Maelstrom: One Hundred Words
Because they seemed like an interesting series of challenges, those little one-word things, I thought I'd start trying to match the prompts in this excellent post by oxfordgirl. It's an interesting job. Further ideas to go in the comments. A hundred words each; seven so far.
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Bailiff
It wasn't a market day on the al-Jhammad road, and the shouting that drifted down it was not the normal marketplace fare. White-hot, it left a taste of blood on the air.
Ibrahim grinned and grabbed Marcus to cut through the cruel crowds to the source. They had to see. There would be a fight soon, and everyone knew it but the man who was to start it. He thought he had nothing left to lose; in fact, his temper and his liberty were shortly to follow.
They weren't allowed to talk about uncle Shushu after he punched the Scribesman.
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Illness
When her youngest was five, her husband went to go and be with the Gods, and that was what she said because otherwise the words had to cut their way out of trembling lips. She knew he would ask around, that he would talk to the Imams - he was running off to find him now at market, thinking he'd seen him at temple, checking his uncles' houses. The problem was, he listened intently, but he had no way to understand.
When he asked where Heaven was and if they could go there at Eid, she broke down at last.
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Clothing
He thinks she thinks he hasn't noticed. She's always kept her tail so well-hidden before, and now he's pretty sure she thinks he hasn't noticed. If she knows he knows, she's keeping a very straight face. But then, that's what Mojay does. Straight face, come hell or high water, under neat headscarf, amongst tidy robes. Calm and quiet. Like deep water, undoubtedly turbulent beneath - but she could be hiding bright green spots under that immovable headscarf, and he'd never know.
Armoured in her modest robes, she speaks no louder than she needs to and doesn't rock the boat.
Yet.
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Colours
When they were teenagers, the boys from his street went hunting for colours. They played intricate games wherein who could catch whom was marked by the ribbon they wore, and opinion was that Brown was fucked; although he could get anyone, anyone could get him, so Brown's game was short and violent.
At fourteen, Marcus was getting good at violence.
And so it was that one glorious day, laughing and cheering, he carried the lot home, his own light-brown still tied tight, and vowed never to forget this day.
He forgot it, though, the day he met his brown-furred bride.
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Studying
“Can you at least give me the spelling of your name?” The sergeant wasn't a Scribesman, but he knew that look from the faces of Scribesmen.
Fortunately, though, he knew this one. “Em-Ay-Ar-See-You-Ess.”
The sergeant wasn't fooled. “You can read, can't you, boy?” Ashamed, Marcus' ears flattened instinctively before he could lie. “Fuck me with a bargepole! You can't! Spell your name backwards, you worthless scrawny sister-fucking village idiot!”
Oh, fuck. “Erm...” As the sergeant wound up to really start screaming, Marcus wished, not for the first time, that he'd only studied harder at temple.
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Other Species
He'd found out some years ago that humans weren't the same. That they were lacking something, some capacity, some power. He'd always assumed that was why they were weak, but the New World had... complicated that.
Eventually, the rest fell into place; the woofs were made to fight, the budgies to make, the dragons to hate, the scions to die. All of them to serve the chosen; all of them to serve the strongest souls. Even the deficient wemics of the jungle, to serve the strongest souls.
He didn't really know the foreigners, but he knew what they were for.
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Scars
He felt them best with his eyes closed. Lines in the fur. Irregularity. Stripes over stripes, over white, over orange. Stripes under fingertips; his and hers.
He felt them best with his eyes closed because then the memories had free rein.
On his back, kneeling to be whipped while a Qadi prayed. Over his heart, the low thump of the exploding dickhead. On his side, the flickering shock of talismantic discharge.
He never let anyone's hand too low down his back, unless he was bathing, for then he remembered waking up one morning on campaign and realising something was missing.
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Paladins
He'd heard the name before he came here, but never known what to expect. At first it was dishonoured, bloodied, tainted with rust and black bile. They were Knights, whatever that meant, and elsewhere in history it had meant the ignorant rich on horseback, demanding respect they'd never earned.
The creature Kasadyenka was more horse than rider, and he liked that. But a title like 'Paladin' must be earned, and to earn something, you must choose it. One who has no choice and loves his slavery, the Amusars call 'Mameluk'.
He still has little reason to think well of 'Paladins'.
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Flowers
Sha's hands flicker quickly as she speaks, sewing like a mother does, and with sharp teeth she bites off a thread that has gone through more separate pieces of cloth than any of his garments contain. Conversation pauses while she shows him the little felt flower, and she smiles a little at his surprise.
Her skill is impressive, her attention to detail astonishing, but then, she has spent a lot of time thinking about it.
He wonders whether, if you looked closely enough at the bright new flowers in the deep, dark forest, you'd find filament-thin stitches through their petals.
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Fists
Sometimes, his hands tremble.
When he held the stupid woof down in the shrine, his hands did not tremble. When he tied his keffiyeh for battle, his hands did not tremble. When he watched his funds disappearing off a casino table, even then, his hands did not tremble.
As the responsibilities crowd around him they shut out the stupid anger, the flaring temper and the reckless bravado of the irresponsible disenfranchised, but all that leaves behind is the white-hot core. Nowadays he only makes a fist when he has to, and it is then that his hands tend to tremble.
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Old Age
It is the blessing of the Merchant in the soul of man that he wants to strive, and change, and achieve.
It is the order of the Merchant in the heart of man that he waste no day, that his life should be as long as it can, and that when the Gods call, he go to give account.
It is the curse of the Merchant on the life of man that his body slowly decays, until one day he can no longer strive.
These days he doesn't admit - even to himself - that he wants to grow old.
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Tears
Sometimes, he dreams of a man who is much more than a man. He dreams of quiet conversation under an ancient willow; thanking and being thanked; loving and being loved. He dreams of stroking his eldest daughter's beautiful hair and watching his sons spar, in the capital palace of a holy city that gleams in yellow sandstone, bedecked with a thousand neatly stitched flowers.
He dreams of falling quietly asleep under the willow's half-shade, and thanking the smiling more-than-a-man for everything he allowed him to do.
He wakes up with tears in his eyes, and they are tears of joy.
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Laughter
Night, and Marcus is being demanded outside his tent by something that thinks they are allies, or that they were, once, long ago.
He listens to it, and replies with breathtaking contempt. It wants the fight - but the time for taking it seriously is long since past, and to start the fight now would be just the excuse it wanted. Meeting the bright eye set deep in its colourless face, he carefully considers the move that could start a war, and when he is done, he points and laughs, loudly and obnoxiously.
By the morning, he knows he's won.
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A Dubious Favour
The experts tell him to talk to Dubious, and explain with a smile that it's just a pun.
When he comes back from the conversation, he owes more money than he's ever seen in his life, and those who know say he'll have to take it. It is with a heavy heart that he tells his people what to expect.
Mere months later he is told a figure two-thirds of that, amid warnings and promises, and for all her brusque pragmatism and the feeling that she looks down on him, Jocelyn's favours suddenly seem much less dubious than the alternative.
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Books
Books didn't feature much in Marcus' house when he was growing up. His mother had an almanac of sorts - mostly a disordered collection of recipes and a little simple astrological calendar - but otherwise books existed in another world; the courts of law, the dim shops on Inkers' Row, the Church of Scrolls.
Then, suddenly, books were his life. Books of “paperwork”, which meant repetition; pages the same shape to his eyes, but their content hatefully opaque. So he bit down on his commoner's instincts, sat down with a slave who liked him, and told the poor bastard to write.
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Righteous Fury
There was blood over everything.
To the levied men, the mameluks were seraphim. They were the Soldier's work made flesh. Their deaths were horrifying and enraging at once, and so, when they were committed, they fought with force they didn't know they had.
Oh, they screamed so good. For the deaths of mameluks, for their offence to the Gods, and for every - last - breath they drew, with his thumbs in their eyesockets or his knife carving off their scales, the scions screamed so fucking good.
The day he realised he enjoyed their screams was the day he Renounced his faith.
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Simple Pleasures
The creature doing press-ups at his feet was not a soldier; just a bar-room brawler, about capable with a pistol, but lacking the body to back it up - and so, as one does, she'd come to him.
While she ran, he leant back in the warm sun and watched her circle the college. While she starved, his slave cooked up the good fish. And while she lay at his feet, her biceps screaming at her to stop trying, he fished her cigarettes out of his belt-pouch, lit one up, and blew down into her snarling protests.
Simple, traditional, beautiful bastardry.
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Why I Was Wrong About The Malathians by Marcus al-Tora Aged Probably 28ish
“I think you've cocked up, Fiona. I'm sure we got the same sum off you just before the Eid.”
“Then that-” Down, up. “-must have been-” Down, up. “-the summer payment.”
There is a pause. Down, up. “You know, I'm sure you've got better notes than us.”
“Mmm.” Down, up.
“You've got a chance here to not pay us quite a bit of money.”
“Mmm.” Down, up.
“You're Malathian.” There is a smirk.
The pause this time has a hard edge to it. “Yes, Marcus, I am.”
Down. Up.
“Guess I must've been wrong,” he said, not quite to himself.
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Unmitigated Success
“Marcus? Marcus!” A small voice calls out of the front of the Scholars' tent, slipping under the sounds of the milling mob to knock timidly at his awareness. Is this it, now?
“Congratulations, Marcus. You have six children.” The midwife Hame is washing her hands, her expression tired, businesslike, ready to be annoyed with him if he disappoints her.
“Six?” His jaw drops in astonishment.
“Six,” Neesha chirps.
“Six?” His heart sinks.
“Six, sahib.”
“Six?” He can't quite move.
“Go and see them, Marcus!” Hame barks.
He goes to see them.
Look what we did, Sha. Look what you did.
Flawless.
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When I Feel Like I Am Flying
With a cheeky grin he left the Padre bewildered. Sure of himself, full of himself, and utterly invincible, he glanced through the furless mob. In seconds he had found his target, done his job, and moved on.
As he turned he caught his third target, and halted her to mug her with diplomacy. And if he could find an Amusar jeweller, maybe she could get it set into something even better. Cultural-like. Make a better gift of it.
He turned to speak with the woman fresh off the boat, and asked her what she did.
Her answer set him floating.
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Horses
Thump.
Alright, so it was his own fault for asking for a turn. Alright, so he'd never ridden a horse before. Alright, so he hated the bastards; hated their stink, hated their tempers, hated the wobble in their step.
But did the stupid bastard tent-living bastard goat-eating bastard bedouin nomad bastards have to laugh quite so fucking loud every single time he fell off? Did it not hurt enough? And weren't they fucking Judge-faith? Shouldn't they be encouraging him to knock the fucking horse to the ground?
Eventually, Issa offered him a hand up, but only when he'd finished laughing.
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