The smell of smoke and wood assaulted Silas' throat upon entering the workshop. The front room was completely dark except for the glow of dying embers in the fireplace, and a trickle of light coming from beyond a cracked door. Silas crossed the threshold silently, and tread carefully across the floor so no sharp tools would catch his foot. The smoke thickened by the opening, constricting his throat painfully, but he didn't cough. Instead, he knocked on the frame.
A large figure in a soot covered apron and fire mask answered.
Silas frowned. He hated when he was unable to read a face.
"Good morning, might you be Master Bright?" he asked.
The man nodded.
"Excellent."
Without waiting for an invitation, Silas strode past the man into a sweltering room despite it having an open porch. A kiln the size of the wall took up the most space, with hammers, molds and papers littering the counters.
He took a seat on the bench smoke wasn't blowing towards, and made himself comfortable. Artisan Bright still stood motionless in the entrance.
"I'd like to commission this from you."
Silas took a piece of parchment out of his breast pocket. The forger removed a glove, his hands large with tiny scars, and unfolded the paper slowly. For a long moment the artist studied the drawing. Time pressed urgently against his back as the artist continued to say nothing.
"It's a ritual athame," Silas explained. "I've provided the measurements for molding, but I'll be requiring an excruciating amount of detail for the design."
He lowered his head, and spoke gravely, "you do not want me to make this, Exorcist."
Silas hummed to conceal his laugh. "But I do."
Beyond his spectacles, Silas met the forge artist's gaze directly. Even behind the mask he could feel the judgment, the speculating questions, but Silas did not intend to offer any answers.
"I'll leave payment out front and be back to inspect the molding next week."
He left as quick as he came, dashing out into the dark morning and empty streets.
X
When Silas returned to the workshop, it was once again unlit. He left money on the table of the front room, prepared to approve of the casting mold and leave his material instructions before sunrise.
He knocked, then showed himself in. The kiln porch was still pleasantly cool from the night air. Master Bright was already in his fire clothing and loading coals into the stone belly from the closet.
"Good morning. Is my mold finished?"
Bright stopped to look his way. Silas assumed he hadn't heard his knock over shoveling, and so he repeated himself.
"My mold?"
Every move the man made was slow. From closing the closet door to crossing the small room to rummage through drawers, every action felt purposely delayed. Silas clenched his teeth together as precious moments ticked by. Finally, the artist found what he was looking for, but it wasn't his athame mold, it was his coin purse.
"Was my payment not sufficient?" he asked near seething.
Bright shook his head. "More than plenty, but I can't accept this commission."
Silas' eyebrows shot into his hairline. "You can't accept my commission?"
"I won't."
"On what grounds?"
His voice was lowering into anger, a heat along the front of his lungs compressing against his ribs.
The artist sat down on the bench, arms resting on his knees. He removed his gloves, and leaned forward just enough to help slide the fire mask off his shoulders and into his lap. A mane of blonde hair fell around a thick bearded, somber mouth.
"Any work of mine would put your life at risk, Exorcist. I am only trying to do what's right."
All of Silas' anger had nearly drained away when Bright looked at him with absolute honesty. He crossed his arms to hold onto the small amount of indignation he had left.
"I am aware of your familial history. I am here for your craft, and I am not concerned with anything else. You're the only one who can make a piece to my liking and you will accept my commission."
They both held their ground, but Silas never conceded. He didn't care if it took more money, or time, he came here for a reason.
Bright sank into himself. "If you're really serious, then come back tomorrow night. Then you'll have ample time to give me the details I need and it'll still be dark enough for no one to see you entering my shop."
Silas flashed a victorios smile, while internally wincing that his actions had been so obvious.
"I'll see you then."
X
Arriving anywhere in the dead of night was both suspicious and very noticeable should any stares float the wrong way. Which was why it was much easier for Silas to drift along the bustling shops as the sun was setting. No one would question if a choirman dove down an alley to avoid the drinking crowd.
He ended up at the back of the kiln porch, but was surprised to find it empty, the fire mask and apron laying on the bench like a shed lizard skin. The tools were put away and the door to the workshop was locked, too, making him wonder if he'd arrived too early. But then the latch clicked.
Bright was gleaming damp, but otherwise clean of soot and dirt. His tunic was sticking to his skin as if he'd just bathed, yet his hair was dry and pulled out his face with a loose ribbon at the base of his neck.
Silas assumed he'd caught the man half through his bath. Ready to excuse himself, he remembered he hadn't knocked on the door, and paused on what to say.
"Come in, I'll be with you in one moment."
"Hm."
For the first time, Silas saw the workshop in full light. The fireplace was roaring, a table half the size of the room in front of it, but all he could focus on was the sketches. In neat clusters were designs of pendants, statues, swords; the surrounding pieces of parchment containing notes and smaller details down to the pattern of wood grain. Each was a map, he realized, of a commission in progress.
Silas felt foolish for being dodgy on the process thus far, but then smirked. He then knew for certain that Bright was the only craftsman for him.
When Bright returned from a sideroom, his skin was still shining, but he held a crate in one arm and a bundle of parchment in the other.
"I apologise for the wait."
"Not a bother at all. I was admiring your work."
Bright set the crate and parchment down on the table. Silas realized he was about to be in the way as sheets were being laid out with diagrams. There were at least a dozen different categories. Unlike the day before where Silas was near pulling his hair out at the artist's sluggish pace, the man now flew around the table.
When he finally appeared settled, Silas sat on the bench to glance over the different papers while Bright pulled a pipe and jar off the mantle. He couldn't tell what it was being lit. By the time Bright turned around, he was already taking a slow breath in. Then he grabbed clean parchment and sat besides Silas on the bench.
"I have one condition for this commission," Bright said, his pipe hovering just past his lips.
Silas felt himself begin to ruffle. He didn't bargain, he paid. There was nothing his funds couldn't afford. He was used to the slum of the rotten and the skeeving games of Choir Leaders. There was no compromise in faith and there was no compromise in Silas' life. He'd have this commission.
He began reading Bright, the full picture of the man now sitting next to him. No longer hiding behind the heat resistant clothing, he was well built but withdrawn in presence. His face was rough with thick eyebrows and a handsome jaw, but his eyes told him everything Silas needed to know. Bright was a man who could be a terrifying shadow, but was in actuality a soft shade, like the peace found under a tree in summer.
Silas already knew he'd agree to the terms.
"You said this will be an athame," Bright continued.
He nodded.
"I'd like to see you perform the first ritual it's used for."
Well, that was not what I expected.
Baffled, and a little suspicious, Silas began trying to sooth out the artist's intentions.
"I don't think you would want to."
"I'm certain I would," Bright said in between puffs on his pipe.
Most were repulsed by his work. There was a large amount of respect within some Choirs for exorcism, because they realized the truth and necessity of the job. But the public hated the thought of him. His call was morbid, touched by rot, a nightmare best forgotten.
And yet he could tell Bright was entirely earnest in his request.
Silas plucked the pipe for the artist's hand and took a long, slow sip. Burning velvet curled down his throat before he released a white cloud into the air.
"I will show you the ritual, if you tell me why you want to see it."
Bright was now the one lost in perplextion. Silas wasn't sure if it was because of him knabbing the pipe or from him pulling on an uncomfortable root of desire. Either way, he could eat that thoughtful countenance right off the artist's face all night.
He offered the pipe back, Bright accepting it while staring down into the table for answers. The fire crackled hard, the smell of cedar resting in the heat of the room. Finally, Bright took another breath from his pipe, his answer falling out in a whisper of smoke.
"It might be the only magic left in this world."
Silas felt claws tear into his heart. Bright sat next to him with a lost expression that was as vulnerable as it was calculated. There was sorrow flooding between them, but when the pipe was offered to him, Silas sensed the string of fear tied to it. There was a deep pain within those threads.
All he could see was sorrow tying them together, and it was beautiful.
He took the pipe from Bright's hand.
"You should call me Silas, not Exorcist."
He inhaled the ripe smoke, a rich pleasure in his chest blooming from the burn.
"As long as you call me Ivor, then."
X
What should have been a quick project took three weeks. Ivor had never had a customer as involved as Silas, who insisted on being present through every step of creation. If he was visited in the morning they worked on designs, while evenings were for forging and placement. Brief sun rises and long nights became their norm, and Ivor realized near the end he had become too attached.
He had friends, of course, but they were all in the same vein. An antique dealer, a scroll keeper, a traveling poet; they all had blood to magic, and were alive by mercy. It was a calling they could never answer, the only remedy for their longing hearts being the old trades they found, and others who held the same ache for something unattainable.
Ivor first wondered if Silas was of his scorned kin. Exorcism was spiritual in foundation but ritual in practice. It was also a taboo topic under many roofs. But Silas walked in the light with his title, despite how Ivor heard many stories from the exorcist how even choirmen could hardly withhold their disdain for his work.
No one would ever say a practice in the faith was magic.
Ivor was hoping that it was.
Like his other friends, Ivor felt comfortable around Silas, and was certain the other man felt the deep undercurrent that pulled their likeness together. Silas was full of conversation, stories, spiritual theory; and for a man who worked to serve the public, he was more spiteful and instigative to them than helpful. Then when they sat in silence, Silas watching him work, Ivor felt his passion heard.
Ivor rarely got to see his friends. Maybe a few times a year, at most, but even their brief cheer didn't revive him like this. The workshop had become softer with Silas' presence every other day, and his art felt renewed in a way he hadn't experienced since apprenticeship. The athame he crafted, that they crafted, was a perfect ornate piece unlike anything he'd ever made. A blade of swooping curves and edges that rivaled the allure of obsidian. The crossguard plated in gold, a handle smooth to touch but with the pattern of rosebush thorns, and a scabbard as black as it's blade with an engraving from the dead language of psalms.
As Ivor looked at the athame his heart swelled with a soaring happiness. The look on Silas' face when he presented it to him made Ivor nearly fly apart.
As the exorcist gently lifted the blade from his hands in awe, Ivor's being was struck down. He felt the weight of his empty hands and ached deeper than he ever had before.
X
"I thought you'd been joking."
"And I thought you were joking when you wouldn't let me pay you properly."
Ivor was fighting himself more then he was fighting Silas.
"Your payments were excessive."
"But my invitation is unnegotiable."
Ivor sighed, his arms leaning against the drafting table. He'd already cleaned up for the day but hadn't been expecting Silas to actually arrive tonight. As always, the other man burst in the workshop with no notice. When he saw Ivor wasn't dressed in a jacket, he barged into his sleeping quarters, too.
"Do you not have any club hats?"
"You're being very insistent on something I didn't agree to."
"Your presence at the Bell Lounge tonight is compulsory," Silas said coming out with his good shoes and green summer breasted coat. "How do you wear your hair to services?"
"I, uh, don't really. I tuck it beneath my collar."
Silas hummed. He tossed Ivor his coat, which he obediently put on, sensing there was no winning this argument. But then Silas manifested behind him, and Ivor froze to his sudden touch.
"I know a fashionable way to hold long hair, here."
Silas bunched his hair at the nape of neck, his fingers grazing the top of his head. It was a splendid feeling, his hair pulled back into strands and woven briskly together. He ended up with one large braid in the middle, and two smaller ones by his ears that came together in a tight bun.
"There, I think it suits you well."
Ivor felt aglow in his chest. "If you say so."
"Now come on."
He couldn't shake a spurt of anxiety as he followed Silas to the lounge. He seemed out of place immediately against the well dressed men sipping whiskey and playing cards. All these things he enjoyed in good leisure, but not with these types, who quaffed at politics and mocked the plights of every folk. It was almost like watching a painting. He was not a part of the decorated reality before him, only an observer lucky enough to make the price of admission.
Silas put a drink in his hand and sat them in a circle of plush chairs and chatting. Ivor became grim as the faces around him blurred and he heard words coming out mouths but couldn't process full sentences. In one splash his drink was gone, allowing Ivor to excuse himself to the bar. For himself he ordered a beer. He thought about getting something for Silas, his cheeks suddenly heating. He didn't know what the other man drank. Probably shouldn't be ordering for him, either. So, Ivor got two beers, both for himself.
One bottle was empty, the other half way there when Silas slipped into the seat beside him.
"Not social even with spirits on your tongue?"
"I don't do mixing," Ivor said into his beer.
"How about dividing?"
Ivor turned to give an eyebrow raise. Whether it was from the drinks or night, Silas had the smile of a devil on him, and Ivor had no chance against that look. He felt the touch of a smirk on his own lips. "What do you have in mind?"
They joined the card table. Well, he joined the card table. Silas seemed content enough to sit behind his shoulder and watch. The men around the circular red velvet had their own dealer and wages before them. Ivor wondered if he should back out, not used to betting with solid coin, but then Silas sat a purse in front of him.
"Deal him in."
He wasn't sure how he earned this confidence from the other man to be any good at cards. They'd never played before, never spoke of any games, either. But just from the look on Silas' face as he sat on a stool directly behind him, Ivor was going to prove him damn right on his bets.
X
"I've never seen Sir Carval's face look so red," Silas laughed in the street.
They had stayed out far later than Ivor would have expected, but then again, he also hadn't expected to enjoy himself. He played cards until closing, probably against every man in the lounge before they left. The coin purse had to be ten times its weight before the start of the evening.
Walking back to the shop, the night was lit by half a moon, but they hardly noticed. Ivor tried to laugh quietly, but Silas nearly barked in tears from their tipsy conspiracy. Ivor would hush him, remind him how late it was, but then they would start laughing again.
It was when they strode up the stoop, the door to the workroom shutting behind them, that their merriment blew out like the wisp of a candle. They stood close to one another in the absolute darkness of the doorway with no light between them. Their hands brushed against one another. The pads of Silas' fingers ever so gently touched his own. It felt like they had created their own version of time, as their thumbs began to stroke slow circles along the backs of each other's hands.
Ivor could feel how they were turned towards one another, how their chests were a slip apart. No other part of him felt real, though, except for his and Silas' hand. Something rested heavy between them. Ivor looked the slightest bit down to where he felt Silas' eyes looking the smallest bit up at him, and couldn't breathe. He felt like he was vibrating with tension and want. He longed for something to pop the current moment he stood in into something new.
But the moment did not pop. Instead, Silas slid from his fingers and out the door like smoke, the moment fading away.
X
It had been a week since Ivor had last seen Silas. He assumed the exorcist was gone from his life entirely, until the morning he came knocking on his door.
And it was early. Ivor hadn't even woken up yet to light his forge. But he answered the door, the last person he expected on the other side.
Silas was in his full uniform: a draping navy cape, with choir boots and dress pants, his blouse neck and cuffs buttoned with the insignia of the second root. The ensemble stood starkly against the blood red of his hair and the grave depths in his eyes.
"I promised to let you see the athame's first ritual. It's today, if you wish to come."
There was a carriage behind Silas, waiting for them. Ivor knew he should say no, start his work, and move on. Instead, he dressed for a day of traveling and put a closed sign in the window.
The carriage ride was a long few hours. They sat across from one another, never saying a word, looking out opposite curtained views. Ivor pecked at a breakfast cake with no appetite. On occasion he'd sneak a glance at Silas, who often stared down at the athame, glinting in the open free from its sheath. Ivor for some reason couldn't bear the sight of his greatest work, and forced himself to look out into the nothing country passing by.
When they arrived, the sun was starting to beam along the horizon. There were morning stirrings going about the town, but the looming cathedral before them lay quiet. Ivor followed Silas up the steps, and waited to be shown in.
A young girl opened the massive doors that were three times her height as if they were nothing but parchment.
"Lord Exorcist, we are pleased to- Oh!" the girl said as she spotted Ivor. "We weren't aware you'd be having company."
"Is there a problem?"
If Ivor didn't know Silas, even he would have been frightened by that tone. He had never sized up the other man properly, he realized. In full regalia, Silas was a powerful sight, and even more clearly, a powerful man.
"No," the girl muttered. "Come in, please."
Save but a few candles lit down the pews, the cathedral was a grey ruin. Dust and cobwebs stuffed the atmosphere while weeds sprung defiantly from cracked stone. Ivor imagined it was once beautiful when in use, but clearly the town had decided this place was better left forgotten.
"Lord Exorcist, I ask that you be swift in your work," said the girl hurriedly down the aisle. "It was me who called you, not my overseeing mother. She rather let this place be taken to rot, but not me, I want it freed from the evil that haunts it. Could you please do so, within the morning?"
Silas said nothing as he walked past the forlorn girl. He stepped up to the large organ on the center of the stage and traced its grime covered surface.
"Leave. I'll do what I can."
The girl cast her eyes down and moved out the hall. It wasn't until her footsteps could no longer be heard that Silas looked at Ivor for the first time since arriving to his door. Ivor couldn't place the working expression of the exorcist. Tired, in-different, drawn, defeated, they all seemed true.
Once again Ivor felt captured in a moment, this one being torturous. He writhed in the unsaid, but this time there was a pop, and it came from Silas slitting his wrists with the athame.
Ivor gasped and ran up the stairs to the organ. He didn't know what to do, but Silas presented his hands to him, twisted around to both allow and show streams of blood falling down to his fingers. Ivor phantomed over the other man's hands, wanting to touch them, to help, but was unsure how.
Then, with a sad smile, and the softest voice, Silas told him: "Stay close to me."
The exorcist sat at the organ and began to play.
It was a dissonant, uneven calling from the pipes. The noise made Ivor shudder to the bone as notes strung together in an unnerving melody. The cathedral grew freezing with the noise ringing against the stone and Ivor clutched himself. He saw Silas muttering under his breath, or maybe singing aloud, but unhearable due to the all encompassing organ.
A new sound began to grow within the song. It was a scream. A belly retching howl of pain that came from a shadow on the floor, but now stretched into a figure.
Ivor balked at the terror before them. He grabbed at Silas' shoulder to tell him what was there, but the Exorcist had seemingly gone in a trance.
The song continued. The shadow drew closer. Ivor was unsure of what to do as the scream grew louder and closer and finally started reaching for them both with claws of sharp night.
Without a shred of hesitance, Ivor summoned the athame, still coated in the exorcist's blood, from Silas' lap to the awaiting palm of his hand. With anger and fear, he stabbed the shade in the net of its grip.
The cry of agony erupted out into the cathedral like thunder.
As the echo died, so did the sound of the organ's song, it's final notes pleasant chords of ending. Ivor breathed heavily against the instrument, Silas looking at him in wonder.
He'd betrayed himself, his family, and most likely every friend he had by showing his magic. Worse, he'd shown his magic to a choirman.
Silas rose from his seat and strode over to him. Ivor had nothing to say, no defense, and stared in guilt at the athame. Silas placed his hand over his, and Ivor opened his fist to give the blade back.
Instead, their fingers knit together. Ivor felt near shattering with the amount of ache building up in his chest. Fear, longing, confusion, hope, it all swirled in him as he looked at Silas, begging for him to pop this contentious reality.
"One secret for another," Silas said, taking the athame.
Ivor followed the exorcist's gaze to where the shadow once pooled from the ground and saw the little girl in its place. Like death himself, Silas threw the blade clean across the space and directly into the girls heart. She dropped like mud to the floor.
"She's been luring spiritual men here for years, a puppet body," Silas whispered. "The sad truth is, once fully taken, there's no way to bring the soul back. She's probably been dead longer than the missing cases have gone on."
The cathedral was now fully lit in morning sunlight. Ivor was bemused by Silas' mournful admission, by his duty, by the trust he had just bestowed. There was no reason to ask how often this happened, how many demons had been slain and bodies put to an end. There was only the truth that the work would continue and that Silas would keep to it alone. This was the new moment he found himself in.
"If you excuse me," Silas said in a return to professionalism. "I'm going to bury her body, so I can perform her rites. We can leave then."
Ivor cusped Silas' arms, delicately turning them to show the raw flesh of his wrists, still hot with blood. With reverence, Ivor kissed each cut, willing them not to be deep enough to scar.
"Allow me to bury her. You should rest."
Silas slid his hands back into Ivor's, their fingers intertwining in blood. They rested their foreheads against one another's, their chests all at once easing, and breathed.
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