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  The House of Seven Smiles

  The Gate Cycle 0.5

  Never venture far from the Mire’s roots.

  It was the mantra of her childhood. The world was a dangerous place, even for the witches of the Mire. The Above squatted at their borders, just beyond the warded cypress roots and poisonous vines, waiting with open jaws to snap up a wandering child.

  “The Snatchers will scoop up a little gem like you,” said Mama Fiend, stalking around the bed, fingers curled in imaginary claws. Her hair fell forward, obscuring her features like a curtain of flame colored moss. The little girl giggled, pulling the blanket to her chin. “They’ll grab you!” Her mother ducked in, tickling her ribs. Peals of laughter absorbed in the gnarled walls of their living home.

  “Then what happens?” said the little girl, trying to catch her breath. The humor drained from Mama Fiend’s eyes. She sat on the bed, tugging on her daughter’s fiery curls.

  “They take you away, spirit you up the rivers, between the mountains. Far, far, to the north, to Avergard.”

  The name made her daughter’s eyes widen. The Snatchers were the boogeymen and Avergard was their home.

  A smile crept back into Mama Fiend’s tiger bright eyes. “Go to sleep, Safiya. The roots hide us. The wards protect us. Mama shall keep you safe.”

  The witches took many precautions, the magic ran thick in their veins, but even the best wards could fail.

  ***

  No matter how benign a witch’s abilities, magic complicated the natural. It made childbirth as dangerous as wrestling a pyguara, the vicious reptilian felines that hunted in the swamp. Mama Fiend was a skilled midwife, her babies lived more often than then didn’t. A frantic knock at the door was not uncommon, and Mama Fiend knew Tilda was expecting twins.

  “Seraphine! Quick, it’s bad!” The young man on their step was covered in sweat and blood. One look at him spurred her mother into action, grabbing her emergency satchel.

  “Can I come Mama? I could help,” said Safiya. She’d aided her mother before, she could pull a mother’s pain away, like a thorn embedded in the skin. She wasn’t as skilled or precise as Mama Fiend but she provided an extra set of hands.

  Her mother looked to the young man, who gave a slight shake of his head. “Not this time, dear. Too dangerous. I’ll send Gran to peek in on you.” She planted a kiss on Safiya’s cheek, trailing her fingers along her daughter’s arm in a lingering touch. Safiya laid back against her pillow with a sigh, sinking into peaceful sleep.

  She woke to screams.

  Had Tilda lost her babies? No, these screams were sharp edged, threaded with panic and fear. The air tasted like iron and river mud. Safiya scrambled from the bed just as a body fell through the doorway. She froze as Gran’s cloudy eyes met hers. Dark blood overflowed from the old woman’s lips, seeping into the cracks of her ancient face. Her hand reached for Safiya, as choking sounds snagged in her crushed throat. The hand fell and went still.

  Safiya shuddered, the backwash of death slamming into her. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she dashed for the door, edging around Gran’s corpse.

  Violence clung to the Mire, steeped deep in the roots.

  The metallic scent clotted the air, mixed with the fetid smell of decaying plant matter, bitter to the taste. Intermittent screams and bellows rang out into the night, the echo of pain, and the short, sudden silence of the fallen. Safiya clutched at the door, staring out into the Mire. Death washed over her, familiar death, strange death, the death of her neighbors and the invaders they took down with them. The witches fought and fell around her, battling brutish misshapen creatures straight from her nightmares. The Snatchers.

  How? How had they broken the wards?

  There was smoke without fire, curling inward and tinged red. It flowed toward a boiling column, a concentrated storm in the center of her village. Sparks of lighting lit a figure in its center, hands raised, fingers spread. Safiya’s gaze fixed on him. The smoke seemed to spew from his hands until she saw the mouths, like open wounds, lined with conical teeth and embedded in his palms. They winked open and closed, inhaling the sparking smoke, the magic. He must have eaten through the wards.

  Safiya caught her breath as Mama Fiend appeared behind him in the writhing storm, a vengeful wraith. She made a grasping gesture at his back and pulled on the air. His bones jettisoned from his flesh. The man never had the chance to scream.

  The magic dispersed, but the wards guttered, weak and broken, the damage done. Her mother staggered towards their home. She never saw the Snatcher’s clubbed fist descending toward her skull. Safiya screamed into the night, screamed and screamed, trying to banish the sounds of cracking bone. She screamed until the Snatchers smothered her cries with a bag over her head.

  ***

  Time means nothing to ghosts. Safiya existed in a fugue state, her senses fuzzed out to the world. She drifted in the veil between worlds, searching for the comfort of her mother’s kisses, of the tug on her curls, only to feel the phantom touches on the edge of dreams. It was maddening. She wanted to sink into delirium and never return, but her body refused to let go.

  There was the rocking sensation, near constant, though in the dark confines of her cage, the Snatchers could have traveled by land or river, she was none the wiser. Bruising fingers forced watery gruel down her throat from time to time, a sustenance that kept her barely alive and weak as a newborn. Safiya knew it was a calculated process. The Snatchers wanted her market ready. In the Mire there were a few haggard witches who’d escaped Avergard. They told their stories from scarred lips in full detail, anything to grind the lesson into the young ones. To never leave the safety of the wards.

  The pain gripped her fresh, squeezing her heart. The lesson meant nothing, not when the Snatchers brought monsters who ate through all their protections. The hurt wouldn’t let her go, wrapping her so tight she gasped for air. In her mind’s eye, she saw the last moment of Mama Fiend’s life. She cried, for the first time in days, weeks, who knew how long, the tears flowed thick and fast, pooling beneath her cheek.

  “There you are at last,” said a low voice.

  Safiya startled, her vision slowly returning to focus. She lay in her cage. The Snatchers fed her, but nothing else, leaving her to stew in her own filth. Beneath the stink, sores gnawed at her skin, along her side. Her body baked, the fever of an infection blazing through her flesh. Safiya took the registry of her sorry state and slid her gaze to the speaker.

  The back of the cage was exposed to the outside. The Snatchers’ caravan bounced along a rough hewn road in the low afternoon sun. The slanted light spilled over the dark mane of the rider behind her, carving shadowy crags on his face. His hair spilled to his shoulders, entangling with a beard that framed his mouth and draped to the cravat of his fine suit. A genteel wild-man. The angle hurt to twist and turn her weakened neck to look at him, the pain forgotten once their eyes locked. Deep blue, the exact shade of cobalt. No warmth exuded from their depths, but they held an intensity that raked over her feverish skin. She closed her eyes and shuddered.

  The interest was clear. Safiya already had a buyer.

  ***

  The Snatchers halted a mile from the city. She could see the metallic spires flashing in the dying sunlight, glinting through clouds of smog belched from enormous columnar smokestacks. The city itself was a sprawling mass, spreading out like a dark growth, the clusters of tall buildings giving way to low squat buildings and individual dwellings. Slums and campsites inhabited the borders of the city to glean what scraps could be found. There were no walls, no wards, nothing to protect them from the dangers of the Above.

  Safiya’s cage opened. The
Snatcher handled her as if she were carved from glass. She was dipped into cool sweet smelling water that made her sores sting. They scrubbed until a ruddy glow returned to her skin. An earthy paste was smeared on her wounds, the familiar scent of home raised a stinging heat behind her eyes. She recognized the healing herbs, her mother’s voice whispering their names in her ear. Bandaged and redressed in a fine mesh tunic, she waited, refusing to let her mind conjure what would happen next.

  The Snatchers spoke to the man, their misshapen mouths made the speech garbled but recognizable as they demanded a high sum for the trouble of cleaning her before reaching the market. The gentleman said nothing, watching her as she watched him. The steed he rode in on scratched the ground behind him, making the Snatchers jump. Like most creatures of the Above, it was an amalgamation of animals that once were; fine feathers coated its body, ruffled at the sharp talons that dug into the earth. Forward facing eyes marked it a meat eater, though the pupils were wide, somewhat avian, a theme that continued to its wickedly curved beak. It fluffed itself up whenever someone got too close, hissing and spitting.

  The man hadn’t looked away from her once. She continued to study him from the corner of her eye. Safiya never saw such fine clothing before. It covered every inch of him from the neck down, including a pair of velvety leather gloves. The whole outfit felt wrong.

  The healing paste broke her fever, but the humid breath of summer still licked the air, ignoring the oncoming night. The man’s clothing was heavy, encompassing, and not a drop of sweat dotted his brow.

  A smile curled his lips, as if he could see the path of her thoughts. The smile kept going, beyond the corners of his lips, following a near hidden seam above his beard. It ran the entire length of his jaw line. The smile vanished beneath her stare. Fear prickled along her spine. What was he? What would happen when he opened such a mouth?

  He passed a pouch of coins to the speaking Snatcher, not arguing whatever price they set for her.

  “Come,” he said. She saw now, in the way his lips shaped the words. The gentleman carefully concealed the true size of his mouth. Safiya swallowed, preferring to join him of her own accord rather than be dragged to him by her captors. He watched her limping progress until she was close enough and lifted her off the ground.

  He carried her to his mount, gently placing her on its back and sliding effortlessly up behind her.

  It was hard to remain stiff and terrified as they rode into Avergard. The city was simply too wondrous to remain aloof. As the night took hold, it came to life. The buzz of electric lights filled the air, dazzling her after a lifetime spent in candlelight. She could feel the hum of it against her skin as they trotted down the cobbled road, the steed’s claws clicking over the stones. Merchants crowded the streets, setting up stalls for a night market. Safiya’s eyes darted around, catching glimpses of exotic wares on worn wooden tables. Women watched her with glittering black eyes, their mouths hidden behind veils as something large and coiled shifted beneath their dresses. They perched at the yawning dark entrances between the roadways. Safiya looked away from their hungry stares unconsciously pressing herself against the gentleman.

  “They won’t hurt you,” he said, in the same measured tones, “Not while I’m here.”

  The pall of magic thickened the further they drew into the city, the crowds thinning as they entered a rich residential area. Plants grew in small verdant jungles between enormous dwellings of brick and steel. There were boundaries set between properties, some invisible to the eye, but she could sense them. The cobbles gave way to gravel, pebbles ruffling beneath the steed’s feet as the gentleman turned down a lane. Silvery white stones cut a path through the tree lined road, branches so heavy with purple blossoms they appeared to bow in subservience as they passed. A floral fragrance permeated everything and soothed her nerves despite the imposing dwelling they approached.

  “Welcome to the House of Seven Smiles,” said the gentleman.

  ***

  The House of Seven Smiles was the home of Lord Heinrich Wallach.

  Safiya learned this a few days later, long after the lord himself handed her to his modest cadre of servants. She was given over to the specific care of Cherise, a striking woman despite her muted servant’s garb. Vapor trailed off her frame when she moved, blurring her features except for her kohl lined eyes. Their color was indeterminate as it never remained the same for long. Aside from her and now Safiya, there were half a dozen men and women who cared for the massive property, including Lord Wallach’s personal butler, Lenin, a gloomy man with skin like whorled tree bark.

  “The Lord requires his privacy,” explained Cherise as she taught Safiya her new duties. “There are few he entrusts with his secrets.”

  “What secrets?” It couldn’t be his odd mouth. Though he kept it subtle, it was an obvious attribute.

  “You shall see,” said Cherise, a secretive smile on her hazy lips.

  The House of Seven Smiles was not the worst destination she could imagine. The witches of the Mire told her of the many fates one could expect at the hands of the Avergard market. To be sold as chattel or a whore. Or worse, more grisly ends. A servant in a lord’s house was a far better fate than she could have hoped for.

  It was possible she would live long enough to track down the Snatchers who captured her and slaughter them one by one. At the very least, Safiya promised she would find a way to end the one that took her mother from her. There was no worry of losing him. The scent of her mother’s death clung to him. She would always find him no matter how many trips he took to and from the city. He would carry the mark of her mother’s blood to the day he died.

  Until she had the strength to do so, she fell into the routine of the Lord’s home, aiding Cherise with clipping and gathering herbs from the grounds to make medicines and remedies.

  She rarely saw the Lord since their arrival, wondering if she’d imagined the intensity of his stare. Why had he gone out of his way to purchase an overpriced servant girl? It was a small mystery that niggled the back of her thoughts from time to time, but she didn’t regret the small slice of freedom Lord Wallach’s servants possessed.

  When the duties of the day ended, the night was theirs.

  A few attended the night markets, especially Cherise, who possessed her own safety net, turning into intangible fog whenever danger reared its head. The others occupied themselves with cards or reading. Lord Wallach possessed a fortune’s worth of manuscripts from before the Fall and generously offered access to all under his roof. Safiya had read a few of these texts, glimpsing a world that once existed untainted by magic. More often, she spent her nights in the gardens. Amid the lush blooms and the smell of damp earth, she felt the touch of home.

  Alone, between the softly swaying plants, she practiced her mother’s magic. Mama Fiend taught her many things, the correct herbs to heal wounds and cure sickness, how to draw out memories and dreams from a person’s mind, how to remove pain and how to give it. Witches dealt in the practical and in the abstract, honing their will with the precision of a knife’s edge. The best witches could turn a person inside out with their thoughts alone. It was how Mama Fiend ripped the magic eater’s bones from his body.

  Safiya stood in a bed of hangman’s blossoms, pinching the air to draw a petal to her at a time. It took all her concentration to pluck them whole without a tear, from the heart of the flower. They floated down to cover her feet in umber droplets.

  “Your technique is sound but this method will not give you what you desire.”

  The flower exploded into shreds. Safiya whirled around to face Lord Wallach.

  For a moment she stood mute, watching, and waiting for him to strike. The silence began to stretch, winding tension between them until the Lord sighed. “You still fear me?”

  “I don’t know what you want,” said Safiya.

  “Want?” Wallach circled around her, gripping his own wrists tight behind his back. “What if I wanted nothing?” />
  “Everybody wants something,” she retorted, folding her own arms to hide their tremble. Her fear bothered him, but she couldn’t banish it. The man was danger incarnate.

  Wallach paused at her words, considering them. He forgot himself for a moment, his mouth unhinging past his lips as he thought.

  “Why do they call it the House of Seven Smiles?” Safiya stuttered the words out to hide the chills running through her. His mouth held far too many teeth. It snapped shut as he caught himself.

  “That is a conversation for another night,” he said, turning to leave. Her fear saddened him. The mystery of it drew her, her unease succumbing to her curiosity.

  “The other servants fear you,” she whispered. “and love you.” He halted, his back to her, glancing over his shoulder. Safiya stood straighter, reading the regrets in his dark blue eyes. “You can’t vanquish their instincts, my Lord, but your people are loyal.” When he didn’t move she continued. “What method do you recommend?”

  A smile flashed along the seam of his jaw. Safiya didn’t shudder at the sight of it. It was a start.

  ***

  Lord Wallach taught her how to draw the nectar from a flower. He taught her how to circle the fluid around her and draw runes of power in the air. How to make it boil until the flower burst into flames. How to freeze the nectar until the bloom shattered. Night after night, he taught her mastery of her will, until one night, months after her arrival, he stood in front of her.

  “You’re ready to practice these methods on flesh.”

  Safiya froze. The nectar she’d drawn shivered in the air and fell to the dirt. Her hands trembled at the thought of committing such practices on an innocent living creature. Could she do so?

  In answer to the morbidity of her thoughts, a jewel toned bird lit on her shoulder, fluttering from the nearby trees. The birds started arriving her third week at the House. Cherise told her their presence was unusual, since most animals avoided the House of Seven Smiles. Now they flocked in the garden nightly, their bright eyes watching as she trained. Lord Wallach never once remarked on their presence until he caught the expression on her face.