Post by Sire Halfblack on Aug 5, 2014 15:29:18 GMT
Aiprus IM 1005
Deci was not as other cities of the Empire.
Of course, all the cities within the Empire had been a part of such a union only since Cerus Amora had come to the Throne, after all, before then there had been no Empire at all. But the other cities had links and history that at least joined them to common cause. Even when divided to Magiocracy the wars that ended such states were viewed as internecine for they all had belonged to the Republic. Before even that scarce remembered time the Sallow Principalities al shared ties of blood and foundation.
But not Deci.
Until the Empire it had ever been a free city. And by free Deci meant without the rule of law. Ruled by the strongest from what is now the Citadel it was always a place where life was short, hard and hungry. If anywhere still reflected this it was Cheapside. A warren of alleys and lanes, confusing courtyards and passageways on many levels people here lived in crowded conditions. Filth their bed and anger their meat. Every city stank and every city was dark when night came but nowhere was this more strongly true than in Cheapside. Whether Brigand Lord, Robber Baron, Mocker King or Governor, all had at some point at least thought of clearing out the wretched and sprawling slums but never had they succeeded. Crime was rife for here crime was a way to live. Drunkenness common and all the ills and evils of the land could be found within.
More people lived in Cheapside than in any other part of the city and those were just the ones the scribes perceived. For the westernmost part Deci could be confusing to their rites and here of course dwelt the City Spirit himself. And he liked Cheapside. For here Deci was as it had always been and perhaps he took strength from that.
There had been death here too of course at the Day of the Dead but perhaps not so much as first thought. Certainly, the ‘Siders had risen and taken a great part in the murder that had seen the city suckle at deaths teat, but they had gone out of their own territory and for the most part killed those without.
Amongst the dark snow of the season, the streets were relatively still as people crammed, snuck and fornicated within the hovels. The city could send in the Guilds to restore the homes of course but… it would never last. There was not one fine thing, no shining boon that the people of Cheapside could not tarnish, break or ruin.
Mothers drunk on narrow lanes hawked their diseased bodies. Or slumped whilst a baby died in the gutter. Even in the relative brightness of the day, when the city most commonly slept, it was gloomy in the quarter. For the buildings were close and crammed together. Their roofs touched or were joined by the boards of the roof roads. It seemed that no two buildings, even in the same row, rose to the same height. This year the city had made sure there was food and that alleviated suffering but provided energy for more villainy.
It perhaps summed the city up best that it was awash with ore and short of manufactured goods. It was all potential and all unrealised. But even if Deci became the shining capital of a bright new Empire little would change in Cheapside. For if the Heights were the beating heart of the city Cheapside would ever be it soul.
Yet within the quarter there was one clear road. It was but a street compared to other cities but it was a fine thing indeed in Cheapside. Here the few businesses, markets and gathers could be found and in the very centre of the row a neatly appointed, clean and scrubbed little shop stood. It had fine clean windows, glass if you please, curtains and a glittering array of bottles, vials and potions displayed but a brick and a quick hand away. Yet no one touched this store. No one here either dared or felt the compulsion too. And here the Governor came, crossing the higher trails to land with surprising agility on the patch of clean flagstones without.
It was good he had for rumour said that Anath had fled the city, scratching his neck and chuckling like a miser on a hot date with his horde.
Lord Majius pushed open the door to the sound of its small bell and accepted the offer of on of the shops two padded chairs. Outside the sound of running feet was a distant thing even as an orc chased down a well-muscled man before beating his brains out with a chunk of stone.
Not even aware of the scuffle, or of the tearing of flesh as the bigger fellows nose was bitten clean off, Troy passed a few minutes in small talk whilst he waited for others to arrive.
In the street, Blackjack spat his victim’s nose to the ground and grinned. He had learnt the way of Cheapside with admirable swiftness. Orcs often did. Here they could do as they like whilst they picked on people smaller than them and lived as long as they pleased if they kept clear of those bigger than they. It was just like home. Just like tribe and family. Not that Blackjack had a family, or if he did he didn’t know who his father was. Or if he did then he’d probably killed him. He didn’t really spent much time thinking about it. For there were a lot of people smaller than him and there were a lot bigger than him. Because in Cheapside it came down as often as not to numbers. Or if you could turn hairy come the moon but even that was not as it had once been. The Straw Dogs were no more.
The Whistler’s Pud was not what could be called an Inn elsewhere. There were no hearty innkeepers serving up fulsome pints, there were no cheeky serving girls, mysterious strangers or hearty feeds for bold adventurers on honest quest. The Pud was a crammed little nook who’s only light came from tallow candles, even they rendered from the bodies of two legged cattle. There was plenty to eat of course since the City was giving the stuff away and… a lot of fresh meat in the streets. That Fade and his snaggle-toothed followers were heaving the dead into the River Spittle as fast as could be done but there was still enough around. It didn’t even rot so badly in the cold.
But the Pud was just what Blackjack liked after a hard day of getting a polish on his iron boots. It was dank, it stank and it was dark but it was the closest to home. Home with five and a half walls, a roof and a bed made of mildew and dashed dreams. It was strictly speaking Elvy’s place but they had been tumbling one another and shaking those same walls for the last week or two and that made it his place too. She was a fearsome woman in her own right, thin as a pole and with a face so pointed you could fold a scroll about it. She had introduced Blackjack to her brothers and with her that made five. They sold bilge, fermented slurry that got you drunk, drove you blind and sometimes caused a drinker to cough up bits that he never knew he had. No one had much when they came in, thieving even that to pay for more bilge or for a sharp-clawed grope with Elvy.
Under Blackjack’s leadership, Elvy’s brothers had beaten hell out of the locals and told them who owned their properties now. Rent was never collected by the Nobles in any case in Cheapside and it was good that people round her learnt who was in charge.
Previously it had been Elvy’s husband. But he shacked up some distance away in the Molly House, acting as a bit of muscle for those daring rogues who liked a bit of rough now and again. Her Brothers hated the man, Gath Maller, had more than once had tried to get Blackjack to go and sought him out. Kill him frankly.
“Do it yerself.” Blackjack yawned.
“He’s bigger’n us, and he’s got mates.” Scrawl snapped back. None of the Brothers were big, but they were nasty. Not the sought to do more than stick the boot in or slip a knife in a convenient rib if it was handy there were people like them the Empire over. Cowards, but spiteful ones who with leadership could do much. None of it nice of course.
“Mates? Yeah? Who?”
“Molly Bride fer one. That’s who he works fer now. Lotsa treasure ter be made off Mollies. Guildsmen from up city come down ‘ere fer a bit of slap-and-reach. Dress up. Stuff like that. Molly Bride’s bigger’n you.”
Blackjack scoffed at the suggestion. Then something tweaked his instincts. “Treasure?”
“Molly Houses do good. Lotsa people go there fer a tumble don’t want it spread too far. Pay more than street, see?”
“Treasure?”
“Yahs, Blackjack. Treasure.”
*
“Yes, I see now.” The Minister nodded. The narrow chamber would barely have allowed a fat man to stand and he within was certainly not that. The shackles might well have been padded and the room’s walls painted in tasteful shades of blue but it was without light or, The Minister’s wrinkled nose told him, anything approaching sanitary facilities. Not that a cludgy pot would have helped. The manacles after all precluded such considerations. “He..?”
“Failed to produce. Besides, his father no longer holds the Marque and those markets he possessed have fallen to House Saldana. We accept that of course, good old Saldana and we’d have done the same but… well, he’s no good to them now is he?”
“Saldana?”
“Claugh, Master Minister. There is very little of more importance to the Blood than either propagating the same or for the increase in both wealth and power. Naturally he will be afforded full funereal honours. You,” Lilen prodded the captive with the toe of one well-turned boot, “do you have Faith?”
“Please help me.” The voice rasped dryly. “Gods above! Help me!” He instead turned his appeal to the heavens in general.
“It seems he is non- denominational?”
“Oh, that’s perfectly fine.” The Minister said. He was a little unsure about this, amongst other matters, but as a citizen of Deci he was not one to buck the local culture. Lilen had a nearby servant close the door to the oubliette and waved for her gust to precede her to more seemly places. The Spire of the Nobility was an impressive place, tasteful yet ornate, comfortable yet not grossly opulent. The Nobility of Deci were typically not given to outward luxury after all. Too many tapestries might hide too many knives; exquisite food might contain too much poison.
Nonetheless the room to which The Minister was taken was breath taking enough for it was mostly balcony. Beyond the door the walls extended only two or three yards before the floor swept out over the city and afforded spectacular views of the dirty settlement below them. His hunting down of Wethered had been a cherry to top the cake of his visit and now he was once again spending time with Lilen Phael. Their relationship had become cordial but without all the personal nonsense that sometimes intruded.
Though officially Lord Marston’s ward, Lilen was actually of the blood of the House. Not born on the right side of the sheets she had nonetheless been well educated in the Deci manner with funds sent from Scarlene, where her father, Lord Marston, had resided until recently. Now she was his ward and seemed to handle his business whilst he was out of the city, which he had been for some time. House Marston was an old Deci family, one that had been taken into the Imperial fold after the Lord had supported Amora’s rise and foundation of Empire. Lands in Scarlene had taken him away from his birth city but times had changed and Marston had returned. It was a respected House amongst the Nobility, one of those of importance along with the likes of Claugh, Gelmenslew and Majius.
The Lord himself was said to be as lean and skilled as any in the city but his years away had perhaps made him more warrior than assassin. Not that the Nobles were assassins of course. But they might perhaps be said to share similar skills.
They spoke of this and that for perhaps an hour. It was all rather inconsequential but certain forms were often best regard before the core of any conversation would be approached. So it was a while before The Minister was able to raise certain matters and listen to Lilen’s opinion such as it was on at least one subject for she had little to do with the Guilds of the city.
“The marriage though would be a formality. Aethyn is of course rather young and we in Deci do not hold for certain needs to be satisfied immediately. It will be enough for now that he is whom he is and joined with whom she is. I should think that the Final Dawn would be most suitable for the ceremony so there is plenty of time to arrange matters. Naturally, Lord Claugh will meet with you to talk the matter over, the dowry and the like. But there is no immediate rush.”
“And of course the widow…”
“Yes, it is best to wait until she is such before you meet with Claugh don’t you think?”
The Minister smiled and stared out at the city. Directly beneath him the Heights fell away into their abyss but here amongst the stars it was easy to see why the Nobles thought so highly of themselves.
*
It was an enormous task and one that would continue through the month for Fade rallied all those over whom he had some power to gather the dead that could be found and drag them to the River Spittle. The Nightsoil of course directed as best as they were able but it was the Conveyers that provided the strong backs. Their more mystical talents were of no use with bodies but they were all strong men and women, knowledgeable in matters of force and weight and soon sleds and carts were employed, loaded and used to drag more bodies to the River. It was hard work for any number were frozen and these had to be hacked free.
The more obvious were easy, time consuming but easy, but more might have escaped notice for the settlement was not blessed with wide streets and easy thoroughfares. Here the Mocker’s children came to the fore and not just beggars but those whom the Mocker’s influence touched, which in number were considerable. It was fortunate that the citizens possessed some native initiative, able to grasp what was being done and perhaps half the city helped out for an hour or two. Doubtless many had still been missed, the city was not searched on a building-by-building basis, which would have been impossible and doubtless bodies would bloat and fester in the coming month.
But if the task took many weeks then it at least showed legs. A few enterprising priests raised a number of the bodies but these spiritual undead never seemed to reach the river as anything other than a corpse. Not a few saw how they were quietly set upon by the steadier Nightsoil. Freshly raised undead were bitter children, unpredictable and hungry. Many of the bodies were too old in any case and the control too weak so… the Nightsoil did what they saw as their primary task in any case.
It was not something that was talked about. The people just got on with it all about the city. All apart from in Cheapside where the more obvious streets were cleared by the Nightsoil and beggars but in which the citizens just glared, suspecting some plan that would be against them. Fade had done much for Cheapside but the quarter was the quarter and the Cheapsiders were Cheapsiders.
There was not time to count the bodies as they plunged into the waters of the Spittle and were for the most part carried away. Some caught on fallen boughs and other detritus and as the month progressed the Spittle began to slow and then widen, rising against the wall of the basic docks.
Even when the work seemed as done as it was able the rising Spittle still had many corpses that now bobbed just below the surface. Ghostly figures whose open mouths and hands seemed to beseech the living behind a muddy vale.
Fade was not dealing with what may be but what he knew would come. Ramifications were of less importance than the fact that the city would drown in pestilence in a scant few weeks had he not done what he had done. It had been entirely possible that the city would not have survived the disease. More than likely in fact.
A few of the citizens stared at the rising waters and in horror at the bodies that seemed to stare at them from below.
“You know where there’s a good well?” One asked the other.
“No,” another frowned, “why?”
“Well I’m buggered if I’m going to fetch water from that.” He indicated the Spittle. “And that’s where the water boys fetch it from. Feeling thirsty?”
“Yes… but…”
Fade scowled at the pair and they sloped off back the way they had come. Thousands of bodies clogged the Spittle. Eartholme was going to love that, Fade thought.
*
Like many city’s the scribe’s hardest task was differentiating between the racial indications that their tallies counted. They didn’t actually know why. Few of the figures they compiled in this area anywhere in the Empire were entirely accurate and it was something they were working hard to master. None of this was even known to Dannik but he would have been surprised to find out that no one in the city was a rat when clearly this was not so.
There were actually but a few proper, walking, talking rats but there were enormous numbers of relatively ‘normal’ rats and even since the last Final Dawn they had definitely decided that talking, thinking and not going near that bit of cheese was a pretty good idea. Not that anyone laid down poison for rats anymore. Firstly the city’s vermin had long since mastered the toxins and even grown fat on them and secondly, anyone just leaving poison around in Deci was just asking for it to be nicked. Pre-poisoned cheese? There was a market for that.
It took some adjusting to the rats since though they were very alike he they were of curse considerably smaller. It was clear that a clutch of the cities loyal tribals has ‘Scorn amongst them but like the rest of the hairy folk they were at pains to fit in. No, these rats were children of Slavik. Small or not.
Dannik felt like a giant amongst his peers for though most of them were involved in a complex game of cards, dice and feathers there were still so very little. A yard of body, a foot of which was tail, did not intimidation make. The rats all wore hats, some gloves and two a tiny ruff. Only one wore trousers and this one also had little boots. But this one, Pippletear, was actually in a Guild.
Perhaps the best thing about Deci was that Dannik had feared to move amongst the disgusting clean humans. In truth they were disgusting. Filthy, often scarred or even wounded and universally dirty. Washing was not something that had ever caught on in Deci and a fresh scrubbed face, a scent of soap and nicely combed hair was generally seen as a form of suicide.
When one tired of life one moved to Deci. When one tired of Deci one had a bath and went for a bit of a stroll.
He had heard about Dinivan since he had been looking into much the same sort of thing and reached precisely the same conclusions regarding the health of the city. Make healing pay. It was often delicate work of course and rats had such little, clever paws. And it seemed that amongst the cities normal vermin population perhaps one in ten had aspired to hands, hats and tentatively making it in the world. Since there were at least two normal rats to every citizen in Deci that was quite a lot. Mostly they lived in the catacombs and the depths of the Heights. They’d considered approaching Anath for citizenship but now that Dannik was here it was clear that he, as a Druid, was much closer to this Kaharn they’d all been dreaming about at the last Final Dawn. They’d slept through that, hidden in the deepest places they could find whilst the Bhaalists started on cats and worked their way up to the neighbours.
“The city’s health,” Dannik’s puppet bobbed up and down as he spoke, “is of concern to me.”
“It pays?” One small voice asked.
“Possibly.” Dannik allowed.
“We help.” The rats all nodded and two of them palmed cards. Quit how they hid the full sized pasteboard when they did not even have diminutive sleeves spoke more of their dexterity than their instinct to cheat.
“There’d probably be taxes to pay?”
“What’s that?” Hissenfelt asked.
“Protection treasure.” Pippletear answered and yawned. It had been a busy day at the assassin’s guild. He had been astonished to find that his lack of skill with a blade had meant nothing at all to the Guild Master. There were a lot of people who could do that in Deci. But the ability to scuttle through a four-inch crack in the wall was something never to be sniffed at.
They weren’t what Dannik was used to but they were rats. Rats who were increasingly becoming human.
But weren’t they all?
*
“A demon?” The hooded Guildsman asked. His apprentice shook his head slowly.
“We would know. He has a tail but he is not a demon.” The apprentice was dressed alike to his master in long robes of black and a tall grey hood that covered the whole face to the top of the mouth. Tailored eye-holes enabled them to see. Their Guildhall was old, so old that only their Sire knew all the mysteries.
A bell chimed. Within the Guild others would be undertaking certain traditions, specific observances and timed precise actions. Things would be moved, notations made, chanting commenced, the mysteries of a Guild did not focus ritual in the same way as did the Magiarch’s. They were not as powerful and in no way supernatural. The Guilds moved stone, spun illusions of structures to be and levelled wood through purely natural means. They did not question why what they did enabled what followed. It was the Guild way and Guilds did not pry, just continued the mysteries that had been for centuries.
The Guildsman rose from where he had been inspecting a tally marking the progress of the stars. He was satisfied that they were as changeable as ever. Only the tribes tried to secure their reality through the celestial bodies, maintaining what had been before through their monoliths and henges. They had their own mysteries. He glided through the next corridor and entered the small public gallery, touching two small statues either side of the door, on the side other than the gallery, in passing.
The visitor was very tall and despite his mannish appearance had stiff little whiskers under his nose and a tail touching the floor behind him. On one hand a puppet stared back at the Guildsman, following his approach even as the visitor himself stared at the silvery markings across one wall.
“You are he that provided the commission for the restoration of our Guild?”
Rikki smiled. His two front teeth were slightly too large. “That is so.”
“Might I offer you ah… wine? Pork rind? I am sorry, I do not know what is most suitable.”
“Perhaps these..?” The visitor described his needs.
“Well now,” the Guildsman blew out his cheeks from within his enshrouding cowl. “We do have apprentices that still work with silver it is true.”
“You are the Silversmiths?”
“Well yes. But in Deci that means… not to worry. I am sure that we can work with the Warsmiths on this matter. As our gift to you.”
Rikki blinked. “I have funds.” He almost protested.
“The Guild is ever grateful. This is our way of repaying your sponsorship. I will have them ready for you within, say, the week?”
“Yes-yes.” The visitor rubbed his hands together. His nose twitching slightly he decided to see what else he could get. Curiosity only killed the cat because it found the rats were already there. “Perhaps I could come in and see-look about?”
The Guildsman smiled. “No.” He said simply and waited for Rikki to leave.
By Alan Morgan (CI7V3)