Shoulders and collars lightly feathered with white, moth-like tufts, faces hidden behind featureless ivory domes, the acolytes that had gathered backstage retreated against the walls as Norgash emerged among them. Her own white robe was densely furred, so heavy that it barely swung as she moved. Her own ivory mask bore ten red stones – two lines of five like eyes arrayed left and right – which shone with contained fire. A blazing heat likewise poured out from beneath her robe. She was a lantern, her robe the cage around the concealed wick of her body. Her acolytes inched toward her, trying to come just near enough that the light touched their feet. It was a strange thing to see backstage, these human creatures half-shadowed against magic light, pushing fearfully yet eagerly against one another.
“What are you doing?” Norgash spoke without moving, a monument of red-orange shadow erected in the narrow hall. “You have work you’re meant to be doing.”
The acolytes fled, leaving Norgash alone in the dark.
Then a fragment of the dark stepped forward, a figure in midnight-black garb with an oily shine to it, face invisible beneath a veil of thin hair under the wide brim of a dark hat. “They’re so eager to be your fuel. But, when I claim someone’s life, they always complain. It’s not fair.”
“You’re late, Sethian Skin.” Norgash pivoted to face that dark man, and the air rattled around her as she moved. “It’s making me late.”
“Ask your master for an allowance so that you aren’t so dependent on me, then. You know I loathe making deliveries to your kind.”
“My kind?”
“Mortals. House-calls are a privilege I save for beings that live longer than a blink.”
“You should be happy, then. I’ll outlive you by eons, at the very least.”
Sethian Skin snickered. “They clearly don’t worship you for your humor. Here.” He stepped to a side, his presence scarcely more than a slight interruption in the firelight, and gestured to some vague angular shapes in the dark against the wall. “Young as you like them. Beauty on demand for you, my love. Don’t forget my price.”
“To be delivered on the Veiled Night. Goodbye, Sethian Skin. My audience awaits me.”
“Maybe one day I’ll stay and watch. Though, I suspect that your artistry would be wasted on me.” He’d already vanished into the dark. There came the sound of a stony scratching, the groan of a door opening and closing. Then silence.
Norgash waited for a few seconds, and then she moved with a graceful suddenness, spinning down the hall one way and then the other. Her robes rose and fell with the movement, firelight and the rhythmic rattling of her magic. Red and orange illumination shone on a hallway empty but for her and the stacks of long, narrow crates Sethian Skin had silently lined up along one wall. As Norgash settled back into her place, the magic she’d pulled through the hallway settled over the crates, and they burned. Their contents screamed briefly, for only a second or two, and then all that remained of the wood and meat were ashes, quietly roiling coals, and power that fanned the flame in Norgash’s body.
Moments later, on a stage at the front of a warehouse overcrowded with some hundred admirers, prefaced by no herald and with no harbinger but for the raucous rattling that went ahead of her, Firedancer Norgash suddenly emerged. She was in the center of the stage in a flash of movement and firelight, settled firmly in place with her heavy robes churning around her. The crowd gasped, shocked to silence. From beneath her mask, Norgash could see them perfectly, their gaping mouths and wide eyes. Yes, you devout and you soon to be converted: your god has come.
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Gradually, as the shock abated, cheers went up. Standing very still, Norgash took hold of the rattling sound around her and focused it into a throbbing beat. It became music, a thrum that pulsed out of her body in time with her heartbeat. The firelight from beneath her robe swelled and faded along with it, like she contained a great drum. Norgash stood there, her shape concealed for the moment beneath her robe. She let the crowd look on her as, second by second, the drum beat louder and louder.
* * *
Myrel stood beneath the Sickle-Man, the enormous effigy shaped like some kind of barrel-chest, spindle-limbed child kneeling in the middle of the square. Layer upon layer of disused lumber and dried kindling were tied round its form, though beneath this was a clay-like surface to give it shape. Myrel moved their hands on the grips of the long scythe they’d picked up to throw, kneading the wood anxiously. They glanced to either side, where burly, drunk anthrals slung scythes over their shoulders, got a running start, and rolled their whole bodies into a bellowing effort to throw the scythe at the effigy’s body. The scythes spun in the air, cutting through fire and song, to embed in the effigy’s chest or head. There were dozens already there, so many solidly stuck while the other, poorly thrown scythes were scooped up from the ground for another try.
“Uhm.” Myrel looked down at the blade of the tool they held, blunt from its seasons in the field. “Hey, dad. Dad!”
Phaeduin was nearby, the armored man pulling a scythe from the hands of a drunk man that had been recklessly swinging it around. Once Phaeduin kicked the man away and tossed the confiscated scythe into the pile with the rest, he turned his bird-skull helm toward his child. “Myrel? What?”
“Do you hear it?” Myrel looked into the woody face of the Sickle-Man. “Listen.”
“Hm?” Phaeduin paced over and looked up at the effigy. Did he notice the face-like shape beneath the wood of its head, the way its makers had wrought so carefully and in inexplicable detail a wide, narrow frown? The strange, wet gleam where eyes would have been? He didn’t remark, if he did, just perusing the wooden effigy’s façade and saying, “No. What am I supposed to…?” But he fell quiet. He did stare.
“You hear it,” Myrel said. “The music. The magic in it.”
“Throw the scythe, Myrel.”
“What?” Myrel looked up at the bird-skull helm, unable to see their father’s expression behind the metal. “But there’s sorcery at work here. We don’t know what it is.”
“People are watching. Sorcerers on the walls. Don’t look for them.” Phaeduin hadn’t moved. All around him, the raucous celebration went on. There were laughter, cheers, and shouted curses, and there was a dirge-like music holding firelight in the air, but beneath that was a subtler song, some quiet spell being emitted from inside the Sickle-Man. “We’re behaving suspiciously. Throw the sickle and walk away.” Phaeduin abruptly turned and paced off to one side, acting out his cover by starting an argument with a drunk anthral that hadn’t done anything wrong.
Letting out a tense groan, Myrel hefted the scythe in their hand. They hadn’t noticed when they’d first picked it up – had been so eager to try their hand at the game – but now they could hear the quiet tone that pitched up when the blade moved. They could hear it as scythes were thrown to either side, hear the music they made as they flew, hear the power it carried into the effigy. To what end? Did no one else hear it?
“Fine.” Myrel backed up and slung the scythe over their shoulders. They curled their tail close, looping it twice around their torso to keep it out of the blade’s way. Then they took two steps forward, turned their body, swung the scythe hard and let it fly spinning toward the Sickle-Man. It struck bluntly and careened away, causing an anonymous shout from spectating revelers as it hit the ground.