By Michael Gryboski

(Webmaster's note: The following work was originally published in the George Mason University literary publication Volition. Below is the story as it appeared in the publication, save a typo that was found in the final print. Permission was granted before this webpage was uploaded. Full citation: Gryboski, Michael, "From the Valley of Darkness", Volition, Spring 2008, Volume 5, pp.8-14.)

Wooden beams hung above, the ribcage of the carpenters’ product. Thatch kept most water out, but the heaviest rains made it porous. No one cared; everyone was laughing, shouting, falling into each others arms in the communal loss of reservation. The women wore their necklines low and their hemlines high, their countenances masked by excessive makeup. Men, many bloated from a meaty diet put upon them since they renounced breast-milk, tipped extra for the good looking ones, or picked very ephemeral fights over incurred debts. Farmhands and wage laborers had their spots for revelry, with better chairs and tables set for the high paying elites, with booths reserved for the best of them.

“That’s the ticket, that’s the ticket!” he said, the loudest of the three preciously handling playing cards between two hands. Bloated from a lifetime of gluttony, he had on either side a woman from the tavern watching in consensual silence, smiling when he smiled and laughing when he laughed. “Now look at that!” said he, placing down a set of cards. One of his opponents put his cards facedown, while the other placed the cards face up, disappointing the weighty center of the people at that booth. “One of these days, one of these days! I am going…” he began, the rumpus crowd silencing in mimicked reverence, “I am going…to lower taxes.”

A burst of laughter came as he liberally pushed more chips towards the victor for that round. “Come now, wench,” he said to the woman on his left, blonde curly hair, portly frame, “another drink, I pray thee,” he said, dropping a ducat into the hand as he gave her his mug, foamy dregs at the bottom. “Now, where were we? Of course, of course! Another match.”

“It’s late and many patrons are leaving. I can only gain so much money from you, magistrate.”

“No, one more match, one more match. I have not yet begun to fight,” remarked the man in the corner of the corner booth, which was being watched from above.

“I’ll stay if thou put the highest of thy rings for competition.”

“No, my friend,” he said, another full mug put before him, his fingers caressing the red-jeweled ring on his left index finger. “Too unworthy.”

She waited for them to leave. Lights dimmed, candles at the booths alone giving luminance. He was talking to himself, everyone else had left. “I am the bravest of them all, yes I am, bravest one…the only one left.” An odd machine was attached to her left arm like a parasite. It wrapped around from the wrist to the elbow and had a complex network of strings hooking about the pinky. That digit was completely folded, but as she raised it, a thin silver blade progressively stretched out and was parallel to the pinky, remaining at its position as the pinky remained straight. She put her left arm to her chest, the blade pointing to the side. He was laughing, muttering nonsense when she jumped down and landed on the booth’s table like a cat, her left arm still tucked in. Before a second passed, the left arm swung outward, halting when it was completely outstretched, the blade now drenched in blood. She looked at his hand, saw the crimson ring, gently pulled it from the cooling finger, and departed.

“An excellent job, they were right about you,” said the new magistrate, a former viceroy named Honorius of Ravenna. He wore his political regalia, emblems of allegiance. Marble enclosed the two, with centurions posted two per portal. “There is no purpose to hire censors when public morality is best upheld by the assassin.”

“I want no praise, Honorius of Ravenna. Your payment is enough,” Paulina said, wearing a generic dress with her brown and black hair interrupted by a blonde streak. She stood while Honorius sat, a callow man her age.

“Here it is,” said he, rising to give her a few bags of ducats on his desk. She approached and with her raised hand stopped him, deciding to look into each bag first. This tacit request was humored as Honorius continued. “This frontier town is ripe with corruption. I feel guilty for asking another service when you have given so much, but alas I must make my request.”

“I hold no loyalties.”

“This I know and I would not ask had this not been important. I have other assassins hired for this job, but I want to be certain.”

“I have no loyalties, my work bestows upon me many overseers. However, the empire is the only one that pays regularly and abundantly. I am willing to perform another task for you, Honorius and for the empire’s security.”

“The empire’s security,” said Honorius as though in self-reflection. “That is central to this job. You must understand…”

“I continue to listen,” said the woman, who walked a few steps back from the desk, a few bags of ducats now tied to her waist.

“Outside of the barbarians beyond our borders, we have no true enemies. Eastern kingdoms are either too far away or a patchwork of ruins to discover. Legions immense, breadbasket provinces under our guard but we are vulnerable. A threat beyond this world existeth: the gods. As you know, every season the Roma Ritual must be performed by every house and if it is not the instability and famine of old will visit us.”

“Truly, for my house performs it.”

“Although all the religions we have under the emperor serve him in this matter, a small sect willfully disobeys the holy decree. They refuse to perform the Roma Ritual in degradation of the gods. Legions will not be enough; one of their leaders lives here and has a strong following. You and your colleagues must eliminate him. I do not care who does the deed itself; all of you will be paid double what I have given you this day.”

“I can almost remember them all, too,” remarked Festus, whose thinning white hair was nevertheless as long as Paulina’s. He had unbuttoned his sleeve and, descending from his wrist to the elbow was a single-file line of black marks. All four of this dubious company was on horseback.

“Must you mutilate yourself over another kill?” asked an amused Virgil, who ignored the man next to him. This younger, freckled northerner was Ovid, a member of a family whose older brother was murdered by Virgil’s first cousin. This was done in response to Ovid’s nearest aunt poisoning Virgil’s father, who was accused of raping her youngest daughter.

“They are patches of honor, surely all those committed do wear them,” replied Festus, who buttoned his sleeve while all looked on at the community ahead. It was small, but growing. As a group the community had refused to perform the Roma Ritual, denying the very existence of the gods. Festus, Ovid, Virgil, and Paulina waited for any sign of the leader, dubbed by the community to be a deacon.

“The only road is where we are,” said Ovid, looking at Paulina as he said this. She thought a moment, and as the afternoon transferred to twilight Paulina noticed a rider going towards the rockier other end of the collection of simple homes, each one small enough to fit in that one marble room where Paulina collected payment.

“That’s him!”

“We should have spread out, any imbecile could have seen that,” said Virgil, who was talking to Festus, who suggested staying on the road but looked at Ovid while speaking. All four hired killers went off the road onto beaten ground and gave chase, ending up along the border of the opposite end of the community as the sun bestowed less light.

“Hold! We should not venture farther!” said Ovid, who had gotten ahead.

“Why not, he’s getting farther away, deeper into that valley,” replied Festus, holding his left side as though he had been running. As the deacon got smaller and the vision darker, the four could see a grassy, rocky horizon, with green rock-topped hills before them. Though boasting life, this valley before them appeared untouched and unwelcoming, with only a few dead trees standing.

“It is cursed, the whole valley, is cursed,” said Ovid. “When the legions first entered this province, a cohort went there and was never heard from again. Another was sent out to find it and it never returned. It is cursed, we best not enter. That deacon fellow is as good as dead.”

“Superstition, mere superstition meant to deceive the young ones. I see no one told you that those tales were myths,” said Festus, who readied his steed although he was short of breath.

“I am going and I shall fulfill my job; that is what we all must do,” said Virgil, stressing the second clause while looking at Ovid. Paulina did not respond to his words, but rather pulled her horse’s reins and led by example, charging after the deacon with her three contemporaries following.

“He should be coming this way,” said a coughing Festus to the Ovid and Virgil, who went to opposite ends of the pass. It had been many hours, nearly a day since they rode into the valley. They had brought some supplies, which were mostly consumed. Virgil’s weapon of choice was the bow. He went out farther to one side upon hearing the galloping of the deacon’s horse. Ovid preferred daggers, two at the ready for throwing. Paulina was in pursuit and would finish off the deacon if he survived the two rivals. Now he entered the pass and was in sight. Ovid, the least experienced, threw his daggers early and missed. “Go ahead, Virgil, take him out!”

Virgil waited. Smiling as the distance between them and the deacon grew; he pulled back the tight string and then, waiting a little bit longer, released and sent the missile far off to the horizon. When Ovid and Festus looked with doubt, they were amazed as the arrow came down in perfect arc and struck the hide of the deacon’s horse, causing a loud shriek and a tumbling fall which broke the deacon’s leg. This gave Paulina ample time to approach the wounded prey, now seated on the ground with a cruelly bent leg. Dismounted, Paulina tacitly walked towards the deacon.

“So you are the one who shall send me to paradise. I am ready, even excited at what I shall behold thanks to you.” Paulina apathetically walked a straight line to be a few steps before him.

“I forgive you,” he said in sincerity. “Right now, you know not what you do. I understand, for I was like you once,” he said as she circled him. To her hidden surprise he unbuttoned his right sleeve and pulling it down revealed a lengthy line of dark marks from his wrist to his elbow. Now she was behind the seated deacon, who grasped at some string around his neck and pulled to view a cross hidden under his shirt. He continued, closing his eyes and praying in whisper. Paulina ignored this, jumping to land in front of the deacon, pinky stretched out parallel to the blade, swinging it to one side and slitting the throat so surely that the string tied to the cross was cut away, but the hand remained in grasp.

“You must be a collector,” remarked Ovid upon waking that early morn. He noticed Paulina, awake and ready, holding the cross she had taken from the deacon’s corpse. Virgil was just getting up as well.

“I am,” she replied. “Do you feel better Ovid, knowing your fears about a curse were not true?”

“Yeah, youthful stupidity strikes again, right Festus?” said the now standing Virgil, who received no response. “Festus?” he asked again, removing his blanket to see a man peacefully departed. Ovid started to shake, Paulina looked away. Virgil put the blanket over him and walked off.

No one ate breakfast, deciding to return immediately to the frontier village. No talking either, with Ovid and Paulina walking together and Virgil still collecting himself. “People die, some just die in their sleep. He was old, he was sick. It was inevitable. Who knows? Maybe that Honorius fellow will give us Festus’ share of the payment.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” asked Ovid, speaking directly to Virgil for the first time since entering the valley. The words halted Virgil, who turned in disgust at the youth.

“What are you implying?”

“Nothing,” replied Ovid as he guided his hands near to his daggers. “Just that Festus dies and then you talk about getting his money.”

“You are like your family, a pedigree of liars and murderers!”

“It ends now!” said Virgil, who drew forth his bow. Before Ovid could throw his first dagger the arrow was launched from a short distance and full fury into his left arm, where the dagger was held. Paulina watched as Virgil drew another arrow, aiming for Ovid. But before this could happen the young man grabbed another dagger and threw it, deeply penetrating Virgil’s forehead, killing him before he closed his eyes. However, the blood loss was too fast; Virgil had aimed well. Paulina rushed to the falling youth, who merely looked at her, uttered “the curse lives” and died as the skies grew dark.

The last horse starved. Grassy areas abounded amongst rocks, but nothing edible. No sleep, continual pressing forward and yet no progress, as the horizon seemed equally far away. Paulina kept going. Soon, as darkened clouds circled around the valley, Paulina realized that it was not the curse of antiquity that haunting her; it was divine justice. It had always been horrible people slain by her blade. This was different, for she knew the deacon did not deserve his fate. He was better than her.

Unable to keep composure, the clouds imposing on every side of blackness, she tore away the device of death that gave her a shadow career. Pieces fell to the ground behind her as she started to run, but weakened by lack of food her sprint was brief. Even then, her travels took her no place and falling to her knees, hands raised, she shouted “Forgive me! Forgive for I have done wrong and I deserve all punishment!” She buried her head into her arms and cried amidst sounds of thunder.

I already forgave you. All that was needed was for you to accept it.

It was not possible, Paulina knew him to be dead. Still, there was comfort in what she heard. Paulina wanted to respond, to further express her remorse to the phantasm that must be before her, but when she lifted her eyes from her arms she saw no one. Rather, the clouds were dispersed and the sun was luminous, directly above the frontier village, where with a joyful heart she would never perform her old profession again.