Chương 3: Chapter 2 – Principles

Cinder swaggered in, Pike as ever dogging his heels like a musclebound shadow. The men were well known in the Gutters. Enforcers employed by Tallow, the de facto mayor of the Gutters, though he was more crime lord than politician. There were as many gangs in the Gutters as there were bodies in the canals, but Tallow's was the largest, the meanest, and the best equipped.

Tallow made it a point to pressgang almost every Stained in the Gutters into his service, either as gang members directly or else tied up in contracts to tether their businesses to his own. Cinder was one such specimen, albeit one who'd signed up eagerly. Like all Stained, he bore a mark of his Plane, his body reflecting the Stain on his soul. Angry red skin covered the lower right of his face, beginning just below his eye and running down the side of his neck.

The waxy burn scar extended beneath his expensive silk shirt. Early in his career, someone had made the mistake of accusing Cinder of trying to pass off a regular burn scar as a Stain. Cinder had burned the man alive. No one had doubted him since. These days, the man was a Caller, the second tier a Planetouched could achieve. Where a mere Stained could only manipulate the things their Plane held dominion over, a Caller could store Fera inside their soul and use it to conjure power from the Planes themselves.

Pike closed the door behind them. Face like a half-peeled potato; equal parts lumpy, pale, and dirty. The man rarely said much. He usually just laughed when Cinder spoke and smashed whatever Cinder pointed him at. His presence did not bode well. Worse still, he slipped a set of knuckledusters on as he shuffled up behind his partner. The fact that he struggled to fit his sausage fingers through the rings only added to his menace.

Rings shaped from metal set into a chunk of stone that drew the eye like a mountain vista. The Implement had weight, instantly recognisable by the pressure it exerted on the room. Fissures like dried, cracked earth ran up his bare arms, the cost of wielding magic without a Stain.

"Smart man like yourself, Preacher, I just know you wouldn't be sendin' your darlin' son here round to buy from a business that's run afoul o' Tallow himself," Cinder smiled. The burned side of his mouth didn't quite move right. Passage's palms itched at the implied threat. His fingers twitched, eager to curl into fists. Bracken looked at him, madness and glory flashing behind his eyes. Passage knew that look. Knew exactly what Bracken was thinking.

Cinder was a monster, and Pike, armed with that Implement, would be nearly as bad himself. But the world was filled with stories of monster slayers, and while Callers might be powerful, they were still mortal men. They could jump them. Go on the attack while Cinder was still swaggering about, making a show of his arrogance and giving whatever speech he'd practiced on the walk over. They could do it. They could take them.

Harrow's hand fell heavily on Passage's shoulder, squeezing in a way that said the preacher too knew what madness lived in the minds of boys who dreamed of glory. Passage looked to his father and his father shook his head, pushing him and Bracken back. Harrow put himself between them and the thugs.

"You'll leave my son and his friend out of this, Cinder. Make your threats, grandstand all you like, and then be gone. But leave the boys out of it." Harrow wasn't Stained either, but there was enough stone in his voice and iron in his spine to call on Durnheim. The man was immovable, resolute as a cliff face.

"Harrow," Cinder scoffed.

"You don't fuckin' get it, do you? You don't get to tell me or anyone else what to do. We tell you. Just like we told Jasper. Man can go back to sellin' bread when he and his boy learn the proper respect. His son's been Stained by Seldun. Tallow's got work for a talent like that. But until Jasper's boy signs on, no one is buying so much as a single bloody sweetroll from the man." Seldun, the elemental Plane of water.

It was always close in Greymere, the veil made a little thinner by virtue of the lake and all the canals. Still, it took more than a thin veil to produce a Stained and anyone with talent would quickly be snapped up by Glasshill. There were any number of jobs that could make good use of an apprentice with Seldun's magic.

"Tallow will have to make his peace with it. Jasper's son doesn't want to work for him, and I'll not let you lot starve an innocent family just so you can bully the boy into a life of thuggery."

"No, Harrow. I think perhaps you've been ringin' that bell of yours too often. Can't tell if it's makin' you deaf or just too stubborn to understand, so perhaps we ought to educate some. What do you think, Pike?" Pike grunted an affirmative. Stepping around to flank Harrow. The preacher took a step back, trying to keep both thugs in his line of sight. Passage glanced again at Bracken, the smaller boy like a cat ready to pounce, his eyes watching Pike, hands flexing at his sides.

Passage breathed deep, shuffling a few steps backwards towards the stone bell. Passage squared his shoulders, heat burning up his neck, ready to meet violence with violence. Though a lifetime of lessons at Harrow's knee demanded he be calm, reason spoke in a voice far quieter than Cinder's sneering threats. The Durnheim bell was in arm's reach. Its magic would make him strong. Might balance the odds. He could ring it. He wanted to ring it. Harrow, as ever, was canny to his son's ideas.

He glanced over his shoulder and fixed Passage with a heavy glare. No, it said. Do not escalate. Do not engage. He shook his head, ever so subtly. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Don't look at him, Harrow. Look at me," Cinder stepped in and slapped Harrow across the face. Harrow snapped his attention back to the Caller, muscles bunching in his back. He was not as big as his son, but nor was Harrow a small man. Still, his hands remained open and at his sides. Passage's own cheeks stung with heat as if he'd born the slap himself.

"You glarin' at me, preacher? Hmm? Got a problem with how I'm talkin' to you?" Cinder gripped Harrow's jaw, squeezing his cheeks. Harrow remained silent. Cinder slapped him again. Then two more times. Passage dug nails into his palms, eyes fixed on Cinder's hands, as good as loaded pistols pressed against Harrow's face.

"I asked you a fuckin' question, preacher. Do you have a problem?" Flames flickered into life in Cinder's off hand, held casually out at his side. He cradled them in his palm, dancing an inch above his skin. Harrow didn't look down and he didn't back away. He stood with his back straight and looked at the thug before him like he was speaking to a disobedient child. No anger, no malice, just calm disappointment.

"The world has always had a problem with men like you, Cinder. I'm afraid that I am no exception." Pike stepped in from the side. He moved fast, faster than Passage would've expected from the man's bulk. He sank a heavy punch into Harrow's flank and despite all his strength, the preacher folded in half wheezing. Pike followed up with a kick to the back of Harrow's legs, bringing the man to his knees.

Passage turned towards the bell, reached out to ring it, his heart hammering through his skull, knuckles prickling with an urgent need to hit something. Bracken was already halfway towards Harrow before his knees hit the ground, unarmed, unthinking, but brave and furious in equal measure.

"Stop!" Harrow yelled, breathless and gasping. His head was turned towards the boys. Cinder had a fistful of Harrow's hair and paused a moment himself before he realised Harrow wasn't addressing him or Pike. He just didn't want Passage and Bracken involved. Cinder's eyes fell on the bell. His gaze dragged lazily over Passage and Bracken, seeing in an instant what they'd intended to do and looking summarily unimpressed.

"Do it, kids. Come on. Give me the excuse," the flames burned brighter in his palm. He seemed to mean it, something frenzied in his voice, a giddy eagerness to let loose his magic and burn the temple down around them.

"You are a coward, Cinder. Threatening children and an unarmed man. How mighty you must feel." Harrow managed to keep a sense of dignity in his voice even as he struggled to feed air into his lungs. Pike rewarded the remark with another kick to the guts. Passage glared, held in check only by the desperation in his father's expression. Desperation not for himself, but for the safety of his son. Would he have fought back if Passage and Bracken hadn't been around?

The five of them stood in a stalemate for several long seconds. Cinder quickly grew bored and rolled his eyes, letting the flame go out. He gestured Pike towards the pews, and the thug went to work eagerly. Pike waddled towards the wooden benches, paused before the first row, and drove punch down into the wood. The stone Implement made Pike ungodly strong and the pew shattered on impact, breaking apart as easily as a rotten log beneath an axe. Passage went cold at the sight.

Those benches were made of thick, sturdy wood. They did not so much as creak with ten souls sitting upon each of them. The first was reduced to kindling in seconds. Those stone knuckles would have made a bloody pulp of himself and Bracken. Pike must have been using only a fraction of his strength in the blows he delivered to Harrow.

"I don't want to have to come back here, Harrow. If I do, we might have to break something that means more to you than a couple o' chairs. You understand?" He delivered another casual slap across Harrow's face, forcing his head back and chin up with the fist knotted through the preacher's hair. Harrow hesitated a moment longer. The pause was punctuated by a fourth pew being splintered. He gave a tight nod. Cinder smirked, satisfied with himself. He looked to Passage and Bracken, glorying in his petty victory.

Passage couldn't help the snarl that curled his lips, the way his brow furrowed, and his eyes imagined Cinder reduced to bloodied ruin. He'd heard it said that fear was the voice of wisdom. No one had ever accused Passage of being wise. Cinder saw his glare, and the bastard laughed.

"Don't get any stupid ideas, boy. Tallow gets annoyed when we kill kids. Reckons it gives us all a bad reputation." He gave Harrow one final look, hocked a wad of phlegm from his throat and spit in Harrow's face. Cinder let go of his hair and made to leave but paused a step away. Turning back, he reached into Harrow's robes and took the pouch he'd offered Passage to buy out Jasper's supply.

Harrow didn't stop him, he just remained there on his knees, head down as Cinder clicked for Pike to follow and the pair of them swaggered out the door. Slowly, Harrow struggled to his feet, cradling an arm to his injured gut. Both Passage and Bracken rushed to his side, helping the man to stand.

"Thank you," he grunted, jerking his chin towards the Durnheim altar and the bell. They escorted him towards it, one shuffling step at a time. When they reached it, he rang the bell three times, each resounding din layering over the one before as the sound filled the hall. It rumbled through Passage's skeleton, the sensation heady and powerful, the effect far greater than from the single chime Harrow usually rang at the end of his sermons. Passage's bones transmuted to steel, his muscles to living stone.

His temper stilled, his rage forgotten. He rolled his shoulders, the movement feeling like the tremor of an earthquake carrying fell power through the mountain of his body. The chime faded, and the feeling blunted but did not immediately fade. He saw his own awe reflected in Bracken's face, the smaller boy looking almost serene with his eyes closed and head tilted back.

"Why didn't you let me ring the bell?" Passage asked, his voice quiet and gravelly.

"It would have been wrong, son. Ulthrek's power is not meant for fighting, and to call on Durnheim risks making grudges out of anger. We do not use it so that we can keep standing. We use it to stand back up after we fall." Passage wanted desperately to agree with those words, to accept the calm certainty with which his father said them. But as Harrow wiped the spit from his face, his skin still pink with Cinder's handprint, Passage realised he could not.

Bracken looked at him and nodded, no words needing to be exchanged. Harrow had been right before. The boys would make their own mistakes.