Fiction I
Fiction I
Finch didn’t like being called a “scout”. Go figure. I thought it sounded better than “thief”, but who am I? Four foot tall cricketlings who carry a bango and wear a straw hat aren’t to be taken seriously, so the rest of the crew ignored him. Say what you want about him and his godawful bango, but the little chirper was quiet when you let him get out in front of the rest of us noisy sods. This usually worked in our favor.
I should introduce myself, more gentleman-like. I’m Tern. Tern of Hawk Spar. I ‘spose you could call me the leader of this crew. It’s me, Yala, Frampton, and Finch. Yala and I go back a ways. She and I met on a caravan job. She was the muscle, a tusker. Built like… well, like a boar. Smelled like one, too. Frampton was about the stupidest human I’d met, but he studied magic at some fancified school in Seven Bridges. Then there was Finch. Our very own four-foot-and-bit talking bug. Like I said, he was alright. Quiet and quick.
Anyhow we were following a trail of orc prints off the road up into the woods, and we was maybe a half league off the road. We were getting closer to them orcs, who was draggin’ something heavy. Yala held the opinion it was a dead dwarf. I wasn’t convinced.
“Those ain’t no boot-drags,” I’d told her. “They’s too deep, see?”
She sniffed the air and says, “I’m telling you, Tern, it smells like dwarf. I’m sure of it.”
We pushed on, up the hill. Finch was out front scouting like a scout who tells ya he ain’t a scout. Yala and me a few yards apart, and Frampton in the rear.
The woods were hushed-like, in a woodsy sorta way, and Finch was ahead, quiet and practically invisible, like he did. But then this feckin’ doorway - the spell kind, all glowing - opens up. Literally right over him. And out dumps something. Some-one to be precise, and the someone lands ON poor Finch, and squashes him. Dead.
That’s when them orcs let loose their first volley.
Go figure.
“Oi fer feck sake,” I spat when Yala caught one right in the eyesocket on the second volley. She went down, stone dead, I reckon. You’ll pardon my cussin’. I do get a mite agitated when old Scratch looks like he’s coming for me. Yala. Gone, just like that. Not good.
Yer best bet when the arrows are flying is to make smallish. Less to hit, less chance to get hit. I was on the ground, scramblin’ towards the nearest tree, a big oak with a trunk as wide as a barn door.
I hadn’t a bead on them orcs, but they were fair shots, to be sure. I drew my sword, knowing they’d close soon, as I was a-lyin’ behind that oak. Frampton, whom I never much cared for, was two trees over, hunched over and bleedin’ where’s an orcish arrow had caught him on the ribs. I didn’t see nothin’ sticking out of him, so probably a graze. He might live if we could end these bloody orcs. Didn’t seem likely, though.
My back against that oak, everything slowed down, time runnin’ like cold honey. This happens. Blades out, blood drawn, and suddenly the world spins slower. This feckin’ ladybug landed on my leg. Funny how these wee things come into focus. I reckoned the orcs were going to wait for us to run and pick us off. Not enough options here. Not enough cover. Finch and Yala dead. I’m left with feckin’ Frampton, the simpleton who speaks magic. And a ladybug.
But you know, that damn doorway whooshed again, so’s I dared a look around the trunk of the oak tree. What fell out of it this time I swear I never seen nothin’ like. Swear on me ma. It was all golden-y and bright, dazzle-y like the sun for a second I thought it was some kind of angel thing. Was wrong, though. It stood up tall, tall like a giant, and it weren’t no angel, no. A bleedin’ Mefrit. And it warn’t pleased, neither. It was behind the orcs, too, who was comin’ steady towards us, all swords and spears now, ready to finish the job. But them orcs didn’t see it, or didn’t care, until it was in their ranks and one caught fire, head to toe all at once, like a pork cracklin’ tossed in a hot fire.
I just yelled “Run!” and Frampton did, and we ran hell to heels down the hill, and I could hear them orcs fryin’ like bacon in a hot pan, but I didn’t look back. Not once. Not until we hit the road.
Me. And Frampton, his whole side soaked through with blood.
And I’ll be goddamned. Finch, too.
Turns out he wasn’t dead.
I huffed out between breaths, “Finchie!” huff “You manky rotter you,” huff.
He started to cry.
“You’re alive, lad, why the tears, Finchie?”
Frampton fell over.
Then that feckin’ chirper looked up at me and - get this - goes, “My banjo, you fucking twit. It’s… back there.”
He gestured towards the wooded hillside, which was now, in a word, ablaze. A massive plume of smoke rose up the draft of the hill. The woods were half pine, maybe more, and they were crackling and popping, flames jumping from one to the next.
At least the orcs was gone. The Mefrit was probably happier too, with all that heat.
Then out of that smoking hell walks this figure, coming down the hill, all unhurried-like.
Fergis knew, as lovers go, he was shite.
Fergis Fuenke was a Cozy. A halfling, if you prefer.
When he rolled off of the jigglesome Tenya Glefwyche and she had a blade of grass between her teeth, he wasn’t surprised.
“Well,” he managed, as he sat up and tucked his predictably-disappointing willie back into his trousers.
“Aye,” she breathed, without commitment left nor right. The moment stretched out in a way most disagreeable.
“Shall we get back then?” he asked. Somewhere, a tiny, hopeful bloom in Fergis dared reach for the sun: “Maybe she’ll say no, we should try again.” Alas, that bloom wilted flat as Tenya ambled away, smoothing her skirts and casting back, “There’s washing to do, Ferg.”
“Washing,” he muttered, picking up his hat. He tracked Tenya’s jiggle towards home. Neither skirt nor bodice could properly contain her, and to Fergis, this was a right and proper compliment. “Ferg,” he muttered again. “Ferg. Ferg.”
Fergis Fuenke was half the height of a human, with bright and inquisitive brown eyes, a head of curly black hair, and a slight paunch that registered as “respectable” in halfling culture. Across the Known World, a substantial minority of jokes ended with a punchline referencing the notoriously hairy feet of Cozies.
“Why don’t Cozies wear boots?”
“Because then nobody’d recognize ‘em.”
Fergis’s feet lived up to this reputation. Not merely concerning their hairy feet, a haze of infamy followed Cozyfolk. Much of this was well deserved. Cozies had an obsession with pipeweed, second to none. They held every single one of the Known World’s records for eating contests. Pies. Sausages. Even turnips. It was also true that of all the talking, walking, sword-swinging and spell-slinging peoples of the Known World, none loved home so much as the Cozies.
Piggleford Cross wasn’t much, but it was home to Fergis. The marsh brought too many flies when the wind was wrong. The fishing was good, and the trade from upriver was better. Stilt houses crowded the banks and waded into the flats. Five good, real streets with stout houses lined the river Heth. Fat chimneys and high pitched roofs for the snows. Rows of sky-reaching pole beans, squat cabbages and hillocks of potatoes grew in neat square gardens. Fields of flowing wheat encircled half of the village, and the other half was given over to pasture for sheep and milk-cows. The village mill leaned against the rise of Barrow Hill to the west, and old man Tillis’s deathtrap windmill faced it across the hillside.
Fergis’s own home was at the end of Water’s Edge, one row up from the docks. He couldn’t see much of it but the roof. Damnit, too, he noted the flashing on the chimney was loose again. Three generations of Fuenke folk had owned it, since great-gran Elgis had built it by hand, and Fergis was apparently the only one incapable of a proper repair to the chimney.
Tenya was a fast walker, and besides, Fergis was in no rush for chores. He dawdled along the fencerow overlooking Piggleford, at the reflection of the gathering summer clouds on the smooth water of the Heth. Woodsmoke and hay. Red brick chimneys and slow black water. Below, somewhere between the houses, a dog barked. A far-off cowbell. Goodwife Ulma’s prize rooster crowed.
Home.
“Washing,” he murmured. Then, “You did it again, willie.” He didn’t often address his own privates, but somehow, it seemed this afternoon’s performance called for a stern lecture.
“Gods know why she puts up with you,” he said to no one. It was true. He wasn’t the wealthiest, nor did he possess any particular wit. With certainty, other lads in the village were better looking.
“The least you could do is…” He trailed off. It really wasn’t any use. That bit of recalcitrant gristle probably wasn’t listening anyway.
“Perhaps an ale tonight,” he mused aloud. “At the Fishes.” Two Fishes served a mediocre mug of ale, but a superior fish pie. At this time of year, extra superior, since the herbs were fresh from ground. Tenya would be there, and maybe he could say something. Something that would mean… well. Something that didn’t sound daft might be good enough.
Fish pie. The mere thought improved his mood. Yes. Fish pie, ale, and a scoop of berry cobble.
Precisely what was needed.
Fergis fished his pipe out of his pocket and lit it. But when he looked up, it was there.
Just around the pines out on Bailen Neck, toward the bay.
Black sails, and large, above the treetops.
Fergis squinted. He couldn’t see the vessel, yet.
When she hove to view around the Neck, Fergis dropped his pipe.
Drummond finally understood why the law called for necromancers to be flayed alive.
He cradled her head. Her white hair was fine, and still plaited neatly. She smelled like herbs and their bed, and her face was the face he had woken up with for every day that had ever mattered.
She was gone.
Drummond couldn’t quite name what he felt. He had known that Elwese wouldn’t last the week. Her fever wouldn’t quit, and she tired of the light. He knew this moment was coming.
So when it arrived, he opened the door for it. The visitor from beyond the Black Gate came to collect his Elwese, his queen, his lover. His wife. She passed quietly, graciously.
At that moment Drum knew, finally, why necromancy was forbidden.
Because he knew he would cast the spell, already.
Just to hear her voice again.
But he couldn’t yet admit this to himself. He sat with her body, and time passed. There were no tears, but a torrent of memories poured through him, a long litany of moments. When they finally slowed to a trickle, he looked up, unsure how long he’d been sitting. Darkness filled the room, and the stars were out in the sky outside the window.
His legs ached from sitting for too long. He couldn’t even see her face now, in the dark, but the weight of her head was still in his hands.
“Open,” he croaked, and then louder, “Open. Now.”
The servant unbarred the door and pushed it open, spilling light into the room.
Drummond settled his dead wife’s head down onto the table, and without looking away from her, said, “Fetch Ulfan and tell him to bring me the embalming kit.”
His apprentice brought the tools and the supplies, and Drummond began the work of embalming Elwese’s body. As he did, a memory replayed, again and again. Thirty some years ago, they had been on a crossing north across the Fanaja Asul, the great freshwater ocean. The squall that soaked them for an hour finally blew over and the sun beamed, the sky bright and clear. Elwese stood in the prow, watching the dolphins jump and he came up behind her, putting his arms around her.
She said, “Do you love me, my little drum?”
He replied, “You know this.”
A comfortable silence followed, with only the wind, the waves, creaking rigging and snapping sails.
She said, “You don’t know everything about me, you know.”
He nodded. This had always been true, and they both knew it. It was part of their love: space held apart, the lines drawn with respect.
“I know a few things,” he said.
“When I’m gone, drum, take me home to Moon Keep,” she murmured, above the sound of the wind.
He didn’t ask why. He said, “I will do that, love.”
Back in the present, as this memory washed over Drummond, he wondered aloud, “Why the Keep, Elwese?”
The question broke the silence in the room, and threw off Ulfan, who fumbled the enchantment over the balming oils.
Normally, Drummond would have berated him, given him a clout on the ear, lectured him, assigned him studies, and cursed.
Ulfan looked side-eyed at his master, sheepish, bracing, ready for the tirade, but none arrived.
“Begging your pardon, master?” the boy said after a moment.
Hardly sensate, Drummond mumbled, “What?”
“You said something, master,” Ulfan replied.
“So I did. Boy, recite your knowledge of Moon Keep,” Drummond ordered.
“In the north —” Ulfan began haltingly, but old-Drummond abruptly resurfaced and cut him off.
“Oh shutup, boy,” Drummond snapped. “Yes, the north. They’ve been around for a thousand years. Generations of them, the ‘pure’. Pure foolishness, of course. They can barely summon a squirrel, you know! Pathetic. Months to cast a simple spell. Idiocy!”
He trailed off, to Ulfan’s relief.
They toiled on, and moments later, practically to himself, Drummond mumbled, “She said ‘home’.”
“Master?” Ulfan eeked out.
“She said home,” Drummond repeated, still to himself.
Ulfan wisely said nothing.
“Where is your home again, boy?” Drummond snapped.
“I live here, master,” Ulfan said.
“No, no. If you weren’t occasionally useful, I’d have you beaten, you clod,” Drummond growled. This was no jest, and Ulfan swallowed hard.
“I… was born in Heltshere Falls, master. You bought me there.”
“Ah, yes, that’s right,” Drummond nodded. “On the western edge of Kazəm. That little town. One of those rural sherlands.” He paused. “Would you call that your home?”
Ulfan swallowed again. This felt dangerous. Surely some sort of trick question. “Yes?”
“Why, boy?”
“It has pleasant memories, magus.”
“What sort?”
“My mother. My uncles. The smell of granna’s stew.”
Drummond’s hands stopped their work, removing the organs from his dead wife’s body. He stopped.
Elwese had said “Take me ‘home’.” That word. Home.
Suddenly the salt spray and the snapping sails filled Drummond again, and his arms were around his Elwese, and they were still young.
He looked down at her body. Parts. Flesh.
He wiped the knife on the rag and without looking over his shoulder, asked, “Do you miss home, boy?”
Ulfan couldn’t help the feeling of falling, like this question was the floor opening up beneath him.
Heartbeats passed. Finally he managed, “I do. Yes.”
Drummond turned and looked at his apprentice.
“Light the fifth candle, yon,” he ordered, flat and measured. He pointed the knife at the unlit candle in the stand across the room.
Ulfan began to move to light it, and Drummond barked, “With magic, fool!”
Ulfan stopped. Then, with no hesitation, he cast the spell, and the candle bloomed with flame.
He looked over at his master, waiting.
Drummond said, “You are dismissed from my service, Ulfan. I grant your freedom. Leave here. Immediately.”
Ulfan just looked at him.
“Go, boy. Now.”
Ulfan took a step towards the door. Then another.
”Go. Before…“ The master’s voice trailed off as Ulfan slipped out of the room.
Three years on a Parthan kwart, the fore-and-aft rigger kind with the slave rowers, taught me a kind of patience. But, let’s be clear, there was nothing natural about that lesson, to me. I never was the patient kind, until the gods put me in the wrong port with too much rum in my fourteen year old belly, and the Parthan press gangers grabbed me. For three endless years, I pulled those oars. Then the captain put me on the deck. Then promoted me to mate. Now, years on, my own vessel under a Sutrin flag, though I am no Sutrin. I’m the Captain. So: patience, boy.
Patience. When we came around that scrawny cape with the pines, against the tide, and the Feydance was in no hurry to go upriver, I was in no hurry either.
Some spitswallow village lay hard by the river, and I could hear them already. The panic. People scream for lots of reasons. But the kind of fear carried on the water in those voices only comes from fire or from drawn steel. In this case, it might end up a little bit of both, and the village seemed to know it.
I sighed. This river current was cursedly strong.
“Tell our guest we’ve arrived,” I said to Lenken, my first mate. He despised me, and the feeling was mutual. When I first hired him on, without words we’d agreed never to name this contempt. I was fine with this and apparently so was he. Decent first mate, though. He turned on his heel to fetch our oh-so-important guest.
When she finally deigned to join me on the quarter, we were scarcely a hundred yards further up the river. Her cloak was draped around her, and she’d drawn up the hood, so I couldn’t see her face. Not that I wanted to. Her boots - like the rest of her - were far too polished for my taste. I appreciated fine things, like most do, but not just for the show of it. It seemed to me that’s all these Sutrin did. Strut about. Talk about conjuring things. Look the part. I wasn’t impressed.
She drawled, “Well, Captain. This pace will certainly fuel their imagination. Won’t it.”
What I thought would be a suitably sour retort died on my lips, because my guest, this Sutrin peacock, threw back her hood, and laughed.
A deep, gargling, delighted laugh. The hairs on my arms prickled.
She raised her hand, and a small black shape flitted from her palm and took flight across the water. By the time the shape was halfway to the village, it had filled out, grown and stretched. It flew, sinuous, inky, winged and fanged.
I figured this would be the usual: steel and fire. I was terribly wrong, and I regretted underestimating the foreigner. She was no impostor.
Elwese whispered, “You don’t like this one.”
Her whisper tickled Drummond’s ear. She stood that close. Practically draped over him.
Of course, Genji of Parkette, second-circle mage, or whatever these petulant fools called themselves, couldn’t see her. No one could, except for Drummond.
The rooftop apartment in which Drummond and Genji met overlooked the city from Beggar’s Bottom, misnamed in every regard. First of all, the steep hillside towered over most of the city. Second, the local constabulary, prowling street and alley in their fine blue livery, ensured the inhabitants of the patrician district never saw a beggar.
The apartment was open to the rooftop, with wide wooden doors flung open to admit the weary breeze. Below, to the east, the bay stretched out in blue and azure. Beside them, the beige-tiled rooftop was dotted with couches and low tables, festooned with bright yellow cushions and blankets.
Genji sat opposite Drummond at a huge wooden table in the apartment proper, and they eyed one another across a board of roasted fowl, purple cherries and rough chunks of the local bread, cipano.
Drummond watched his guest slice the steaming fowl with mincing, diminutive movements. Genji cut the breast from the bone, fastidiously avoiding touching the meat itself. With a delicate silver knife, he sawed perfectly symmetric slices, one by one.
Elwese purred into Drummond’s ear, “He’s as absurd as the rest of these wretches. But he’s dangerous, my love.”
Forgetting himself for an instant, Drummond hissed, “He’ll fall with the others.”
Genji looked up, furrowing his brow, “Hrmff. What did you say there, Drum? Speak up.”
Drummond caught himself and reset. Leaning forward, he plucked a cherry from the table and placed it on his tongue. He held it there for a moment, watching the obsessive ritual his guest enacted. A wave of revulsion washed over him. Partly, it was the food in his mouth. It tasted like ashes, bitter and burnt. This was nothing new, since… since the spell. Since the many, many spells. Since his queen, Elwese, had returned from the other side. Since Piggleford.
But really, he told himself, the nausea belonged to this sniveling fool, playing with his food. He wasn’t to be trusted. Worse, he wasn’t to be tolerated.
“He has been three decades in the Circle,” Elwese whispered, tickling his ear again. “Thirty years, ruling over the City of Glass, and to what end, my king? They squabble and squander, lining their pockets. You don’t think he’s fit to rule. Not like you.”
Drummond bit down on the cherry, and what would have been sweet, tangy juice coated his tongue. Ashes, only ashes. Burnt and acrid. He forced himself to chew and swallow, to appear normal.
Genji began droning. Predictably, he mixed truth with half-lies as he described the vast potential of expanded trade with Partha, across the straits. Genji alternated between thin praise of Drummond’s meteoric rise to leadership “since the death of your beloved queen”, and oblique criticism. “These merchants, Drum,” he droned, chewing the roasted fowl, “they must be dealt with, you see? Of course we need them, but they must be brought in line.” It all reeked with cheap, manufactured conspiracy, as if they needed to cling to the shadows. As if Genji were aligned with Drummond. Which had never been true.
“You’re terrible at hiding your contempt,” whispered Elwese. “You’re wondering what it would be like if he were simply out of the way.”
She was right.
Abruptly, Drummond spat out the cherry pit onto the tile floor. It tic-tic-ticed across the tiles as it spun, landing under one of the nearby couches.
He looked up, and Genji was staring at him, mid-chew, mid-sentence. Genji raised an eyebrow, gave an imperceptible shrug, and returned to his prattle about trade routes.
Drummond couldn’t refute his queen. She was right.
It was true, this wretch disgusted him. But. If he would just do one thing. One terrible thing… One more terrible thing.
For the Mortance. All that pure, violent power he would harvest from another mage. Not a hedge wizard. A true master. This tempted him. It wouldn’t be the first time Drummond had killed for the explosive burst of arcane fuel. No one taught him this necromantic power. It had been banned, burned, reviled and buried forever. The schools of magic shunned it. So Drummond’s understanding had come in incomplete chapters, slowly, experimentally. Ever since Piggleford.
It suddenly became clear that was the next step. Obviously.
He eyed Genji, oblivious to the prattle pouring endlessly out of the man’s mouth.