by Eric Ugland
A beast of a human coming around the corner caught my attention. He had a piece of paper in one hand and a leather duffel in the other, and he wore a small hat, something like a bowler, but with a smaller brim. He probably had a neck at one point, but some bastard had replaced it with what looked like a third thigh. His arms were bulging against his shirt sleeves, his pants barely contained his legs. And most unusual, he had a mustache. Most everyone in the city was clean-shaven, but this guy had a big bushy mustache.
There were other people going about their business around him, but this guy was pretty noticeable. He didn’t move like any of the workers. He had more poise and purpose. And even though he didn’t at all look like he belonged, he also didn’t give a damn. He was just himself. And what a self he was.
I was really just watching the guy to people-watch, so it was something of a surprise when he stopped in front of the pit, looked down at the paper, and then up at the number above the gate. The crumpled up paper dropped on the ground from his hand, and tumbled a bit in the mid-morning breeze.
“Clyde and Natalie?” he asked.
“Nadya,” Nadya said, not even bothering to hide her iciness.
“Got it,” the guy said.
He stepped between us and pulled a small ring of keys from his belt. He flipped through a few of the keys before choosing the one he wanted and opened the gate.
“Excuse me,” I said, “would you mind telling us who you are?”
“How about we have this talk while we see what’s in here?” the muscle man asked, dropping the duffel and somehow pulling a gladius from it in one smooth motion. Then, he walked in.
I looked at Nadya. She shrugged.
I followed him in.
He’d already walked over to the edge of the pit, and was staring intently into it.
I came up next to him.
It looked like it was full of rocks. Large rocks, sure, but rocks. It was a big pit — not as wide as the last one, but larger overall than the first one. Plus there was more working area on the property, more flat space at ground level. Whatever had been going on with this pit required space. Nothing moved, not even the air.
“It’s very still,” I said.
No answer.
Which was because the guy had already walked away. It was eerie seeing someone his size move in almost complete silence. The beast of a man was now on the porch of the small pit house, peering in its one window. The house had certainly seen better days. Big holes in the walls where bricks had been knocked in. Or out — it was an even mix. The roof looked closer to a sieve than a structure, and more grass grew through the porch than anywhere else in the entire pit area.
He tried the door, but it was locked. One by one, he tried the keys, but nothing came close to turning the tumblers. The guy attached the keys back to his belt, then turned and looked at me.
“You,” he said. “Get this open.”
“The door?” I asked.
“Is there something else locked here?”
“No, but—”
“Matthew said you can unlock things. Unlock this.”
“Okay but first tell me who you are and why I should listen to you.”
“Matthew’s brother-in-law. Can you unlock it?”
“Probably.”
I slid my lockpick kit out from under my belt, not really being overt about it, but I felt a little awkward doing something rather illegal in front of someone who was a complete stranger. Though I guess in a technical sense, just picking a lock wasn’t illegal.
I knelt in front of the door, and did a little peek inside the lock, followed by a mechanical feel with the tools. Simple. A little shimmy and shake, a twist and a turn, and the tumblers clicked over.
“Done,” I said.
He gave me a grudging nod. Then, like I wasn’t there, he stepped around me and pushed the door open. I followed him inside the little house. The interior was tiny and cramped. We found two humanoid skeletons. One at the window, like he’d died looking through the glass, and the second curled up in the corner.
“Interesting,” I said.
“Matthew warned me about this,” the brother-in-law said. “I take it he didn’t bother to warn you?”
“He tends not to tell me things.”
The Brother-in-law sighed. “Matthew can be like that.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Sorry,” he said, and he turned and gave me a bit of a smile, holding his hand out to me. “Godfrey Hayles.”
“Clyde, uh, wait. You know my name.”
We grabbed forearms, shook, and he laughed.
“That I do.”
His grip was crushingly strong.
“Mind if I ask why you’re here?” I asked.
“Not so much. I’m here because of you.”
“Me?”
“In a way. I believe you’re the one giving my sister a place to stay for next to nothing?”
“Oh, yeah. I had an open apartment.”
“And one for me.”
“I wasn’t aware of that, but, sure.”
“I don’t have to help move because I get to be here.”
I snapped my fingers, and nodded. “That’s right. He and Titus are moving in today.”
“And they’re moving me in.”
“Are you, I mean, I don’t want to be—”
“The short version is that my sister asked me to return home, and I just happened to be at the right point to do so.”
“Where were you?”
“Legion.”
“Ah.”
“Just happened to be at a retirement point, so, can’t fight the call of family.”
“How long were you in?” Nadya asked. She’d been leaning in the doorway.
“Twenty-five years.”
“Whoa,” I said.
He nodded. “I’ve only been back for three days. Came straight from the front.”
“Front?”
“There’s always a fight somewhere,” Nadya said.
Godfrey chuckled. “Girl’s right. This time, it’s a kerfuffle with Mahrduhm. Up in the corner of the Empire. They want to take a pass of ours.”
“What pass?”
“Rumib,” Godfrey said. “We were fighting out of Arenberg.”
Nadya nodded as if she knew about the area, but it was all nonsense words to me.
“Come on then,” Godfrey said. “Matthew mentioned this should be an easier site than the last one.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“Heard it was rough.”
“Yeah.”
“Partly why I’m here,” Godfrey said.
“What’s the other part?” Nadya asked.
“Keeping my nieces and nephews safe.”
Chapter 101
A delivery was waiting for us outside the gates — a whole wagon full of tools and all the boring paraphernalia that goes along with physical labor. I definitely got some hardcore Miyagi-style training vibes from this.
Godfrey seemed to vacillate between two modes: hardcore work and chatty-Cathy. In work mode, he wasn’t keen on things like polite conversation or, well, polite anything. He preferred to bark orders and have them followed out. At least he was quick to ask questions. We moved the wagon into the pit work area, and started in on the perpetually exciting job of cleaning up.
Sweeping dust, piling up broken wood, fixing the holes in the house. We also sent for a cleric to deal with the bones in the cottage.
“Leave ‘em there too long,” Godfrey said, “they’ll rise on their own.”
“They haven’t yet,” I said.
“Betting you it’s because it’s day. Come back at night, they’ll be up and raring to kill anything living.”
“You’ll have to forgive him,” Nadya said, her dark hair a dusky brown with all the dust we’d kicked up, “he’s from a little hamlet where they never learned anything about anything.”
“Country mouse?” Godfrey asked.
“You’d think that,” Nadya replied before I could
say anything, “but he doesn’t know anything about the country either.”
“Well, elves are strange folk.”
Then, chatting was done, and it was back to cleaning. A few times, Godfrey stopped moving and whipped the sword out, then stood for a moment. Poised to strike. Then nothing would happen, and Godfrey would slowly return the blade to the scabbard and resume work like nothing had happened. I wasn’t sure if it was a hyper-vigilance thing, or just the aftereffects of twenty-five years of relatively constant warfare. Had to do something to a man.
But, I mean, nothing was ever there.
Before long we reached a point where we were out of things to do, except for go into the pit itself and start the real restoration.
Godfrey corralled us out and then closed and locked the gates.
“Now what?” I asked.
“We need Matthew before we’re going in the pit,” Godfrey said. “I’m going to see my new apartment.”
And he was off.
“Well shit,” I said.
“You’re out of plans for the day?” Nadya asked.
“Yeah, I mean, I figured the day job would, you know, take the day.”
“You have night plans?”
“Not yet, but—”
“Want to go see something?”
“Sure, what—”
But Nadya was already walking away, her hips rocking back and forth. She knew what she was doing. And I followed because I’m weak. I mean curious. I was just curious. That’s it. Sure.
I had to run a bit to catch up with her.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Are you the type of person who likes surprises?” she replied.
“Not especially.”
“Then maybe you’ll be disappointed.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“I want it to be a surprise. Is that so weird?”
We walked in mild silence for a bit, allowing me to do some thinking on my own. It’s not that I didn’t like surprises — it’s that I was tired of being in a place with so many new things I had to learn and understand. That was definitely something a lifetime of games and books and movies all about new worlds had failed to impress upon me. Living in a whole new world is challenging, especially when the entire universe has a completely new set of rules. Having to understand things like monsters and magic. Having to deal with being in the middle of the food chain. That was a vastly different concept. Back in the old world, I hadn’t had to worry about something hopping out from a dark alley and eating me. Mugging me, sure. But that was something I knew how to handle. Acidic saliva, that was new. It was just a lot.
Surprises, on the other hand, at least from friends, were often pretty nice. Sweet. And it was increasingly apparent, even to a clueless clod like me, that Nadya was just trying to do something nice for me. Or, at the very least, show me something I’d appreciate.
“On second thought,” I said, “a surprise would be nice.”
She smiled and gave me a wink.
“Good,” she replied.
“You grew up here,” I said, “right?”
“I did.”
“Have you traveled much?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“Some. But what do you mean?”
“Have you seen other parts of the world?”
“I’ve seen different parts of the Empire.”
“Like?”
“If you can accept that I have a slightly different family than most people—”
“You mean the ruling family?”
“Yes, well, it comes with certain, uh, perks.”
“I’d imagine so.”
“We have a few estates. And so I have visited the family estates.”
“Any interesting ones?”
“Of course.”
“If you don’t want to talk about this—”
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk. I just don’t know what you’re asking. Are the estates interesting? Yes. Farms. Hunting grounds. There’s a place along the coast where the big ships come past before docking. And if you’re lucky, you can see some of the sea monsters trailing afterward.”
“I take it the monsters in the ocean are big?”
“Quite. At least the ones I’ve seen were. As big as the ships they trailed. Creatures with great tentacles that rise up out of the water as high as the towers on the Bastion. Creatures with mouths full of teeth that are as big as men. But according to the sailors, there are things much worse, farther out to sea. Creatures that dwarf even the dragons. Creatures that are as big as islands. Creatures that are so big that other creatures live on top of them in villages.”
“Have you seen the Erg?”
“I have. I haven’t been there, but it’s easy to see it. It’s huge.”
“What is it like?”
“Sand. It’s just sand as far as you can see. Huge dunes for miles. But it stops at a line of grass. It’s very odd.”
“You didn’t step over?”
“No,” she said, smiling at me like I was an idiot. “I was told that was unwise.”
“Were you told why?”
“There are things that wait there for foolish people to step over. Easy meals.”
“Monsters?”
“I suppose you could call them that.”
“Are there that many people who’d do that?”
“It’s at the edge of a city. There’s a long edge of grass, and very few trees. Then the Erg. From one ocean to the next.”
“And the city goes across from one ocean to the next?”
“More or less. There’s a road, and ports on either side. It’s the only easy way to get goods across between the Western Sea and the Gulf of Gaulmont. Quite a bit of trade there.”
“Why not build a canal?”
“I asked my father that once, and he pointed out that it’s a lot easier to tax goods than ships.”
“I guess that makes sense. What about the Emerald Sea? Have you seen it?”
“Not yet, but the stories I have heard… I will visit it some day. And I will travel within it.”
“Travel within—”
“It’s probably just legend, but there are monsters in there that make even the sea monsters seem tame and small.”
“And you want to see them?”
“I want to study them.”
“You don’t think they’ll kill you?”
“Right now, surely. But that’s why I’m not there yet. Biding my time. Leveling up.”
“Grinding.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Yeah. Grinding. Doing all the boring stuff to build your skills and stats until you can get to the higher level zones.”
“Higher level zones? I haven’t heard that term before. Makes sense though. The Great Erg is probably like that too. Something intense and full of powerful, dangerous creatures.”
“Is it?”
“According to everything I’ve been told.”
“Huge worms that feel instead of see?”
“You’ve done some reading up on the Erg then?”
“Educated guess.”
“We’re here, by the way,” she said, coming to a stop and pointing ahead.
A large structure loomed in front of us. Like most everything in Glaton, there were high stone walls around whatever was there, this time out of worn black rocks. It had an ominous feel to it, but that was somewhat undercut by the brilliant blue sky and puffy white clouds above it. The summer weather was currently delightful, all things considered. In large letters curving over the arch was written: Beast Market.
“This is where pitbeasts are bought and traded,” Nadya said. “Among other things.”
“Is there something happening here today?”
“Every day.”
She smiled, and took me by the hand. Then she pulled me along after her as she fairly skipped across the street and through the arch. Leave it to a monster-trading shop to make the girl act girly.
The inside of the market looked something like if a zoo had had a baby with an employment agency. We saw some creatures in cages, some in wagons, and some in small pits. There were some covered in water, some in mud, and some just hanging out. And the people, the people were just as bizarre as the animals. Nowhere else in the city had I seen such diversity of races and sizes. There were several minotaurs around. And a few centaurs. There was even something that looked like a centaur, except with a scorpion body instead of a horse’s as its other half. He had a very impressive set of black carapace-like armor on his torso that did a pretty good job matching the natural armor on his, uh, the rest of his body. His stinger had been wrapped in silk so that it wasn’t quite as savage looking, and tied to the tail itself, I suppose in an attempt to make it look like he could just whip the thing out and stab you in the gut.
I did my best not to gawk at what I saw, but Nadya clearly realized I was having a moment. She smacked me in the stomach.
“Try to blend in just a little,” she hissed at me. “And these people don’t know the full extent of who I am, so—”
“Mum’s the word.”
She winked, then grabbed my hand again, and pulled me along through the maelstrom of monsters.
“Nadya!” a voice cried. An older woman who was maybe human waved at us, and gestured for us to come over. She had a small table set up, with tall guards on either side, their long spears heading high into the sky. The woman herself was of somewhat indeterminate height, considering she was hunched over impressively. She had something of an ugly face, framed by rough curly grey hair. As soon as she saw Nadya coming her way, she collapsed back down in her chair with a hearty grunt.
“Lila,” Nadya said. “Having a good day?”
“An interesting day,” Lila replied, her voice gruff. Up close, I definitely noticed an unpleasant odor coming off her. “Which makes it a good day.”
Lila chuckled, which was something more along the lines of a cackle than anything resembling an actual laugh.
“Is there anything I should be on the lookout for?” Nadya asked.
“Down on the back alley, there’s someone selling supposedly-tame grimelings,” Lila said. “I think he’s got ‘em on some charm spell or something. You looking to make a purchase of some kind?”
