A Fair Exchange

A Fair Exchange

by Antony Paschos

Antony Paschos is a Greek author with short stories in Interzone, Galaxy’s Edge, ZNB Presents, Giganotosaurus, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, and other magazines. 

His short story collection: The Brother’s Inheritance was shortlisted for the Greek National Literature Award and the Anagnostis Prize for Literature. 

He has published four books in Greek, one novel in French and the novella: It’s You, Isn’t it? in English from Space Wizard Science Fantasy Books.

His work has been translated into five more languages. He is a member of the Athens Club of Science Fiction, and lives in Athens.

Blood seethes in the font, its surface covered in froth, sticking to my fingers, binding me to the spell as it flows down runnels carved in alabaster, springing from nine chests, nine bodies nailed to the arced walls of my tower, a crescent moon of writhing boys and girls, their offering of draining adolescence a fair exchange to raise you.

You, Princess. Rise from the font and let me gaze upon your beauty under the glow of nine candles, one for every slave. Their blood gleams on the curves of your body, on the tresses of your hair. Turn around so I can see your face–wait, what are you staring at? These hopeless youngsters are just the most distant of your relatives I could kidnap; I wouldn’t harm a brother or sister of yours.

Get your eyes off the redhead! Thrown into the throes of keen familiarity, I see? No matter. These are but weak pawns to solidify my will over you. Pay the redhead no heed.

Look here, into my eyes. Yes, it’s me who guides you; my hands immersed in the font; my will bridles your brain by the blood of my slaves. Keep your mind blank. I am you and you are I. For as long as I bid.

Even in unlife you are a beauty, Princess. The poison that stopped your heart has spared you from the rictus grin. This graceful face of death, so eloquent to my eyes, shall not betray your state to someone who hasn’t raised corpses by the hundreds. Shall not betray me.

Now leave the font, go to the basin and bathe. The water is hot but you cannot feel it, I haven’t wasted blood on all of your senses; it’s hot, but it will not make your skin blush. Clean your body. The spell is complete, the blood flowing to the font connects us now, Princess; I am you and you are I. For as long as I bid.

Wash yourself off. You won’t feel any cold, nor will you tingle or shudder; even numbness is too acute a sensation for your skin. Wait a moment before you put on your dirty chiton. I apologize for your garment’s condition and for letting you walk barefoot, but your guise as a runaway must be convincing. Alas, I had no reason to kill you, but your Queen of a mother kept rejecting the exchange of prisoners.

Now it’s too late.

Strap the sheathed dagger on the belt. Its tip is soaked in poison; much stronger than the one that stole your life–you see, I couldn’t care less for the final expression on the face of your Queen of a mother. Let her wear the grin of panic as she dies.

Tighten the belt around your chiton. Shackle the broken chains on your wrists and lock them. And now hide under your heavy cloak; the night might be cool and the air still, but it won’t last for long.

Now open the gate and go. Off to the stairs of stone, get past the silent figures that stare at the windows, so that I can see through their eyes.

You haven’t lost your sense of hearing now that you’ve left my laboratory. Muteness is this castle’s reality. A muteness so deafening that spurred your mother to gather an army. Stubborn, fanatic, convinced of her righteousness, confident of her upcoming triumph. Not only did she deny an exchange of prisoners, she had to murder my only son as well.

Get out in the courtyard. Ignore the rustling of my marionettes, the creaking of their rusty armors as they lug their withered limps. The flaring veins of this night’s maiden lightning illuminate torn crests you find familiar; yes, some of my freshest servants were soldiers in your mother’s army. Not that I needed them. Raising them has cost me, but I did it to instill fear into the hearts of their living comrades. It’s a pity I failed to bend the will of your mother this way.

Go to the stables. They’re empty. What use do I have for horses? I fed their flesh to my servants. Don’t misunderstand me, Princess, the practice of a person who eats human flesh, or the behavior of an animal that eats others of its kind is neither entertainment nor perversion. It’s a need. Your mother should have known this, and if she had, she would’ve been even more confident of her victory. You see, these fortifications are thinly manned and this keep is just a coffin made of stone–home to a few starving corpses stirring on threads that get thinner and thinner from hunger and rot.

What shards of memories are flashing in your mind? This face you remember with a lover’s affection, can it belong to the redhead offering her blood to the font my hands are plunged in? I’m aware of the rumors regarding your tastes, everyone is; could it be that lust is still smoldering in the cinders of your soul? Or is she a cousin much closer to you than I imagined?

It’s none of my business. Erase her from your memory. I am you and you are I. For as long as I bid. Get past the carcasses in the stables, piles of rotten flesh stored for cannibalism or raising. You should consider yourself lucky that I spared you from the sense of smell; that is, if a scrap of your consciousness still lingers in your brain. The stable’s stench is intolerable, even for someone like me. Move to the far wall, open the hatch and descend through the stairs downward where your feet will step on cobblestone full of dirt. If you could breathe, the wind in the caverns would be a relief, as it blows striving to escape from the foulness of what lies over the ground. Grope your way through, turn, left, left, right, left, right, and now straight ahead.

Time passes and the blood of your relatives dries up fast. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I despise that spell, but it’s the truth. I hate to desecrate a soul. My pawns are nothing more than rotten flesh, soil, earth, and a simple cantrip to move them. But you–you’re much more than that. There’s a will hidden inside you. A will enslaved to my own. Forgive me, but I am you and you are I. For as long as I bid.

Now climb up those steep steps. Be careful. A fall would cost us some of your relatives’ blood, I have no use for your body torn in two. Get out of the plane tree’s hollow, none can imagine where it leads. The wind is swirling, blowing drizzle on the muddy earth, on the walls of my keep, on the tents of your mother’s camp–on you. Tread swiftly, you feel no cold. Look at those guards staring at the sudden storm. They wonder if it’s a product of my sorcery; and it is, only it’s not a spell of its own, but rather a side effect of your raising.

Now lower your cloak’s hood. Your words are mine: It’s me, soldiers.

They rub their eyes. One of them takes his helmet off to see better. Rain foams on his bald head, over the remains of his gray hair. They look at each other and raise hands; not to protect themselves with their spears, but to pray to their god. Their bunched fingers travel to their brows, their chests, their bellies; an ancient gesture of prevention, still common among superstitious folk. They stand dazed and speechless; still bodies supported by quaking knees.

I give power to your tongue once more: What are you staring at, soldiers? I escaped our enemies. Now move. Take me to my mother.

And the first one does move. He stumbles at the first step, he drops his spear in the mud, but he picks it up and keeps walking. Follow him. Every now and then he turns around and every glance he steals he sends his fingers on a new journey from his forehead to his chest to his belly.

The camp is sleepy at this time of the night; dark tents and tents that glow and tents that whisper. Abandoned campfires, wet coals, some are still smoking. Distant neighs, a scops owl hoots, a dog barks; and the guard in front of you stumbles again. He curses at the dog and it drags its tail in the shadows, whimpering. You see, Princess, a dog’s sight might be poor, but it recognizes the smell of death.

Now the journey of the guard’s fingers is unconcealed and bold, as if his secret gestures weren’t enough to save him. And they’re not. If I wished for his death he’d be gone already. But it’s not his that I send you for.

At last, stop in front of this tent. It’s larger than the rest but not quite large enough, not a Queen’s tent, maybe a Princess’s. I’m not sure and I can’t afford to betray my ignorance. The guard holds the flaps for you.

Go inside, your highness. The queen will visit you soon.

Is this a trap? Why didn’t he take you to her tent? I can’t insist, don’t just stand there–get in.

The flaps rustle as they close behind you. Candles burn inside the tent, as if someone is waiting for you. They illuminate thick carpets, lavish silverware on a table with lion legs and a bed with a silhouette that stirs on silk sheets, damp from a fluid dark and thick.

Get close to the bed. Pale skin, thin straight limbs and a body full of bones, molded in fresh adolescence. It’s sloshing in the wet sheets, in an ichor so familiar; the same ichor that holds your soul shackled to my will. I am you and you are I. For as long as I bid. Touch the bony shoulder, turn this head around.

The redhead slave–no! She’s just a flash of memory; this head doesn’t belong to a woman but to a blonde boy lying on the bed.

What kind of wicked god has put up this farce?

I try to turn my gaze–your gaze–away from my son, but his eyelashes flutter and I can hear his weak breath, once, twice, three times; like drops from a cracked roof, after a storm passes and leaves you wondering when this lull will end, but you’ve no idea, because you see a horrible wound on his belly, and that’s the reason for his pale skin and the blood on the silk.

A crack of thunder shakes me up. Despite the wailing of the storm I can hear voices, strides closing in. This turmoil can’t be the guards escorting their Queen to her daughter.

They’re coming for you, my undead puppet. How did they know? I’ve never cast such a powerful spell. Maybe they think it’s similar to the crude, mass raising of my servants. Maybe they think that I don’t control you or that you’re just an emissary; I don’t know, and they don’t know as well, but what they do know in their ignorance is enough to destroy my scheme. I’d grant them your corpse, I’d even award your Queen of a mother with the gift of hearing your voice, but now it’s impossible. I have one more task for you, Princess. Even if, with the failure of this plan, my chances of surviving the siege for long are slim, I shall greet the dawn in the company of my son.

It’s an unfair exchange but you can do nothing else other than accept it. Bring back my son alive and I’ll grant you a glimpse of your dead cousin.

Pick him up and…

Pick him up, I said! Stop lagging, erase the redhead’s face from your mind. I am you and you are I. For as long as I bid. Throw this heavy cloak away, you don’t need it anymore. Pick my son up and rush to the tent’s side, unsheathe the poisonous dagger–the one I prepared for your mother–tear the cloth and get out. This state of unlife hasn’t taken away your strength and my son is as light as a dying sparrow. Run. Now that you’re no longer under the tent’s canopy and the drumming of the raindrops upon it, the storm doesn’t sound as fierce. Silence is only broken by the sloshing of your feet in the mud and a voice: the bitch is gone! And then: there!

Now they’re on your track. I guess their aim is to discover the entrance to my keep. Let them hope. Keep running. You can release your memory to wander wherever you please, you can imagine the redhead’s face if you wish, as long as you bring back my son. Don’t let the ditches stop you. Jump over the puddles, cross the trenches. I am you and you are I. For as long as I bid.

Come to the plane tree and rush to its cavity–wait! Wait for the lightning that reveals your path to die out. Edges protrude from the outlines of your pursuers: swords, helmets, shields, spears and all the eye can’t see: fear, hatred, horror. IT all mixes with their yearning to find the entrance. Now, in the darkness, get in. The roar of the storm and the soldiers’ cries cease as you descend the steep steps–be careful, don’t let go of my son. Only the hollow echoes of your footsteps remain in these caverns.

And my enemies’ strides. They got in after all. Fools; do they really think that they can invade my keep with this simple plot? Maybe your mother has gotten away from your poisonous blade, but I know some tricks as well. This castle will not fall tonight. The one thing that’s important is my son.

Tread slower now and hold on to the rough walls. Can you feel the earthquake? Can you hear the rumble? The fools who dared to follow you are buried under the now-collapsed entrance to my caverns.

My treasured son… So pale, tortured, drained of life. His hands tremble. Caress him, don’t let him fall, hug him tightly, speak to him:

Take it easy, child. I’ll get you to your father, your agony is over.

Now keep running, fast. Climb the stairs, get out of the caverns, into the stable, and then to the mute courtyard of my keep. Nothing has changed except for the rain’s weariness. None of my soldiers wonder about the earthquake. None will ask.

Time passes by, the prisoners’ blood still flows. It boils in the font, crimson bubbles burst and plash on the walls, on the prisoners, on my face. Soon the blood in the font will dry up and your hands will become cold and hard and dead. Bring me my son and maybe I’ll let you perish side by side with your cousin.

I’ll survive–I must. Me and my son. I’ll find a way to take revenge. In the name of the dead, your mother will pay for this, even if I just lost my biggest opportunity with your return to my laboratory. Here, where the redhead’s sight draws you and rekindles your mind; her blood is still flowing. Yes, I’ll let you two die together. That’s my gift to you, Princess, for your services. Your dying cousin for my living son. It’s an unfair exchange, I know, but it’s the best I can offer.

Welcome, Princess; stop gazing at her. Her candle is the last one burning; she’s the last of the nine prisoners still alive and her heartbeat is slowing down. Put my son down and then…

Don’t throw him down! Obey my command, in just a few breaths this spell will end and I’ll be free from this font, stop!

What kind of farce is this? Don’t get close to the redhead! You’re mine, Princess, tied to my will. Obey me, hear my words… I am you and you are I, for as long as I bid!

Let it be. Disobey if you must, it makes no difference. I’ll let you spend your last moments by her side. I’ll wait for the sake of my son that you dropped with such cruelty. Maybe this way, this exchange will feel fairer to–

Oh, in the name of the dead, put the dagger back in its sheath! What are you doing? Get away, how dare you raise the blade to me? I am you and you–

No! No!

There you are. What did you gain by stabbing me? Sacrificing your cousin was a mistake, but, alas, how could I imagine that you were in love with her, Princess?

Let it be. Now all I can offer you is a fairer exchange. Now that your rage has exhausted itself and my spell is strong upon you, let’s just share these last moments. Let your mind follow my will and I won’t disappoint you. Don’t resist. If I die now, you’ll die too, and then both our deaths will be in vain.

Bring me my son. None in this room has much time left, neither him nor I, nor you nor the redhead. Thank you, Princess. Put him down here, yes, under my feet, like this. I don’t know if he can hear, but anyway, your words are mine:

My poor boy–what can I say–my poor boy… Please forgive me, I did everything I could to exchange prisoners, but… I had no idea… I had no idea that you were alive… Forgive me, I’m begging you… I’ll see you in a while, I promise.

And now you can go to your cousin, Princess. The poison from your blade numbs my brain, Princess. But before I let this darkness consume me, I’ll pay off my debt to you. I am you and you are I. And I’ll be what you want me to be: you.

Her candle’s flame is trembling. Touch her face. Caress her hair. There, she opens her eyes. You see, she held her last gaze for you. The blood on the font evaporates. Kiss her soft lips–they’re cold, like yours, even if you can’t feel it. And let the last words belong to you. This is my gift; my words are yours: it’s me, love. Don’t be afraid. Close your eyes. I’ll see you soon.