Savage Messiah

CHAPTER II

Standing near the babbling brook, reznik heard the familiar cry of his hungry cat. Turning, he walked over to where the beast crouched menacingly. Long ago Reznik had dug a deep circle in the ground, marking the cat's farthest range of travel. When his feet came to the edge of the ditch, Reznik stopped. Human bones, both old and new, littered the area within the circle.

A wide iron collar encircled the cat's spotted neck. A chain secured the collar to the trunk of a hinteroot tree. Reznik would never violate the confines of the cat's reach, but if she did attack him, he was confident that he could heal himself, provided the wound was not too serious. For Reznik was not only a partial adept and an accomplished herbmaster, but also an expert cutter-healer and potion-master.

Looking at the cat, he smiled. She had been with him for more than a dozen years now. She had been continually chained to the same tree ever since she was a kitten. The generous length of chain allowed her to drink from the nearby brook whenever she chose and the weather never seemed to bother her.

The cat was large-at least four or five times the size of an average house cat-with spotted tan fur and elongated, yellowish eyes with dark irises. The whiskers and eyelashes were dark and exceptionally long, as were the claws.

Reznik's thoughts soon turned from his pet to Satine. She was due to visit soon. By now she would surely need more of that which only he could offer, and he needed to have it ready. She was his highest-paying customer. He would sorely miss those gold kisa of hers should he ever lose her business.

Shaking her head and rattling the iron chain, the impatient cat snarled at him again. She was telling her master that she could smell the blood. Reznik smiled.

"Very soon now, my pretty," he cooed to her.

Turning, he walked back over to the butcher's table that sat beneath the shade of another tree. He wiped his meaty palms down the front of his bloodstained apron, then took up his favorite boning knife. In his other hand he grasped a long, cone-shaped whetstone. He carefully stroked one against the other. When he was satisfied, he bent over and set about his work. Slowly, meticulously, Reznik began boning a human corpse.

He would not need much of what lay before him. But what he did require had to be taken soon and with the greatest of care, lest it lose its potency. Placing the boning knife against the corpse's right quadriceps, he was reminded that corpses never bled when they were cut into, at least not the way a live person did.

As he removed part of the quadriceps and placed it on the table, his crooked smile came again.

And they don't complain, either, he thought.

Soon the exposed thighbone glistened wetly before him. At first glance the bone appeared to have never been broken. That was good.

Placing his knife down, he picked up a short butcher's axe. With two sure, quick strokes he severed the femur from the hip socket and then from the knee joint. He lifted the long bone from the table and placed it to one side.

Putting down the butcher's axe, he put on a pair of magnifying spectacles. Then he took up the bone again and examined it closely.

As he had expected, it was strong, and it had never seen any significant trauma. Over the course of his grisly career, he had cheated some of his other customers by using inferior ingredients. To this day, he had always gotten away with it.

He knew better than to try this with Satine. There was no more accomplished killer in all of Eutracia. Should any one of his potions not prove as promised, she wouldn't hesitate to come back and kill him. Even he would never know she was there. It would be a simple matter of being alive one moment, and dead the next. That wasn't a chance he was willing to take.

Hearing his cat growl with hunger, he grasped the bloody muscle he had just liberated from the corpse and tossed it into the dusty circle.

The cat pounced. Turning back to the table, Reznik resumed his labors.

With the small saw, he cut the thighbone in two, exposing its marrow: soft, pulpy, and yellow-exactly what he needed. As every cutter-healer knew, it was the red bone marrow of a child that was initially responsible for the manufacture of the body's blood. The marrow inevitably turned yellow with maturity. Above all, it was blood that determined so much of one's destiny here in Eutracia-and in Reznik's capable hands, sometimes the nature of one's death, as well.

He carefully removed the marrow from each of the two sections of bone and placed it in a small pan. Then he opened up the skull. When the grayish white frontal lobes presented themselves, he began to whistle happily. Nothing soothed his nerves so much as the preparation of another of his potions-especially when it was for Satine. He employed only very fresh corpses in his work for her, and only those that had perished by suicide.

Eutracian custom dictated that suicide victims should be laid to rest in separate sections of the nation's cemeteries. Though abandoned in many places, this custom of segregation was still practiced in others. When the craft had been in its infancy, many had believed that the soul of a suicide victim might not be released to the Afterlife. Few had wished to risk the chance of being placed to rest beside those who had killed themselves. Separate arrangements had therefore been made.

Ridiculous, he thought, as he continued to work. Still, he was thankful for this superstition, which proved infinitely helpful to him in his arts.

His hands had grown excessively bloody, so he walked to the brook. As he knelt down before a calm spot at the water's edge, his reflection peered back at him. He saw the face that had wrinkled and creased beyond its fifty Seasons of New Life. He also saw his shiny, bald head, the encircling fringe of gray hair drooping haphazardly to his shoulders. The soft brown eyes stared back at him with intelligence, and he could see the yellow teeth that lay just behind the full, expressive mouth. He smiled, liking what he saw.

After washing the blood from his hands, he walked over to a steaming cauldron to add the marrow and brain. He took up a long wooden staff, dipped it into the cauldron, and slowly mixed the ingredients. Then he leaned over the top and inhaled, using his well-trained sense of smell to analyze the concoction's progress.

Something wasn't quite right. Leaving the mixing staff in the cauldron, he walked back over to the table and picked up a leather-bound journal.

He thumbed through its pages, searching for the formula he needed. Ah, there it is, he thought. He ran his fingers down his own handwritten notes. When at last he found what was lacking, he walked over to the side of the glade that sheltered one of his many herb gardens. Fully mature gingercrinkle had a violet blossom and a clean, crisp scent, but it wasn't the blossoms he was interested in just now. He selected what he deemed to be the best example and pulled the plant from the ground.

After carefully cutting the root away, he carried it over to the stream and washed it. Then he used his mortar and pestle to grind it up. He measured out just the right amount and put it into the cauldron. Then he banked the coals, removed the mixing staff, and placed a circular lid over the cauldron's top so that his creation might simmer overnight.

There was only one more thing to do before he left the glade. He lifted the corpse from the table, carried it to the edge of the cat's circle, and unceremoniously tossed it in.

She showed little interest in it, having just eaten the muscle he had given her. Still, the body he had just tossed to her was large, and he knew that he would not have to worry about feeding her for several more days.

Reznik gathered up his instruments and his journal and began to make his way out of the glade. After taking only a couple of steps he had a sudden thought. He stopped short and turned around.

Returning to the table, he picked up the gingercrinkle blossom and placed it in one of the buttonholes of his jerkin. Pretty, he thought.

As he walked out of the glade, he began to whistle.