The Price of Love

You say you like to watch me sleeping
It's the only time I'm at peace
The chasm between us seems to deepen
As silence fills the void between

The million times I've called your name
To have the sound whipped aside
Recriminations, deceit and blame
When last did I see you smile?

It's hard to walk away
Harder still to stay
Torn in two, wishing you'd
Come back to me the way we were
Before the silence
Before the frost
We knew love's worth,
Not it's cost

But now...

I'm not so sure

You used to say that you would love me
Forever and a day
You'd be the sun high above me
You'd drive my fears away

But now our ship is sinking
Love is many miles away
What's the use of all this thinking
When our words get in the way?

It's hard to walk away
Harder still to stay
Torn in two, wishing you'd
Come back to me the way we were
Before the silence
Before the frost
We knew love's worth,
Not it's cost

But now...

I'm not so sure

I'm not so sure

Speak No Evil - 2

2

“This storm be damned,” Melvin grunted. “I can’t see a thing.”

            A fork of lightning etched across the sky, and Jordan momentarily saw Melvin as nothing more than a silhouette. Seconds later, thunder rattled the windows of the carriage and the rain’s poking at the roof turned into blatant hammering.

            Still Melvin squashed his face against the window, trying to probe the night. He was the personification of nervous energy, itching to do something, to move. His hands were splayed like starfish on either side of his head, which was slowly being haloed with the fog of his breath on the window.

            “Sit back down, Melvin,” Jordan advised. “Get some sleep. We’ve a long few days ahead of us…”

            “Not right now… I gotta know…”

            “Gotta know what?”

            Melvin daubed at the smear of fog on the window callously with the sleeve of his robe then returned to pressing his face against the glass to peer outside. “Gotta know… where we are…”

            “Judging by the time,” Jordan said, making movements that would simulate pulling a fob watch from his pocket and checking it. He did have the watch, and even though its hands were iridescent and could be read at night, he didn’t particularly want to know exactly how much longer he had left of this hellacious journey. “Six hours… I’d say we’re near the town of Wareton.”

            “How can you be sure?” Melvin wondered aloud. “I can’t see a damned thing…”

            “Just going by the schedule…”

            “…this unscheduled stop. Who would be getting on the train in a backwater place like Wareton?” Melvin finally plucked his face away from the window. Even in the darkness, Jordan could see the pallor of his young charge’s face. Seeing it there brought the hint of a smile to Jordan’s mouth. Melvin continued: “Is there even a train station in Wareton?”

            That Jordan didn’t know. Nor did he particularly care. What he knew that his young pupil didn’t was the terrain in which they travelled. The trail from Tor to Ma’arnar wound through the Ridge Back Mountains, the very backbone of the continent. On any given jaunt, there was likely to be any number of rockslides. On a stormy night such as this, the chances increased nearly exponentially. The locomotive’s engineers would most likely have been flagged down by one of myriad checkpoint stations along the journey and acted accordingly. It was an extremely thin chance that they were anywhere near Wareton, let alone berthed at a train station. Of course, it didn’t hurt Jordan to stir the pot a little.

            “Last I recalled, Wareton has no station.” Jordan paused for dramatic effect. “That would have been no more than… three… four years ago.”

            Melvin hissed, jerked around to the window again. There he paused, a dark shadow allowing its imagination to slip loose of its reins. Jordan wondered briefly what expression Melvin now wore on his face. Did Melvin chew the inside of his cheek, or was he wearing the silly pout that he’d carried with him from Tor and his life as a street brat? It was a mystery that Jordan would never solve, even when the next bolt of lightning split the sky.

            “Someone’s stopped the train,” Melvin said. So far, his voice remained calm. Jordan figured that if the ante was upped a wee bit, Melvin’s modulation would waver. There was a brisk rustle of material, Melvin’s cloak doing a swift spin on the spot. He was moving towards the door.

            “What are you doing?” Jordan asked.

            Melvin paused, one arm stretched out, the hand no doubt inches from the door handle. He waited several seconds to answer. “I’ve got to find out.”

            “Find out what?”

            “Find out who stopped the train.”

            Jordan smirked. “Why?”

            He was only a shadow between the irregular bursts of lightning. Still, Jordan could make out the shape of his form, an oily dark shape surrounded by incomplete black. What was most amazing to Jordan was the fact that Melvin hadn’t asked for the light, or better yet, shown enough initiative to light it himself. It all returned to the same simple thing: Melvin was a novice.

            “It might be them.”

            “Them?”

            “You know… them.”

            Jordan grinned some more. Go on, he whispered in his mind. Go on, say it. And sure enough, Melvin said it.

            “The… Bounty Hunters.”

            That was it. The ante had been met and Melvin’s voice wavered that slight bit. The kid was scared.

            “What are you planning to do?”

            “Go and see.”

            “See if it is the Bounty Hunters?”

            The kid nodded and then, realising that Jordan couldn’t see him, whispered, “Yes.”

            But Jordan didn’t need to actually see him to know what had happened. He sensed it, the same way his senses detected that moment of hesitation just before the train was stopped. Melvin’s hand relinquished its place on the door handle, hovered ineffectively in the air for a brief moment before falling helplessly to his side.

            “What would you do if indeed it was the Bounty Hunters who’ve stopped the train?”

            Another pause stretched over a few long heartbeats. A flash of lightning danced across the sky, followed by a languid roll of thunder.

            “What would you do?” Jordan demanded, not savagely, though. He wasn’t yet ready to browbeat the boy.

            “I—I don’t know.”

            “What could you do if by whatever insane chance, they saw you and recognised you for what you are? Do you know where you are?”

            “We’re in… we’re near Wareton… aren’t we?”

            “We are?” Jordan let the question hang heavily in the air for a few seconds.

            “You said…”

            “…I might have said… but how likely am I to be correct? I made a guess, son. Would you risk your life on a guess?”

            “No.”

            “Sit back down.”

            “But…”

            Jordan fetched a sigh; the sort that patient teachers would fetch when dealing with that one student who wanted to split that final hair… the one that had been split so fine that it was nearly transparent. With Melvin still rooted to the spot near the door, Jordan stood up, reached above his bench for the little nook where he’d stashed the lamp. Once alight, he hung it on the hook on the wall and sat back down. All this he did without a single glance at Melvin. That was all right, though. Melvin had his back turned to him anyway.

            “Even if it is the Bounty Hunters they won’t find us,” Jordan said, keeping his voice calm.

            “How can you be so sure?” Melvin replied. He turned his head slightly, talked over his right shoulder. He had had the sense to pluck the hood of his cloak over his head so if he had went outside nobody would have got a clear look at him. At least he had that much sense.

            “Because… we changed our tickets.”

            “What?”

            “We changed our tickets. We changed from Economy to Third.”

            “That makes no sense,” Melvin growled. “Those tickets still had our names on them…”

            Jordan had to hide a fresh grin behind his hand. In his mind, a voice tittered, stupid son of a bitch. Aloud, he said, “well… strictly speaking, they had names on them… but, uh, not our names.”

            He watched Melvin flinch at the news, jerking as if stung by a bee. He turned around slowly, his pallid features now looking waxy in the yellow lantern light. His eyebrows were knitted into a frown that ever so gradually melted. Finally, Jordan thought, the illiterate boy realises… but does he understand?

            “Clever,” the kid conceded, affecting nonchalance that only went as far as that one word response. He all but sighed when he returned to his bench seat and flipped the hood away from his face.

            It was all bullshit, of course. What Jordan had pointed out to the street urchin as being their names was really the serial number of the ticket. There was no way of ascertaining whether certain individuals had boarded the locomotive, or in which carriage those individuals had been sequestered. The tickets were, with the exception of those given to the upper classes, sold strictly on capacity basis. In other words, all you represented to the ticket retailers was a bum on a seat, or in the case of Jordan and Melvin, heads on bunk-cabin pillows. Hell, there was room still in this carriage for another two souls: it was only luck that saw this particular carriage half booked for the novelty of the cross-continental locomotive jaunt was yet to wear off. The kid, however, would know none of this and Jordan wasn’t going to tell him.

            “We’re safe, then?” Melvin said, trying his very hardest to school his features.

            “Certainly,” Jordan replied, secretly chuckling to himself deep within his mind.

            And with Jordan’s luck falling the right way, both men heard the lead engineer blow his whistle over the roar of the wind and the hammering of the rain. The look of relief that washed over the kid’s face was almost comical; when that look transmogrified into rapture as the locomotive took those first few stuttering pushes forward, Jordan had to almost physically bite his tongue to avoid bursting out into peals of laughter.

            The kid beamed and the locomotive began to pick up to a steady pace.

            Then there was a loud knock at the door.

Sometimes it feels like I am all alone

Sometimes it feels like I am all alone
With no one to talk to, I sit here on my own
I close me eyes and silently I pray
That the skies above me are no longer grey

Some friend that you turned out to be
No sooner gone, you found someone to replace me
There is nothing more that I want to say
So I will fold my head in my arms and go away

Who do you think you are?
What do you think you know?
It's not me you're seeing when you look at me
But some projection you think you own
Where do you think you're going?
What do you think I have become?
The wax melts between my fingers
As I flew too near the sun

Sometimes it feels like I am all alone
Your words like knives cut into my bones
No story you weave is too grand for my ears
So I swallow my pride, my love, my fears

Some friend you have turned out to be
Put out my eyes now so I cannot see
The smiles once warm are now so cold
The ice of your tongue how it rapes my soul

Why do you do this to me?
Why do I think that you care?
I keep giving myself a raft of chances
That amount to naught but flimsy air
Why do I keep returning?
What seeds do I seek to sow?
Too late to man the lifeboats
When you're trapped in the undertow...

All I do is wait
Hold my breath
It's too late to wonder why
There is nothing left

You hold my heart, crush my dreams
Split me apart at the seams

And yet

I still throw myself at your feet
This ridiculous salvation I seek

Sometimes it feels like I am all alone
Inside a house that isn't really home
But I don't have to be a genius to see
That when he is there you look right through me.

Let me be your friend

I wish I knew what to say to make you feel better

But this time I don’t think there are enough words to say

To make your heart change, to take away the pain

So I will just hold you if you want to be held

Let you cry on my shoulder

Through it all, hear me call

Let me be your friend... tonight

I wish there was some way to make the right words

Without having to try, it’s so hard

When you want to speak but you just can’t find the right thing to say

So I will just hold you if you want to be held

Or let you fly into the night

Through it all, hear me call

Let me be your companion... tonight

Is it too soon to say

Those words

Those words that want to be said

They never tell you

How to be true

When inside you only feel dead

I wish I could untie my tongue long enough to make sense

So that the words can fit into place

To let you know how I feel; I’ll be there... soon

So I will just hold you if you want to be held

Comfort your soul, brush your hair

Through it all, hear me call

Let us be lovers... tonight

If we could stop the clock

And make this minute last forever...

Will you be my lover... tonight?

Speak No Evil - 1

1

“Are you awake?”

            A simple enough question. The assassin could just hear it over the rattling of the train as it swayed through the night. It was barely audible over the howling wind that picked through the holes in the decaying window seals, or the steady poking of rain on the cabin roof. Had Maurice Jordan really been asleep, he might not have heard it at all.

            But he was awake, and had been now for a short while, ever since his ears picked up the sound of the younger assassin, his travelling companion, shifting on his bench seat after three-quarters of an hour feigning sleep. At last the move was being made. The move Jordan had been expecting for a few days now.

            He sensed the presence hovering over him, felt the younger man’s cold blue eyes roving over his body, noticing the steady rise and fall of his breathing, mimicking sleep. The younger man wasn’t able to control his own breathing to the extent that it raced in and out with his excitement; again, Jordan couldn’t hear it over the background noises of the steam train and the storm outside, but could sense it. What he felt next confirmed the thoughts that had been playing in his mind for the last three days. There was a hiss, the younger assassin’s in-drawn breath, and the baring of a blade, no doubt the stiletto hidden in the youth’s boot, the one he would think Jordan was ignorant of.

            Oh the folly, Jordan whispered in his mind. He was waiting now for the moment when the youth would have to lean over to deliver the deft cut, opening a small fissure in Jordan’s carotid artery. That was when he would spring his own counter, the little device his young and foolish companion knew nothing about.

            But the movement never occurred. Instead, there was the question.

            “Are you awake?”

            Why? Jordan asked himself. He was yet to stir; his breathing was still counterfeiting that of heavy slumber. His mind was working, though. Why would he be whispering in the night? Why would he make naked his blade only to inquire if Jordan was awake?

            Arrogance? Jordan was, after all, an old man in young Melvin’s eyes; an old man who had berated and ridiculed him, who had shown him up on more than one occasion. Inexperience, then? Sheer foolishness? Whatever the case, Jordan wasn’t going to die that night. Melvin’s mortality was still in question.

            The eyes roved some more. Jordan felt them moving languidly over his prone body as if Melvin had all the time in the world. He wondered vaguely if there was a smile on Melvin’s face. It wasn’t unusual for assassins to enjoy killing. There weren’t too many emotions that compared with blood lust.

            Seconds passed. Slow seconds. Melvin moved not an inch, seemed content to just watch, riding the bumps of the steam train as it powered through the night. What is he waiting for? Jordan wondered.

            Then it happened. The moment Jordan had been lying in wait for. Yet another sharp intake of breath and then the movement, Melvin leaning forwards, his expensive cologne wafting into Jordan’s serene face.

            There was a sudden lurch, a loud keening screech like a screaming woman. Melvin was thrown off balance, had to push a hand out to balance himself. That hand pushed into Jordan’s stomach, giving him cause to rise. The young assassin hit the floor and the stiletto bounced from his grasp. He was quick to fetch it, but not before Jordan traced its destination beneath the folds of his cloak. With a final jerk, the train ground to a stop, but not without comment from Melvin.

            “What the fuck?” He sprang to a window, ripped open the curtain covering it and tried in vain to peer through the glass into the dark world outside.

            While he did this, Jordan sat up, disarming the device that would have sent a heart stopping electric pulse through Melvin’s body. He watched his young charge at the window for a few seconds before speaking. “An unscheduled stop. Could be trouble.” It was a deliberate goad that worked like magic.

            “The Bounty Hunters don’t know about us,” Melvin growled.

            Jordan shrugged.

            “It need not necessarily be us they’re looking for.” He pushed his face harder against the window, turning it this way and that to try and see what was out there. “This storm be damned,” he grunted. “I can’t see a thing.”

            The words were tough, but Melvin still sounded like a kid. He said he was twenty-two, but Jordan wouldn’t have put him a month over seventeen. And pounding on the window and cursing the storm with every uncouth word under the sun did little to dispel that image. He had probably been a street urchin with nothing to lose when the Black Hoods recruited him. It was not an uncommon practice to scout up-and-coming rogues amongst the neglected portion of society. After all, folk such as these, living on their wits for much of their lives, had to learn quickly the arts of stealing, of knowing where to put a knife for maximum damage (and not all knife thrusts needed to be terminal to serve their purpose) just to survive. On the streets, it was the quick or the dead. There was no time for forgiveness, or sharing, or God. The only person you could rely on was yourself. You played tough, spoke rough and slept with one eye open if you wanted to wake up the next morning.

            Yes, this Melvin was definite street brat pedigree. Thin to the point of emaciation, but wiry and strung with the fast muscles necessary for a snatch and grab. Underneath his cloak and fancy clothes would run a network of scars encompassing the whole gamut of street life calamities: knife wounds, animal bites, general wear and tear scratches, pockmarks from the various plagues and ailments that swept through the street populations. Then there was the smell. Try as he could, Melvin would not succeed in removing the smell of the street from the pores of his skin. The expensive colognes and perfumes could only hide the truth for so long, but someone like Jordan, with the heightened senses of a Black Hood professional, could spot the façade for what it really was.

            He had it figured within the first moments of their being acquainted. All Melvin had to do was flap his trap and Jordan had him. He recalled a popular saying, “that you only can make one first impression,” and found that in this instance Melvin’s first impression left a bad taste in Jordan’s mouth. The young charge had thrust himself up close to Jordan, all expensive custom-made cloaks and top range cologne, eyeballing him the whole time. Up close Jordan could spy the constellation of freckles above his right eyebrow, could see each individual sprout of hair around the young man’s mouth, fashioned into the goatee style popular amongst the bourgeoisie, even though all Melvin had amounted to was what was insultingly called bum fluff. Melvin tried a smile, but it was false. It was the smile of a liar, a common urchin, a twist of thin lips and a flash of teeth. His eyes stared, straight into Jordan’s, trying to pierce the elder assassin’s eyes. Eyes a few shades shy of a crisp blue spring sky. It was then, at that exact moment, that Maurice Jordan knew that Melvin would want to kill him.

            The handshake was the clincher. It wasn’t the standard handshake of acquaintances, but rather, a play at power. Melvin pushed his hand forward, palm downward so that when Jordan grabbed it, he’d already be in the submissive position; a tried and true ploy maybe for someone who is only fresh on the traps. Being a seasoned veteran, Jordan was quick to counter, allowing Melvin to grip his hand in the inferior position, but then snaking out his free hand and gripping Melvin’s hand at the wrist. All Melvin could do then was squeeze Jordan’s hand a little tighter than was normal. In the company of the Black Hoods, it was all he could do. That and pass his name, which was the point of their shaking hands to begin with. Even this gave away the boy’s petulance.

            “Melvin,” he grated.

            “Just Melvin?” Jordan enquired.

            “Just Melvin.”

            “Well met, Just Melvin,” Jordan said, aware without looking that the other experienced Black Hoods had seen and appreciated Jordan’s outplaying of the young buck’s handshake power play. The mockery of the greeting was the icing on the cake. “I am Maurice Jordan.” It was always polite in these circles to give your name, your full name, even if it was an alias. A man lacking a family name was always seen as being suspect.

            In effect, Melvin’s start with the Black Hoods wasn’t off to the greatest of starts. Sure, he got full points for trying, but just like you can’t half pick a pocket, you don’t have any avenues to make another first impression. Mental notes would have been made. Melvin’s climb to the top was apt to be slow and painful… that is, if he survived this train ride to Ma’arnar.

            Forty hours in the same carriage… listening to god-awful stories of supposed bravery, treachery and heroism! If half of the tales were true, then young Melvin, who claims to be twenty-two but who looks barely past his seventeenth year, would have lived at least a dozen lifetimes. Sure, you were allowed your quota of bragging rights and claiming the deeds of some of your closest companions, but what it all amounted to was a snot-nose trying to impress a hardened veteran or, in the vernacular, the snot-nose trying to give the airs of having gone at least twice around the block, sans training wheels. That in itself wasn’t a crime. Hell, when Jordan was seventeen he would have chewed the legs off a few millipedes in his life, but he would never have deigned to change the plot of the story. That was what Melvin tried to do, at every available opportunity.

            It started as soon as briefing had finished. This wasn’t a short process and Jordan was sure that he wasn’t the only one who noticed their young charge’s attention wander every so often. On the surface the plan was simple. And it was only at this surface level that Melvin seemed to want to understand the plan. The details, researched thoroughly for well over a year and a half, were vitally important and not merely for the sake of making the ultimate statement, but also to ensure that no complicity can be traced back to the heart of the Black Hoods. Venturing too far from the scheme would surely sour the operation to say the least. Worse yet was the fate of having a fellow member sent out to “clean up,” a euphemism for having your throat slit from ear to ear and your body secreted in a shallow unmarked grave. Jordan might have been without friends, family or gods, but that didn’t mean he didn’t fear the spiritual consequences of being buried without consecration. The idea of being picked over by carrion feeders didn’t sit well in his thoughts either. Hence, the maxim had always been to stay with the plan: the plan first, the plan last.

            But not for Melvin.

            They were each given a plain brown envelope with a ticket for the Ma’arnar Express Locomotive inside. Here was the first bone of contention.

            “Economy Class?” Melvin bawled. This was the first time that Jordan heard that little whine in his voice, a whine that he’d not take long getting sick and tired of.

            “What of it?” Jordan had replied.

            “Do you know what this means?”

            Jordan told him he didn’t and that’s when Melvin pouted. The little dip shit actually pursed his lips in a seventeen-year-old-balls-barely-dropped pout. “This means we have to travel with the… the peasantry!” When Melvin said the last, his face looked as if he’d just inadvertently eaten shit.

            “So?”

            Melvin fetched an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “If we’re going to take the loco to Ma’arnar, why don’t we do it in style? Exchange these crummy tickets for First Class. Even Business Class would be a damn sight more befitting our status—”

            “—and what exactly is our status, Melvin?” Jordan asked.

            But before Melvin could answer, Jordan shot out a hand and stopped him. “If you’re saying we should get preferential treatment because of who we are and what we do, then I suggest you shut your mouth and listen. Listen for your life son, because if you don’t, yours isn’t going to be a very long one.” Melvin was about to gripe, but stopped, shut his blithering mouth. The pout returned for a few seconds, and yes, even back then in those early minutes of their awkward relationship, Jordan wanted to wipe it off his face with a good backhander.

            “Our first task is to get to Ma’arnar without being recognised. Forget what needs to be done in Ma’arnar. We need to concentrate on the here and now. To do that, we need to travel low key. We need to associate with people who aren’t going to ask questions, or talk about politics, or business or fashion, because these people are human sponges and they soak up everything. Names, faces, facts. What’s more, they know other people and they talk. Those in Business Class will want to engage you on market prices and trading deals. They will want to sound you out, assess your level of potential threat. And all the gods know that you’ve got as much savvy as a toad and will draw attention to yourself for that alone and attention is the last thing we need!

            “As for First Class… you might think you’d fit in with your silly pseudo-beard and your fancy dress and your… toilet water… but wait until the name dropping starts and you’re left there with your blithering mouth open like a damned flytrap! If businessmen are sharks scenting blood for the kill, then the First Class are piranhas looking to strip you to the bone. We’ve no traffic with either class because we’d stick out like the proverbial sore thumb… draw attention to ourselves. And as I’ve said… the uppie’s all like to talk.”

            Melvin digested that for a few minutes before altering his plans somewhat. “Can we go at least Third Class?” he said, sounding at least half-reasonable. “Maybe get a bunk cabin to ourselves… for maximum privacy?”

            That had been the only concession Jordan had made because it seemed sensible. Instead of contact with Melvin’s dreaded peasantry, they simply opted for their own company for the overnight jaunt to Ma’arnar. If Jordan had realised what he was letting himself in for bunking with Melvin, then he’d have stuck to the original plan…

            …but part of him was curious to see when Melvin would pluck up the courage to carry out his unspoken threat…

You

Don't come at me with your revelations
I knew what you were before you ever did
Your breezy nature and easy smiles
And your impetuousness that I desired
Anything to not be me for a while
Even when we spun out of control
I don't accept a lack of commitment, though
Any more than I accept a need for freedom
You grow bored with anything that
Isn't bright and shiny; like a cat pouncing after
Sudden movement
You play the part of the eager lover well, my dear
But we both know love isn't what you want
You played me like a hand of poker
Like the many hands you've played before
So don't pretend you're anything unique
I've been hurt by the likes of you before

A Kiss

If time stood still in this perfect moment
Inches apart
Our breath held suspended, in that split second of longing
Eyes locked, wide, and knowing
Would this be too much?

If in that second, frozen
Around us life is busy churning
But we are locked in that one moment, that perfect heartbeat
You and I
Would this be too much?

And afterwards, when our lips cover that distance
Kissing
And when our eyes open to stare one into the other
Would the return of time, the outside rushing
Would this be too much?

Can we hold onto forever encapsulated
In that one tiny moment
Where everything is perfect
In that one photographic memory
For eternity
Or will time slip through our fingers
As the memory lingers
Like the scent of old, barely remembered perfume?

Oh, unruly sun, and watchful, silent moon
How they dance around the sky
Timeless ballet

Is this, then, our fate?
Once united
To long for that first moment
To revive and relive it
Knowing that we can only backwards glance?

One kiss
Divine