Post by Sire Halfblack on Aug 5, 2014 17:07:03 GMT
Jurrle IM 1006
Even the ghastly northern territories about Deci burned under the sun. The Season was too hot, it cracked the ground and sucked moisture from the land. The Spittle ran sluggishly and what crops there were in those stunted lands, where everything green had not yet been turned to charcoal in order to feed the ever hungry city, browned and withered. Even the spreading roots and vines in the city suffered, supernatural sustenance notwithstanding. They turned and dried and splintered.
It was even hot in the shadow of the mountains that marked the northern extremes of the city’s territory. Hot enough to crack stone in place and the trees seemed to draw in upon themselves, shuddering in the shadow of the Braeken range and gathering, keeping and jealously keeping captive the shade and the night darkness against the horrible day.
The territory was a dusty place and in the city the air was no better because of the season either. It grew hot and thin under the always present cloud of smoke and filth from the city’s foundries and smelteries. Never a city beloved of the day in any case the shorter nights saw tempers fray and fighting rise, as always, in Cheapside. There the Watch were driven from the Quarter when the orders of the Watch Captain and Magistrate saw to it that a hard line was taken in the city. In consequence the gangs of Cheapside laughed as they ran the Watch out of their streets, stripped and painted and with feather and furs attached to them with a foul and stinking glue.
In the heat and the culture people died and entering the city came many of the rural packs of ghouls that were being driven inwards by the unusually heady season. They prowled the streets, hunting primarily those few Nightsoil to be found therein but otherwise uncaring of their prey.
So it was that a stinking, hot and thoroughly hostile-to-damn-near-everyone crowd formed in the squares and clearer places of the city. They had heard of a speaker and perhaps he would have answers. A few were surprised when it transpired to be the Lord Inquisitor. The grey, scaly man peered at them as he mounted his improvised stage.
"I, Anacrites FitzLaganthal, by the power vested in me as Lord Inquisitor by her Imperial Majesty, Empress Truic and with the full support of her Senate hereby decree that the faiths of 'The Murder' and of Bhaal are hereby outlawed.”
The people had known it was someone important. Most of those here had assumed it would Argoth and so now they stood open mouthed as the declaration was declared.
“From this day forth any form of preaching, religious observance, ceremony or any other form of worship of these faiths is a crime of significance and will be prosecuted fully by the Inquisition and the Covenant. Likewise any form of assistance in construction of a religious building or supplying of goods or services to assist in a religious activity of one of these faiths is hereby decreed a felony.”
He paused to stare at the crowd and there were more than a few sullen thumps as the more devout there went for knives and found themselves instead being hit by an unseen hand. This too did not fail to pass through the crowd. People that had drawn in breath to decry the announcement instead closed them and wondered where those of real power were hiding?
“The manifest undesirability of faiths that hold the murder of another citizen of the Empire to be a sacred act should to be obvious to all. Such faiths will no longer be tolerated within the Empire."
By this time the crowd was growing and seeing that few, if any, could have squeezed into the area Anacrites raised his hand.
“People of Deci. For too long evil has gone unchallenged. For too long no one has dared to go against faiths that we know to be utterly wrong. That changes this day.”
There was a hissing, and a rumble and now a few calls. The Lord Inquisitor ignored them all. Instead he stood, arms crossed, until he once again had some measure of silence.
“There are those who say there will always be assassins, that our society needs them. I disagree with that but that is not what I seek to achieve today. There are those who worship murder without reason. Even if you trouble no one, are friends with all around you and have little worth taking, they will still seek to kill you. Because they find it funny. Because their sick Gods demand it. I say here and now that such faiths are no longer welcome on Primus.”
The crowd was moving forward now, the few that fell no longer being enough to do more than slow the tide. Nonetheless Anacrites continued.
“No one should need to live with that kind of fear. Hence I am here to begin the long overdue task of rooting out these sick religions from whatever rock they hide under. Your governor and city council, yes the governor of Deci has rightly asked me to deal with this problem, so you are the first to hear my decree!”
Then he turned and was gone. The crowd swarmed over the steps where the Lord Inquisitor had stood and then turned back on itself so that the more outspoken individuals could call for attention.
“Troy Majius did this!” The loudest pointed out. “The Governor did this, to your faith? To your god? To the Don!” The crowd fragmented into sullen mutterings that died as it passed away.
Amongst the crowd a lean figure chuckled and punched out a fat man who had taken a crossbow from his shoulder in order to answer Anacrites. He knew little about this ‘Murder’ but he knew Bhaal. The worship of which had dropped alarmingly since his last visit. There were plenty of the old devoted still about and they plotted and wrung their hands and cursed the name of Argoth. It was widely thought that the evil bastard had done away with Fade, just as he had Master Tamary.
The traveler had listened to them all and stepped in whenever some of the younger bucks, those few still loyal to Bhaal that is, to stamp on their giddy little plans. As far as he was concerned, it was against Imperial Law to kill, to murder or to assassinate, or even to hire assassins against other Imperial citizens. He was a straight-forward man who did not hold with the idea that assassins and their ilk prevented civic, and even civil war. What he did not hear much about were werewolves.
There were some tales of they having left the city. Certainly no one had seen or heard of them for some time and most thought they had fled the righteous wrath of Argoth. The traveler had plenty to occupy him though and he went with the crowd for the moment, seeing it split apart and listening to the whispered mutterings that someone ‘ought to do summat’ about their Governor…
…Troy, it seemed, was not a popular man in his own city. He was opposing crime, defying assassins and pitting himself firmly against Bhaal, the Murder and all the other cults of darkness that pretty much dominated the settlement.
Hightown
The little procession wove through Hightown. The streets here were crooked but relatively clean as the carefully employed, masked and mostly unseen ghouls snuck out to snatch at bird, to lick away guano or tip the odd body over the side and towards the lower levels. Clean was a relative state at best, but compared to the cluttering filth of the rest of the city the greater reaches of Hightown managed to lay some small claim to such.
Red and purple lanterns lit the alleys that wove into the piled buildings, the streets that layered one on the other and the rock that was at the core of the Quarter. Every once in a while of slew of dung or other detritus would fall through the air near by, ever downwards. The buildings here were actually really rather fine. Most were very old, and many had been raised upwards through the years as the lower levels expanded. Lanes teetered out into the abyss or crossed it so thickly that it was hard to see the crack at all.
There was a Watch here. Like that elsewhere in the city it was made up of very frightened people who badly needed the treasure offered. It was trying to obey the commands of its Watch Captain, the Governor at least, and had enjoyed some success when it had seized, branded and exiled perhaps half the city’s scribes for the crime of corruption. Fighting crime was never going to be easy in Deci. Indeed, it was always going to be frustrating and often never more so than for Anath. Master Halfblack was walking the often trembling streets of Hightown, escorted for his own protection by a number of lean men and women. They dressed as locals and indeed most likely were. They watched the roofs and trails, they saw the hidden and assessed the need to kill them. They made sure that Anath was not troubled. Elsewhere there might have been trouble after all. Elsewhere it was being said that if Troy had been inviting the Empire in to outlaw their leaders and attack their faiths, then realistically whose idea was it most likely to have been really. Such an action, such insult to their city had no clear benefit and so was either the plan of a madman or someone so twisted they could use a chair without sitting down. Anath, it was thought amongst certain circles, was the obvious candidate.
Things had become a little more difficult in the city since the scribes had been reduced in number. It was doubtless true they had been dipping their hands into the pot but they would only have done so as a result of a certain amount of example. Those left were rather pushed to cope and the Bureaucratic Chambers was hardly operating efficiently.
“In here, Master Halfblack.” One of his escorts interrupted the councilors thoughts and stepped aside to show where black brass gates now stood open.
*
It was dark.
In the city of Deci this was not unusual but here the darkness came from not only an absence of light but in truth an absence of nigh on anything at all. It seemed to the visitor that he stood in what felt to be a limitless land, one whose horizon stood beyond even the immortal sight of angels or but which could not be perceived at all. The air was utterly still, there was less than no sensation here at all, from anything.
Twirl was strangely calm. He opened his mouth to speak and almost jumped when his words actually materialized. “I am here on City business.”
A silver mask grew in the void before him. It slipped out of the shadows but rather than seeming to be of a size with his own face Twirl felt like it was rather of great size, but some distance away. A susurration of voices blew passed the visitor. They noise seemed to touch his face, a light breeze that asked him what it was that brought him to the Guildhall at all..?
*
For several hours he had walked ever downwards along the streets, such as they were, of Hightown. The Quarter was nearly an island in the city with the great crack that ran about three sides of its separating it from the rest of Deci. In places it was mere yards across whilst at Tumble Lane it was a good thirty yards at least. In place it was even greater and crossed, and re-crossed by bridges that had once been streets and bridges that had been improvised. The Quarter ran more up and down than across and though the cream of the city naturally occupied the upper reaches the scum lurked in the depths. It was not generally known how deep the crack went. Or rather, how far down the crack the city went and where the settlement ended. There were dwellings, lanes and haunts so far down in the crack that daylight never went there at all.
Outsiders often thought Cheapside was the poor quarter, as much as such a thing could be discerned at all. But Cheapside was just the old city, the area that for centuries had been Deci. It held perhaps half the citizens, it was really the residential slums. But the depths of Hightown were the real poor areas. There was precisely no law here at all, even the odd form of such sometimes enjoyed by Deci.
In the depths of Hightown, low in the crack and far below the city commonly recognized streets, lived the real scum. Not only drow but the beasts and the twisted things with the wits of the living but the bodies of fiends. They lurked here as close as they could to civilization. Indeed, Taleth had already noticed that the catacombs under Deci flowed downwards and eventually, like some battered cone, to the depths of the crack.
He was deeper here than any mine the city possessed. Catacombs ran off in a labyrinth all about him and there was a greasy, bitter taste to the thin air. When he had been in Eartholme the Nobleman had heard stories of a great mountain under the earth. A mountain on which Eartholme perched. Eartholme was built on rock. He touched the wall and was surprised when a little of it came off in his hands. Deci, clearly, was built on something far more organic.
There were few people here. He must had passed hundreds, even thousands perhaps as he had descended and few of them would be part of the city as far as the scribes would see it. Here he was as much in the wilds as a man might be having ridden out of Halgar. Indeed, Taleth began to suspect that this was important, that such an association was something he needed to hold onto. For the land about Deci was terrible stuff. Rocky, with sickly earth, rapidly shrinking woodlands and air you could choke a newborn on. It was a terrible place and the city had been thinking of it as being its territory for far too long…
*
With Hadensford, Claugh and Marston not in the city the gathering in the Spire did not have the weight to it of certain previous such soirées. Nonetheless the dancing, talking and darker little entertainments were more readily suited to Troy’s needs as without certain powerful Lords it was easier for him to talk to some of the lesser Nobility. Typically these were of the Blood but did not have titles. Indeed, their Houses had effectively been denied by Amora when he dissolved the Nobility and established it anew when he came to the Throne of Glass. Now many of them were employed by other Houses, or, commonly, they were something important in one Guild or another. Their ancestors might well number one of the Mocker Kings, Robber Barons or Mouse Queens but they had been reduced. And, Troy thought, didn’t they just know it…
It was easier for Berina to make her presence felt without the looming dominion of her House and its immediate peers. In truth she was little more than an extension of Troy himself, but without the drive to do anything so silly as spend her days with Guilds and scribes. Mostly she liked to hunt, or to vanish for the night to entertain herself with old friends and on old rooftops.
The most promising of the lesser Nobles, not that they strictly were that in Deci, were the three that lurked about the terrace. Here, above the city they could stare down at the clouds of smog that obscured the settlement from view. Under the moonlight it looked like some softly boiling landscape, some chaotic realm of hell perhaps. Troy recognized Richen Dell, a fellow who worked as the Master of the Guard for a local merchant. But he had to be introduced to the fellow’s companions. The first had a face that seemed all folded in about its flattened nose, the second was more handsome but seemed to say nothing to anyone even when directly spoken to.
“Lord Majius, this is Baralen Arch, a Conveyer and formerly the scion of House Cruven. Cruven of course no longer, strictly speaking, exists. The pretty fellow is Vuel Jaius.”
“Of the House?”
“Majius.” Dell answered for his companion. “Unrecognised bastard of your own father. The Blood, strangely, is strong however. He has recently returned from his work in Bildteve. I knew him as a boy. ” Dell shrugged. “He says little but he misses very little.”
“I see.” Troy said. “You have met Berina?”
Dell and Arch bowed their heads. Vuel smiled faintly and kissed the girls hand. They seemed to know each other, certainly they were familiar but it must have been from the time before she came to know Troy.
*
The heat cracked the desolate ground of the Deci territory. The smaller rivers and streams had dried to empty beds and it was not unusual to see dead herds littering the hollow waterways. The smog of the settlements smudged the horizon for leagues about and it was possible for a traveller to see the way to the city from much of the territory for its taint could be perceived far above the horizon. Such crops as there were withered in the heat and people began to come to the city where at least there was the river. It had sunk but had certainly not diminished and the festival gave a fine reason to leave settling and even village behind. Some were lured away, many hearing the whispers of a better life in Keys – for though the journey was long, almost impossible to visualise for most, so were dreams of plenty. And water.
Fires burned in the stunted woodlands, amongst abandoned charcoal burnings and added to the sick air of the territory. Less of the precious cargo was coming to Deci where its greedy mills and foundries always needed more to shape and scour the metals from the ore. Hungry industry shouted for more, more, more of the charred wood for they needed the heat it provided – that from the season not being exactly sympathetic to their needs.
Some coming to the city from the further places met peddlers who spoke of the savagery visited upon the Lumber Jackers. Some even claimed to have seen their shattered carts. Some heard of raiders that savaged the straggling columns that wove their way towards the city and the food that their needs demanded. It was no secret that Anath could feed and water the Empire if he so needed. So they came to the city and slept in the streets and were robbed and beaten by the townies for whom the idea of wolves and sheep was one of aspiration as much as need.
That so many came to the city was unwelcome to some scribes, it was more happily received by others who delighted in the taxation they might expect if they had the Watch to see it done with. The very nature of those with the initiative to come to the city meant that most were willing to work. To do anything indeed to keep themselves and their families and in one surprising upset for the gangs of Cheapside a heady chunk of their horrible Quarter was taken over by incomers. Feisty, creepy little men and women snuck up on burly, hard working rural cousins who showed them that what the locals had in their hands was not actually a knife. They demonstrated this by showing them the sort of blade they needed to trim withys and logs. At least one of the crafty gangs felt it very unfair when the rural folk gave them a hearty kicking and sent them on their way.
But it was the time of the Hundred Guilds and the procession was out and about in the wider streets of the city. Dark lanterns lit their way and the Guilds curried favour by handing out goods and food and of course water. The Guild’s weren’t looking for new members. They were currying favour.
*
Four burly Conveyers stood beside the poles of the heavy Haruld chair and though they did not touch it still it bobbed aloft so that Anath sat at head height to everyone else in the street. Formed of wood turned to resemble a nest of snakes and lacquered a deep and translucent red so deep it was almost black it was an impressive way to move about the city. Even though the larger thoroughfares were choked with wagons from the Guilds no one could miss the city’s craftenguilder as he moved about Deci. The effect was only increased by the narrow eyed guards bearing Anath’s Merchant patch and the scuttling rats that pushed others aside even as they banged drums and blew little tin horns. Before them all, clearing the way, was the impressive hat of Sire Trundleberry. Its crown rose to a level sufficient so that when Anath passed word to the goblin he did not have to look down.
Trundleberry swaggered. There was no other word for it. Garbed in a glittering waistcoat of knives and a belt of the same that formed a steel kilt he moved the shuffling crowds aside by his reputation alone. No one really wanted to catch Sire Trundelberry’s eye. No one wanted to be noticed. People of note went to spend a pleasant afternoon in his shop and no one wanted themselves drawn into the conversations that proliferated in the Stab In The Back. He might be a goblin but he was also Sire Trundelberry and he wore a very big hat. He had also infiltrated the Inquisition, people said, where he served as the grandest scribe in the Empire. All in all very impressive. And it was a very fine hat. Bigger than Anath’s rather more restrained black skullcap anyway.
The chair wove its way towards the Merchant’s Guildhall and bobbed up the steps. Sire Trundleberry touched a finger to the brim of his hat and had a small chest brought up to Anath. In it lay thousands of grulls. The good Sire was not one to ignore his debts and it was his belief that the contents would pay back his loan in full. He had intended to do so anyway but Anath’s chuckling over another loan had done nothing to assuage his fiscal intent.
The chair came to a halt and settled on the black marble of the Guild’s reception hall. Servants glided forward, luminous and consumptive, and offered wine and sweetmeats to the Guild’s guest. He sniffed at the goblet, just in case it was some of rough Halgar Red he had been warned about. It was not.
Outside and Trundelberry settled down as his lads and lasses disappeared into the small crowds nearby. Some of them whistled as they did so. He opened a small door in the side of his hat and took out a fat cigar. Trimming it with one of his smaller knives he looked up when a tall fellow sat down beside him.
“Wotcha me Lordship, sir.”
“Sire Trundleberry.” The Nobleman nodded back. “Might we talk?”
“Anyfing fer you, me Lordship, sir.”
*
The crowds were not thick in the square where the Forge appeared in Deci. Indeed, though the buzz of the procession carried dimly to Jander it seemed far more distant that his eye suggested. He could see wagons passing slowly by scant yards away yet still the noise did not carry. He looked about himself. He nodded at the small knot of Watchmen cadging a quiet smoke away from trouble. He let his gaze fall upon the Guildhall that made up three sides of the square.
It was undoubtedly impressive in a solemn sort of way. The windows were tall and narrow and the structure went more up than out. It possessed three pointed roofs capped by a bell tower in the shape of a spike and in each a large silver bell shook but did not ring. He stared as part of the roof detached itself and fell silkily to the cracked flagstones without a sound. The man looked at Jander. Jander looked back. He was a big fellow in an even larger black cloak and when he pushed it back over one shoulder Troy was revealed within.
“Thank you, Joss.” The Governor tipped the skinner generously. “Evening, Sunstar!”
Majius. Taking the night air?
“Quite.” The big fellow in the cloak rose silently back to the rooftop, his rope following and then he was gone. Both men watched him vanish before turning back to one another. “So,” Troy continued, “just passing by?”
Not really. Admitted Jander.
“I see. Here for a reason?”
There’s no much point in coming here otherwise is there?
The crowd, though muffled, let out a low cheer. It had all the clarity of a damp cloak falling from a chair. The square was an uncomfortable sort of place. The angles were all wrong and closed inwards as they rose higher. It made for a claustrophobic atmosphere. There did not seem to be enough air as if they were on a high peak. “No, I suppose not. Shall we go in?”
They walked up the low steps to where a pointed door waited for them. Jander knocked. The doors opened for them and then shut soundlessly in their wake. Not so far away the city Watch shook their heads. Some people, they muttered, had more balls than sense. None of them would go into the Silversmith’s. Not willingly at least.
*
The procession wound onwards and the people watched and celebrated. It was better to celebrate the Guilds than death. For a start less people died and though the people did not mind doing the odd killing they would really rather not be the ones killed. Purple lanterns lit the night as the wagons came together and let down their sides to boast and to finagle the people as to which was best. And why.
Jander’s Mark were running the Warsmith’s wagon and they pulled him aboard when he appeared from a shadowy ally. He took a place near the edge of the cart and when he was not joking with the citizens he was inspecting what his fellows had put together. They would do more work on the way to another festival, and if there was anything bulky to be moved it would have to be sent soon in order to get there in time.
He waved when he saw Troy and Talath on the steps of the Citadel, for before that the procession came to a rest. It was hardly orderly and soon there were arguments and even punch-ups between the different guilds and those that had once been guilds, as they jostled for space. Oxen emptied themselves on the stone of the open space and guildsmen covered old statues with banners and flags.
He had never really noticed the statues before. They had always been there but had always been so old and so worn that anything that might have identified whom they might have once represented was long gone.
One of his followers pointed out a mournful fellow nearby and Jander nodded when he recognised the fellow also. Then the fighting spilled into their wagon and Jander had to step over squabbling bodies and between the odd spray of blood and teeth. He looked up to see Troy shake his head at the chaos below.
It was all so very Deci.
Cheapside
The training had gone well. It had perhaps not gone according to plan since the gang were well into the first hour of ‘run arahnd and snot stuff’ when the Watch had attacked them! The really rather frightened law keepers had been rapidly outnumbered when a series of shouts had run up and down the streets of Cheapside.
King Blackjack watched it all from the window of an otherwise wrecked grain store. The window was in fact a crack that had been opened by roots and the sudden swelling of the wood that made up the building but it gave him a place to stand, to watch and to grin. He was not alone in the wrecked building, for hovering in the only part of the ruin that was not deep in shadows was Fifth. Fifth was not one for shadows, for darkness or for hiding. He was an in-plain-sight sort of fellow and he lied for a living. He was very good at it, particularly as much of what he said was in fact true. But it was rarely anything he thought for himself because until two days ago Fifth lied for whomsoever paid him.
Fifth tended to negotiate for gangs and he even acted to represent certain bodies of men and women that came into bundles that were not always theirs by common conceit. For them he could talk to the traders, even the Merchants. But Fifth had developed a problem and so in order that it could be made to go away he now lied for King Blackjack.
It was a time for lying.
There was a truce in Cheapside. That meant that the gangs of any significance were gathering their strength to try and kill each other. They would probe and they would snap and snip at one another. They would build up their core because it was the bands that would decide the issue and then come the dawning of the new year one of them would be the biggest Jack of Cheapside. Everyone knew it. Everyone knew that that Jack would then rob the place blind for a year and then let the little gangs rise again, because the new Jack of Cheapside would no longer be bothered to fight the little wars. Or rather, knew that if he tried to subjugate his Empire then I would rise up and destroy him.
The storm was coming and because the gangs would at first pretend to form alliance, deal and sides they had people lying for them. King Blackjack had Fifth for that.
Below, and in the street the Watch were being run out of Cheapside and Blackjack’s bravo’s were breaking out the foul ale and nasty spirits. They had been told to celebrate and so the winding, wonky little streets cleared as they vanished to den and hole.
King Blackjack leant out and grinned again, this time at the enormous hat that was perched on a broken spar just beyond the window. There was a goblin under the hat but no one really noticed that. They just saw the hat and knew that Master Berry was nearby. And everyone respected Master Berry.
*
Scabby was not the noblest of the tribesmen, but then they were not a particularly noble tribe. He had been lost to them for some years, but had grown and fought his way back from the mountains and now shared their low fires, their rude shelters and their hatred of the city. Even here, within sight of but most certainly not within, the Shedeff the settlement scarred the far horizon. The city lay far away, too far to be seen but still the sky was smudged by the cloying smog that had come to cover it.
The sickly land had been stripped of perhaps half its woods, stunted though they might have been as the city’s demand for timber and, especially, charcoal meant that good prices could be had, better treasure anyway for the people who would otherwise had needed to scratch a life from the sick land. Even the Spittle stank. The river was ripe with the city’s effluence and the spoil of its foundries, tanneries and other industry.
Only the other night Scabby had seen a strong and warlike band enter the forest. They were mean, evil looking men and the tribe had steered well clear of them. Just indeed as they had avoided the assassins that had come after them. Deci was not blessed by its militia, or at least they were not exactly groaning under the sort of spear and shield walls that tended to frighten the tribes away. So they sent dark little men and women, knives and poison, the closest the city had to a militia. It was known amongst the tribes that the city gates were unlikely to even be capable of shutting at all. Rumour had it that if the city were invaded then it would not oppose it on wall or gate. It would let them in and the deal with them. Or, probably hire them…
But the other night Scabby had watched as the city raiders had entered the Forest. Even the tribes did not do that. The Shedeff was a place of beasts, and worse. Yet the city raiders emerged, axes and fire well show, to load carts with trembling wood. Some of the trees had suffered their limbs to lopped off, to have great tuns of earth iron bound about their roots, to be taken on vast carts to the city whilst all the while they twitched and shuddered and… to druids… wailed.
“You going to the city, Scabby?” Adey asked. He had brought his wife back with him and she had proved popular with his grubby, almost long-lost family. He grinned at her.
“Not again, love.” He promised.
*
It was a fetid sort of place. It might once have been some wizards tower but that had been long ago and now not even the floors survived, or indeed the roof so that it seemed to the visitor that he stood within some large and crumbling chimney. It leant alarmingly in the middle and then back the other way at the top so that perhaps a third of the clay and straw floor had been baked by the unwelcome sun, leaving the remainder more alike to a small swamp. Iron poles stood out by the first twist in its length and from these hung nets of hands, a headless pig and bunches of wet herbs dusted with fungi. It stank no worse than the rest of Cheapside. It stank no better either and the stench was as ripe as an orcs groin cloth. All life was to be found in Cheapside. Much of it in the air.
He had come here quietly and without, he hoped being seen. Even now he hid his features but was only too aware that he was being watched now. The witch knelt in the darker shadows and held a half-dozen babies to her thin chest. Four other folk breathed in the horrible old tower. Three were men and local. They guarded her for Cheapside was not a good place to be if one was not used to its ways. It was said that there was a King here. King Deci. The fourth of those that observed the visitor was a homunculus no bigger than a cat that flew from iron post to iron post on leathery wings.
The visitor explained what had brought him here.
“They’ve left.”
“Truly? I do not believe you.”
“Some ‘ave come back.”
The visitor sighed. “Yes, clearly. Who?”
The witch shuffled a little in the darkness. “They’ll know.”
“But they won’t kill you. I on the other hand, might do. Certainly there are those of considerable power who would regard any reticence on your part unfavourably. They will not understand. Those we speak of probably will.” He smiled gently. All the time his voice had been entirely polite, winning even. He was not threatening her, oh no. He was helping her. Clearly. “Please my old dear, it really is for the best.”
The witch sighed so hard it stuttered into a cough. Her visitor waited patiently. “Charmin’ Billy.”
“He is bad?”
“Your’n masters’ll know the name. That’s the one I know. He’s probably worst. Not in power but in cunning. The others… are more brutal. Direct. He’s… a padfoot true. Thing of the city. The sicker the air the more he likes it, eh? Not one for the woods, him.”
“That’s fascinating. But you see, I am not here to see them doomed. There is to be an accommodation. The wolves of Deci are not to be scorned. We wish them to return. We wish them to be protected even. You see? Even hidden.”
“They can ‘ide. Mostly below. Mostly where the city sickness can be found. Foundries, smelters. Eh?”
“I come honestly.”
“Believe yer deary. Get the beggars to act as go betweens. Better yet, get the Mocker King to broker things. Yer trust him? Wolves do.”
The visitor nodded. He had wanted to make the wolves more pro-Deci. He suspected that the real problem was that they were precisely that. They just might not see Deci in the same light as others. Especially when their pups had been butchered a few years back.
“How do I find the Mocker King, please?”
“Tell a Kallah who wants to meet him. Doubtless it’ll take an hour and then there you are.”
The Shedeff
This was not the place to walk as a man. This was a place of beasts. The word was synonymous with the Forest for here men were the enemy, the prey and the epitome of all that lay opposite to those within. The Forest was not a unified land. It stretched, huge and treacherous from the shallow valleys of the Deller, across the Braekens and eventually even to the Far North. It had once been a source of power but even that had proved to be restrictive. Too… narrow, too… mannish. There were druids in the Forest, true, but most of them were not men or women. Few elves lived in the Forest, indeed only the foulest of the kind could be found there. Or rather not, as the wild elves were elusive and much whittled down in number from those that had fled there in the wake of their defeat at Centaris.
It was not a balanced realm. Its spirit was not fair, or noble or even clear in its savagery. Beasts preyed on other beasts and the sheer variety of life was astonishing. So large was the Forest that no one truly knew it beyond their wanderings, wide though many of these might be. Not much in the Forest was intelligent either. Those that were repressed what they could, for instinct was all here. There was often little time for thought before something ate the clever traveler. And in the Shedeff there was always some bugger big enough to eat anybody that went there. Just as there was always something that preferred the taste of the oddest things.
The beasts were sat near to a tree that seemed to eat elementals. They had cut across the path frequented by a sickening thing that had stunk of dead angel the day before. Neither of the two beasts cared to venture too closely to the tree, indeed their ears twitched to and fro even as they waited near to, but not within the clearing. Clearings and pathways were death traps here.
The smells were right and the moon seemed precise to their needs. The larger of the two travelers set back its head and howled.
It was answered almost immediately. Shadows detached from shadow. Scents passed away from the convoluted tapestry of the Forest. Tall, flowing and dark in their hides the wolves stepped towards the travelers without a further sound. On two legs for the most part, but with more wolf about them than man their fur was matted, hanging in rough plaits down their backs and woven with vines and plants that deadened their scents. Yellow eyes flicked at the travelers, wet mouths opened.
*
The hall was hot, uncomfortably so but the traveler did not comment on it, no matter that sweat ran down his face and neck to stain his dark robes. The hall was crumbling and itself sat in an old fortified manor that was barely two steps away from a ruin. The chamber was half covered in the rubble from the collapsed floor above and the Baron sat, slumped really, on a heavy wooden chair at one end. No family attended him and only a single servant seemed to remain. It was he that threw more furniture into the hall’s cracked fireplace. The flames climbed higher on a night that was already hot enough to see villagers throughout the territory sleep on the roofs. Nonetheless the Baron was wrapped up in a threadbare tapestry that he wore like a cloak. He shivered. His old, grey skin shone with ice.
Hillfelt Hollow was not much of a rural estate. It sat so far north that the scribes would not even have seen it as part of Deci. It was stark and thickly forested, itself unusual, from where nature was creeping back to take it back for itself. Only a few people still lived there and they had taken to hiding in the trees. When Arron had arrived there had been no one to greet him.
The Baron looked at his guest. He did not look to be in a sociable mood. Despite his physical state his voice did not warble, the words were strong and the watery blue eyes focused on Arron without too great an effort. “What is it?”
“My Lord. Word has reached me that you are sore troubled. The land dies about you. I have it on god authority that there is one who would seek to usurp you?”
The Baron hissed. “Crach Dow…”
“Aye Lord, Crach Dow. I have come to offer I disagreeistance.”
The Baron parted lips made thin with age. He snarled softly, his eyes flicking to his servant. “You, go. See what else there is to burn.”
The servant bowed and shuffled out leaving Arron and the Baron to talk more privately.
By Alan Morgan (CI8V5)