into your back. You realize that, of course, he would have bled. Everyone bleeds. Even you. The gun dully illuminates and you melt into the shadows.

Day #9

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Platting: Plaited strips of bark, cane, straw etc. used for making hats or the like

Water soldier: A submerged aquatic plant with serrated, brittle leaves that break easily when handled.

Geophagist: One who eats earth as dirt clay chalk, etc.

—-

Her slight, nimble fingers danced over the wicker canes, threading the silvery strips of birch bark under and over, under and over. The action reminded Ahn-weh of the way she used to braid her daughter’s hair, under and over, under and over, then tied in a knot – perfection. It would not be long until she saw her again, at least this was what Ahn-weh hoped.

But could you really trust the words that slithered from the lips of man who had killed untold thousands and forced a young girl into marriage against her will?

Genghis. The word pounded like a metronome as Ahn-weh wove the pale grey platting, under and over, under and over, circling round in loop after loop. She was slowly nearing the end of her task now. Genghis. Under and over. Genghis. Under and over.

The warlord, the self-proclaimed God-King, had offered this token task to Ahn-weh at the behest of her daughter; a vain attempt by the young girl to have her mother spared.

He had grinned, stringing words to his tongue like arrows to a bow, ‘they say you are an artist Mother, then let us see how great you are. Craft me a crown fit for a God-King and I shall let you and your daughter live.’

Ahn-weh could still smell his fetid breath, sticky and thick with spilt blood, musky like oxen that spent all day chewing rotting cud.

So Ahn-weh worked. Genghis. She stripped the bark from birch trees until her nails were bloody and raw. Genghis. She tempered the thin bands of silver in the midday heat. Genghis. She wove the circlets under and over until the crown began to gain form. Genghis. A shimmering star fallen from Heaven to Earth. Genghis. The crown of a God-King.

But Ahn-weh knew it was a futile task. She knew that her daily rations were poisoned; of course He wouldn’t play fair. He had no intention of letting her live, or of finishing the crown, which would result in the death of her daughter too. A cruel God-King.

This was why, at the break of every dawn, Ahn-weh slipped past her snoring guard, slumped awkwardly in a drunken stupor. She crept down to the river, alert like a deer and aware of every single glinting red reflection rippling and flashing as fish plucked early morning insects from the water’s surface.

Pushing aside the water soldiers, their brittle leaves flaking away at the slightest touch, Ahn-weh dug deep amongst their roots, burying her hands in the dirt, under and over. The thick, wet clay that she cupped in her palms tasted peaty when she drank it.

It was unpleasant and thick, clogging her throat and making her gag, but it would slow the poison in her body, she knew this; Ahn-weh the geophagist knew this. And she clung to this as she wove the silver birch bark into a crown for a God-King, fingers nimbly working under and over, over and over.