He'd wrapped himself in his parchment and his plots and poisoned what little soul he had with his bitterness.
The guardians saw glimpses of it, when they were a little more aware of their employer than they were his surroundings. Mariane, his maid, saw it every day, but dared not comment to one who was her better for one, and a mage for another.
Her mother, her mother's mother, they told her in whispers about those who used djed. They could steal your soul and still your limbs with a squall of gibberish. They could crush buildings with a wave of their hand and make the seas rise with a bellow. Master Barrow didn't seem that type but... there were time... he let her know what he could do.
He enjoyed it, too. Letting her know. Letting her stare with eyes no longer connected to a body she controlled but her mind, ah, her mind... it knew. Knew and couldn't help her.
Mariane thought Master Barrow liked that most of all.
"S-Sir?" She quavered against the door of his study, struggling hard not to let the platter in her hand tremble, the silver and porcelain shake and clatter. "You... Your supper, sir. It's getting-"
The door opened slowly, but there was no hand against the latch. Mariane inhaled sharply as she saw her master with his back to her at his table, overflowing with parchments and letters and books and scrolls like some vast mass grave for literature, his left hand hand out to his side-
-half-closed, as if he were holding a door handle... and pulling it open.
"Leave it on the table."
She did as she was told. Never a thank you from the master. Never anything but orders, instructions, terse commands that were obeyed without question. She did that once, in the early days, trying to salvage some of her dignity.
That's when he showed her what he was, and where she figured in his estimations.
She bent and put the platter down, and Barrow turned to her slightly. She dared not look, but did anyway, catching his eye under greying but thick eyebrows. That glimmer... that was enough. That silent, invisible smirk that existed solely in the look her gave her.
Mariane had lived in Sunberth her whole life. She had raised three children and lost four to cold, starvation and purple fever. She'd seen men she hated and loved kill and be killed. She'd done awful things to provide for her kin; to herself, and to others. But Mariane was not an evil or sadistic soul. She was just trying to survive.
She could not say the same for Arnold Barrow. He liked power. Not for the glory or the prestige; but for what it allowed him to do. She'd seen his scraps now and then, treatises on something called "AnarKEY", which he'd said once was what Sunberth was.
She never knew that. She assumed it was a city.
Anyway, the point being, whatever political or social gibberish he hid behind, she knew Arnold wasn't in it for the betterment of man. He was in it because he liked to toy with people, and this "AnarKEY" he loved so much gave him the chance to do that.
"An-Anything else, S-Sir?"
"More oil in the morning." He gestures vaguely to the lamp at the end of his desk, burning brightly from the oval reservoir under the wick and flame. "You may go."
He watched the lukewarm old bovine waddle away and permitted himself a tight sneer. Gods, how her kind cluttered up the world, but they served their purposes. They were a good bit of sport, too, especially when they were stupid enough to give him a reason to use his gift.
At the very memory of what he did to her, Anar DuFarro felt the gnosis on his palms purr. Two of them, now. Marked and favored by Sagallius himself, one of his favored, now. How he ached to use his gift again! But no, no... he had plans to prepare. According to his few agents still in Zeltiva, that damnable creature Everto had sewn up the city quite nicely after the Denvali's attempted coup. He'd played both sides marvelously and ended up as de facto ruler of the city.
And what does he do with it? Nothing. No reforms, no purges, no decrees or changes. He just sits like a spider and watches. Why even bother taking power if you won't use it?
"Power was not meant for those who do not use it." He murmured to himself, finishing a letter to his man in Nyka. "Power is for those who have the strength to lay waste to the world... and change it... and own it."
Own it. Yes, he liked that. Because, he remembered with a quick lick of his lips, once you owned something, you could make it do whatever you wanted. Anything. Like Mariane.
Speaking of which, the lady herself was downstairs in the pantry and glad to be at least thirty feet from that old devil. She'd passed the two guardians on the way - one in the hallway outside DuFarro's room, the other forever making the rounds, up and down the stairs, checking every room - and gave each a quick nod.
Both were Sunberth lads, and with typical civic spirit, that meant they may have felt for the good ol' girl, but the old man paid better, so fuck her. Still, Billy opened the door to the pantry for her, which was nice.
"There must be an easier way." She whispered to herself, forehead cooling on a wheel of cheese, head bowed as if in prayer. "I can ask at the Seacow or the Pig's Foot, maybe. Pay isn't as good, but here..."
No. No, she wouldn't do this to herself. No use reliving it over and over like some bloody simpering girl. She was a woman, a mother and she'd survived childbirth and famine and endless gang wars and disease and by the living gods and the dead ones, she would survive that rancid old buzzard even if-
... a breeze?
Yes, she was sure she felt it. Mariane frowned and turned, stepping from the cool pantry and... still cool. Cold wind licked her face and she followed where it came from. Herbs rustled softly as the breeze brushed them and Mariane's frown turned into a scowl. If bloody Tamar had been leaving the windows open again so he could smoke, she'd-
"Oh, he bloody well has, too!"
The window next to the back door swung open and Mariane pursed her lips. Oh, that big tough bastard would rue the day he made this mistake. Wasn't he meant to be a sodding bodyguard, after all? She stomped over, petticoat flying around her like the dress of a Valkyrie, already reciting exactly how... she'd...
Then she saw the smear on the floot. Too wide to be a hand print. Mariane frowned deeper and the outrage drained from her face, replaced by confusion, suspicion... and then wide-eyed horror.
It was a footprint, and it was fresh.
She heard the movement behind her, sliding fast and smooth from behind the pantry door where it had been waiting for her to turn her back. Suddenly seeing what it was became important, even as he mouth opened to-
-do nothing but have a broad, rough hand slapped over it-
-and a shuddering, shattering blow splintered her sight into a thousand black sparks, and Mariane knew no more.
