Post by Sire Halfblack on Nov 23, 2014 19:08:04 GMT
Deathly IM 1013: The Final Dawn
Beside the trade road and the ground was a draining lake, a spear’s throw wide and as long as the eye could see in the growing evening. A storm would have been dramatic but it had just rained, and rained and then rained for the long miles and longer days and the enchanted road dispersed that rain so that in the peace of the new day the thirsty ground of the badlands drank at it greedily. The caravan was not something of the city. The wagons were bigger and they were fewer and the oxen teams a half herd each as they pulled the goods onwards, uncomplaining and dripping. Nine wagons with two carters each and a score of men and women that rode atop and sulked at the soaking. Their cloaks proofed by fat remained warm but if spearmen in the helds would have complained these kept their curses to their selves because Vandle would have shown them what a real curse was.
They had all served. Sellaville Snow, some at Gileenim, they had been in the helds but now they earned better pay and better rest and veterans of a dozen smaller scraps though each might be none of them had had to bloody a sword in a year, three, or more.
They could hardly have missed the tribesmen. There were such people in the badlands though they were rare, and especially here well south of the city. Worse and the caravan guards saw blades too, and it was Vandle that spied no beasts, no donkeys, no children or anyone at all that wasn’t... he bellowed, “Up!”
With a yell the tribesmen were at them. With a delighted roar they ran at the leading wagon and the carters were already jumping down to flee even as the guards scrambled down to meet the attack. Vandle was first and he knocked aside the sword of one idiot to catch him about the throat, to lift him high even as others knocked him down. But the guards were there now and though outnumbered they hadn’t the time to think through the odds, nor to consider what Sire Slice would say had they done so.
The tribesmen whooped in glee. They came on the guard four to their one even as Vandle leapt to his feet. For a moment he and the guard punched a hole in the enemy. But the enemy had no line and just closed about them. The whole pushed was aside as the oxen teams plodding on just crushed man and woman out of their way so that the fighting grew more desperate, though brief as foul blows and swift blades took their toll as the tribesmen made the time to enjoy the sport.
*
The weather was appalling. For a week it had rained and the streets were awash, little rivers that ran briskly towards the abyss to pour into the depths and few were crossing the streets that half hid that horrid drop into the scarce-known. The poison smog that normally hung above the common rooftops had descended and against the downpour had hid like a pursued thief in the most unlikely places only to creep out now and reduce sight, and lives, to barely an outstretched hand.
“Business has been quiet I’m sure...” said Aiden Majius now within the relative safety of Snowdowns. “Let me do something about that for you.”
Snowdown he had learned had once been a druid, of a sort. A druid that some years before had invaded (or attacked at least) the city along with other tribesmen and had been in business within a year. One might say what one liked about the wild glory of the open sky but Snowdown thought chimneys were brilliant. It wasn’t that he hated the great outdoors; just that he considered it an oxymoron and something consigned to memory and bad nights after too much drink.
“You have it still?”
Snowdown did.
Aiden quickly handed over the case sent to him by the King in which scribe notes had been pressed and stacked and counted three times. Quickly Aiden eased open the fragile pages of the grimoire. He made no effort to leave. “Tell me about this,” he said indicating the first of the rituals described.
*
Deci was not a small city and in places it was a very crowded city, but not here. Here there were pigs that someone had spent a long time fencing off, or walling off, or fortifying off but if anyone was keeping the pigs then they were not doing so now. Selgard holding a scrap of spotted linen before his face for appearances sake walked the lanes and gutters and wondered for a very long minute if he had departed the Deci he knew for some desolate ruin of a city. A ruin that he was careful not to stumble over for the smog was very thick and if there was a wind then that same fog had eaten it.
He had called on a family he knew only to find them absent, even their meagre belonging left set for a late supper and the food still in its chains hung from a hook in the ceiling where the snakes wouldn’t get at it. So too he had picked at a tenement scrawled with wolf sign and Billy-marks only to find the latest inhabitants gone. Everywhere was wet and inside it dripped so that now the rain had stopped outside it drizzled within. He was relieved when he came to the square, and thus the cathedral, and to see a procession by the blurs of its lanterns as it made its way to pray. Mostly for someone to get it (never for forgiveness), but worship nonetheless.
He didn’t notice the robbery, only nodding at the apology and the offered excuse that no bugger could tell another bugger in all this muck and headed along wider roads and back towards the gate. Dog Town was an embarrassment to much of the city and it never got invited to parties.
*
There is something to be said for confidence, but where that suggests the possibility of threat then there was nothing confident about the man in the smartly pressed tail coat and precisely lined britches. His neckerchief was of white as was his hair. That luxuriant in a man of his evident age it was gathered no more messily than anything else about him in a neat bow at the nape of the neck. The city in his presence quailed. It drew back as if by doing so one lane, alley or street might forget to do so and therefore seem to step forward. His patience if legendary was as nothing to his scorn. He did not suffer fools gladly; in this city professed to be that of assassins he had no time at all for a killer that did not dress to the role. He had Views. This was perfectly acceptable to everyone, as everyone certainly seemed fit to listen to them.
He was not seen, only remembered. Everyone remembered that they had seen him even if they could not recall having done so at the time. Ulis Tamary was more than just the lowly spirit of the city and he was on business of his own. Kallah bowed their heads where he had been. In Cheapside rats and worse turned aside. Ulis Tamary walked in the shadows and where he went the lights were very bright.
*
“Nature,” said Jander Sunstar, “is for elves.”
The great slag heaps that crowded the walls, the rutted ground frozen into valleys that could break ankles, the smoke from the works and the filthy water frozen into brown puddles were all beautiful to his eye. It was cold enough to rival a merchant’s conscience at market and the forges and little smelteries were working all day and all night whilst making not much at all. People had treasure and more treasure now since whilst not overly generous the Sunstar had dipped into his purse momentarily to spread the wealth amongst the townsfolk. Within an hour a trader had turned up with a consignment of enormous furry coats from Thimon. Jander had no idea how the man had known but rather admired the enterprise. He stood on the walls and looked out a land pure in its barren state and garlanded with a silvery road where it caught the empty moon.
“Aren’t you an elf, sire?” Master Tuss wanted to know.
“No,” said Jander. “I was once a drave...”
“What’s the difference,” Tuss wanted to know.
“Fifty six thousand, nine hundred and five centuries,” said Jander, “At the last count.”
The people hereabouts were still celebrating but it was hardly riotous. They drank and they talked, and there was laughter, and yet another trader had come all the way from Scarlene with a wagonload of eggs. So there were banjos for all, and that was proper food; food with grit in.
“Is that because you nuts gold, sire?”
“The eggs?”
“The wealth, sire?”
“Ah,” Jander shook his head, “No, I don’t actually do that.”
“But you probably could if you wanted to...” Tuss chuckled.
Jander smiled along. Then he frowned. Why didn’t he nuts gold? He was pretty sure he could if he tried.
*
It was a big, bloody fight and it was probably lucky that Sire Berry had not chosen to be the ball since he was far too bloody hard to be the ball. That and the fact that suddenly there would be a lot of people being positively encouraged to kick the crap out of him. He was the black hat, the big nose in Cheapside, The Goblin (with a capital whatever-spelled-goblin-at-the-front). It wouldn’t do him any favours being treated like a ... ball, not these days.
“I can’t ‘elp thinkin’,” he said to Whitey, “Dat dere’s more dan one team down dere,” and in truth there was. And a lot of them looked like they were the old gangs, having a big fight. With no one else to have a fight with they were going at it on each other so that the highest scoring team so far was the ball itself, a goblin called Scamper, who was hiding in the territory of each team and then running away when anyone came close. Scamper had volunteered for this. Scamper was bloody barmy as far as Sire Berry was concerned. Scamper on the other hand had placed bets on who would win and would probably clear up since the odds on ‘the ball’ had been pretty high.
It wasn’t that there wasn’t the scope for a second team, so much as there were probably only enough down there to make up one team that actually had any real concern or ability to play the beautiful game. It was all very well for Sellaville, so far as he had heard, which had two teams under the one patron. Home and away. Sellaville was united. It was united down its backbone by the iron rod of years (that and being eaten by demons). And by thinking it lovely when heroes were there but not altogether surprised when they were not. Deci was... different. Frankly Deci’s most likely chance for a local kicking was to challenge the other quarters. Dog Town might put up a team. And if anyone used the word merchandising in ear shot of Anath then the Invisible doubtless too. They would be amateurs, militia to the warband of the Throttlers but the funny thing about the beautiful game was that the underdog tended to get better faster than the big dog.
Still, this was Cheapside. And Cheapside liked the gangs. And sat around watching the gangs fight was even better. A pack of little old ladies from Chainlink Street were kicking hell out of some poor sod with the iron boots and two foot knitting needles their sons and granddaughters in the Warsmiths had slipped them. The old men from Silver Lane were just outright cheating. Sire Berry didn’t know how (or really how one much cheated at all in Gobball once you were on the pitch) but they definitely were.
Still, the Throttlers were getting a run out and that was the main thing.
That and Sire Berry half remembered that the most important thing in Gobbal was the crowd. And all that lot down there would be the crowd. And no one was going to feck with his crowd...
...He bloody wouldn’t for a start!
*
The Queen had been taking tea with her enemies, above the city where for once the smog had descended, quite rightly, to the horrid little streets below. The tables had been cleared from the roofs and the night was wearing on, and for now most had departed for no lady of status and position in Deci would wish to see the sun upon her skin.
Berina liked the roof tops. She had roamed them enough as a younger girl and considered the ridiculous habits of the city to remove all fun from the world especially irritating when it came to the old gangs. Deci had lost its teeth and for that she blamed that awful little man Halfblack. How he simpered over Troy, whispering in his ear, speaking of peace, and calm, and looking ahead! Rulers were not meant to look ahead – that was how they got a knife in the back!
The last finally to leave save for the factors, servants, and poison chefs (who not being of good breeding hardly counted at all) she took it upon herself to walk the roofs and then the streets. With any luck she would be accosted. And be forced to defend herself. As a noblewoman of the old breed of Deci Berina had enjoyed a pointed education and her seemly garb of bodice and many skirts carried more weaponry than a stick of orcs in cattle country.
*
“Taxes?”
There was much laughter. The city took taxes. Sometimes tax collectors came here. They laughed at them too. Funnily enough people did pay taxes to the city, just not here. Mostly that was because once it had been pretty much a knife racket but since even the great and... well, not good, but powerful anyway... since they paid it was a sign of prosperity to do so. If things ever got really bad with the grull then Deci would probably still pay since for years the powerful had. “Don’t your chiefs take taxes?” For such a ‘rebellious’ city Deci had more belief in the Imperial Grull than even Halgar.
“Chiefs give treasure,” said Gerain to Zen. The wolves nodded. They were wearing britches and boots, Zen noticed, and locally made at that. A lot of the hotheads had gone. This was one of the differences she supposed. Chiefs gave treasure to their warriors, they were gold givers. They took tithes and whatever else they wanted from the serfs, and the slaves had nothing at all. Although none of that was true in practise, it was believed, and so that was that.
“I didn’t mean from you lot...” she said.
“Who are you anyway?”
“Zen?”
“I thought you were dead?”
*
His name was not Twos and if Talath knew better then he was satisfied to let the fellow continue in the belief that he thought otherwise. Twos was not a man content with his life and to be fair had taken considerable pains to better it.
“I should be a master by now,” he protested. The voice was unpleasant. Perhaps as it should be, Talath considered, since it perfectly matched all other aspects of the man. He stank, which was healthy enough, but he was in all other ways a terrible, awful sort of person. He descended from nobility, he claimed. That might have been true though in Deci that was less common than elsewhere since the old Houses were not known for marrying outside the city, or indeed until relatively recently not so very far outside the House. It was also a lie, but one told enough times for the teller to believe it.
*
There were perhaps two, three hundred of them judging by the noise. The smog was too thick to count otherwise though she had tried and by sight alone had come up with twelve. Zen pushed through the pack, not missing the swords and the clubs and whilst a hard stick with a metal band was not much of a weapon in battle it tended to win against a knife in a straight up fight. The noise was mostly coughs and her hair soaking burned her scalp. Her nose recoiled at the acrid stuff. A nice little man with a pointy beard offered her a bow.
“I heard you were dead,” said Selgard.
Zen scowled, “I’d heard that too.”
“Your rebellious hero not here?”
She had to think about that, “Sorry?” she said, defeated.
“Nichal?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “him, no he’s off fighting somewhere, anything to avoid doing what he should have done here. He probably would have torn down the city and all that stood between us, to fly the totem banner from the Spire, but...”
“But?”
“I think you lot asked him not to?”
“I wonder if it wouldn’t be awfully nice of you to point out to everyone here,” said Selgard, “that you aren’t dead?”
Zen was going to have a feast, or a big naked dance, but in this bloody city that took treasure.
Selgard nodded, he understand (as it turned out) imperfectly. This was indeed the Deci way. When faced with imminent attack and months of rebuilding it would nobly retaliate in advance with the best weapon at its disposal. “How much?” he asked, and fetched out his purse. Even Anath would not scoff at Selgard buying off trouble. Actually, Anath would probably approve. Worryingly...
*
Glass liked order. It liked things to be orderly. Neat. It liked its ritual in Trees, even if it didn’t think a great deal of trees. All things in their place, and this was Jander’s place. He felt sometimes as if here was a valley bowl with hills all around it, with rivers of gold, and silver, tin and copper, iron and lead that flowed in orderly streams down it.
He was alone in the mine. It did not often sleep but for now it did. No miners worked it. No shutter boys stood at their posts, no links carried light. Just he, and the mine; and he was the Forge.
*
Prudent Mercer was but scarce removed from his investiture robes of his new office when he had been summoned to the Spire. A man not long the Sire he still took several hours to get there. The King was the King and not to be trifled with. The Hundred were the Guilds and nor then were they. In truth Prudent would have made better time but he might see the king but once in the year and he had to face his peers amongst the Sires every week. King Troy the Faceless was as ever in a mood unreadable but so far he hadn’t had Prudent killed, and so the Guild Sire of the Mercers went to stand upon the most frayed of the rugs upon the floor in the hope that it was something of a favourite to the king, and who would therefore not wish to see it stained.
“I had called you here to help settle the Myronese into the city,” said Troy.
“A gaol your majesty? Something where they can be put to work in a manner not at all to be confused with slavery?”
“No... no... in any case, the scribes inform me they’ve all gone anyway.”
“Unfortunate, your horribly dangerous highness...”
“I found out just this moment. And they didn’t go through the gates. Nor used ritual. In the event they are found prepare to settle them. And Anath believes they will become fulsome members of the city, adopting our ways, and our manners.”
“Golly, Sire Halfblack is worried!”
“No...” said Troy. Then, “Maybe, anyway, see that it’s done.”
“Settle those we don’t have in a manner suitable?”
“Run along now...”
*
It could not be arrived at by the roofs since there was not a gap between where one ended and the next began. The streets of the King’s Bazaar were crowded with a hundred, more, little enterprises and as old buildings and new buildings and commonly something of both had been raised and had fallen it was a rare man that could navigate the bazaar with any certainty. Pepperspeck Square in common with most of the city did not boast a sign that many could not read. You either knew where it was, or asked, so any if not robbed, might find it. Davian stood and waited and all alone within the smog and by the door until at length Anath arrived with a quizzical look and a suspicious eye.
“I checked,” said Anath, “I do that, there is has been no Pepperspeck Square for three years. It was swallowed whole.”
“It’s just a yard, Halfblack,” Davian pointed out.
A yard and with three doorways, the second of which possessed cloudy windows of real glass through which could just be discerned an array of stones, hard straw, compressed seeds and a rough gemstone or two. Anath let Davian enter, he was only here to make sure the Majius managed to leave again. There had been some fear for a mortal soul but that was unlikely – Anath wasn’t convinced anyone in that House had one.
It was not large and it was certainly ill lit and for the most part there were cases of the same glass. The walls were of stained wood and the whole stank of stale pipe weed and cherry wood smoke. The proprietor was a man well into his middle years and well into his third plate, and who licked egg from long fingers without so much as a word.
“I am told,” said Davian, “that this is the place for power, for ritual?”
*
This was Latterly, and Latterly was from Myron. The name was as old as the first hour when he had come through the gates of Deci and explained when asked that he was Morsefel, latterly of Myron. So he was Latterly because this was Deci, and Shadow was already taken. Latterly did not much like Deci. He hadn’t arrived with anything worth taking, because having been escorted at spear point from the rubble of his home by the very people that had made it that the people holding the spears had taken everything from him. He had had nothing left and the two awful people that had approached him on arriving had taken even that.
Deci was just awful.
Even the air was poisonous. It stank, and there were murderers keeping the peace, though it was pieces, and it was ruled by a dark lord in a bloody great dark tower who wore a mask and who in order to take a day off went out about the land and killed people. It was dangerous, he had been stabbed twice. There was no work because if the ‘wastrel’ weren’t actually guilded they were dead set against anyone else getting the work.
And a goblin had followed him all last night with a pair of really big hands.
And another one in a big hat was telling him that he would be looked after.
“Don’t worry, son,” said Sire Berry. Sire Berry had been asked to settle the Myronese into Deci. He had found them after a bit of mentioning that he was interested and so under orders Sire Berry was going to make sure that Latterly prospered, “Wot did yer used to do?”
“I wasn’t a slave!”
“Ain’t no slaves in der Empire, son,” said Sire Berry.
“Can I go home then?”
“Nah.”
*
It had taken three days for the caravan to be noticed as missing, to investigate in the city and to find where it had been set upon. It was a half mile up the road and left in the lee of a rocky stump that they had also found the carters. They had come upon the wagons some distance from the road, the oxen still harnessed and chewing on the poisonous thorn scrub. Oxen would eat most anything. The wagons had been turned out and luxuries from Gothiel left littering the ground, bottles smashed and clay amphora broken. Other loads had been cut at and the chains broken but much seemed to remain.
There had been other caravans and other travellers and there was little sign on the road though Cuss was marking one track from another though puzzled at what was missing. Mr Do squatted by one of the guards, his face distorted into a zombie’s grimace. In a lose circle about them twenty more guards waited, ready, but there was nothing to be seen. Two men with darker marks where guild patches must have been removed stood and watched, and considered.
“Tribes...” said Cuss, holding up a beaded feather and then the gold cloak clasp he had discovered buried by a wagon wheel, “Eartholme most likely. Something else too,” he pondered.
Sire Slice would be... irritated.
“The curse marker was triggered,” Mr Do added. “And the shipment is missing.”
That was interesting. The goods themselves were of no real issue. They mattered, but not overly in the grander scheme of things. But where in one wagon a chest had been placed, that chest had been removed.
Nothing in the chest had been illegal. They had checked with certain of the Sleek’s men what was at the moment, and this wasn’t it. “Can you track them?” asked Mr Do.
Cuss was uncertain. The trail was both confused whilst the clues had been discovered and in places obvious. He raised a hand and waved it slowly, flat to the ground. Possibly, no guarantee, he would have to see. There was no point hiding that. He was paid and paid well to do such things but the Sire would appreciate honesty in this even more than results. Vandle’s body was missing. Neither of them considered for a moment that he might have been in on it all. Fraer had known him for fifteen years. They had worked with him for eight and ten. The profits of betrayal were far slighter than any benefit that this load could have possibly garnered.
“Well then,” said Mr Do. “Let us be about it.”
*
There were many in the cathedral. The floors were thick with snakes that slithered upon and over one another, and the boots of the faithful which were not for the unbeliever and therefore had the legs of stout britches tucked firmly into the tops. This was not a place where gods were revered, with eyes turned to some distant heaven. This was Deci and the faithful were here for exactly what they could get, which was power, and (to be fair) a good show. Ralasa Thul sat upon a throne carved in the form of serpents and here flanked by two men as naked to the waist as were the many hand maidens to their toes whilst pipe and drum set up a swaying beat, and all within the gravid gloom of the great building.
In full view of the many hundred gathered King Troy and Baron Davian were both almost the very centre of attention. Eyes passed over them but admittedly also to the hand maidens whose languorous movements closed in on the pair. As they passed about the two noblemen of Deci they sunk until like the snakes that carpeted the cold stone they became part of the cathedral too. Now at last everyone’s attention was firmly upon the Majius.
Of Anath there was no sign.
He was probably behind the throne (most assumed).
“This curse, this thing of greed and envy that was placed upon us is not to be born,” said Baron Davian.
Troy cleared his throat. “And by curse, greed, and envy we don’t mean the good kind,” he cleared away the slight confusion. You had to be precise about these things. Such matters whilst laudable in so many ways were not when applied to Deci, and anything it held dear, or anything it didn’t actually much like but was Deci anyway.
“On this night we shall restore the dragon...”
“Great Serpent,” added the king, knowing his audience.
“Yes, thank you...” Davian said a little testily.
King Troy nodded to the shapes of the congregation. There was something unpleasant about the place. He was, as he had described to Thul, one of the most powerful black wizards in the Empire. Ritual however he would not be drawn upon. Thul had asked if, the King, would be awakening the serpent upon which matter Troy had only maintained a Kingly dignity.
At that Thul rose. He walked slowly to where beyond the throne a dais could now be seen. He walked about the winding steps until on reaching the top the twin eyes of the gemstones that now lit him showed him proud above them all. He said in a whisper that carried easily about the cathedral, “By their hands and of their will have they restored this power. The Great Serpent has shed her skin and lives anew. And by their will and great power have they promised, let all here witness, that come the passing of this year then at the Final Dawn to come the Great Serpent shall at last be once again manifest!”
At that the crowd hissed their satisfaction. First at the power of the Majius which they had never doubted, and more importantly at such a great oath delivered to them and which they had all witnessed.
Davian caught Troy’s eye. He had never made such a promise. But it must be true; everyone knew it to be so now...
By Alan Morgan