by Ember Lane
“Get here! Come on, lads!” “Bastard bastards!” “Hamstring the buggers!” All the shouts mixed in a press of insults as, somehow, Daemon Mercer’s men closed.
“The dreadnail has them!” Merl screamed as their curses spurred him on. He jumped to the next landing and then made an instant decision. Merl equipped his katana and stopped, waiting. Quaiyl spun around and stood by him, with Gloomy Joe behind them.
“Kill enough that they can’t get past,” Merl hissed. His anger now ruled his thought. His resistance to the beasts left no room for compassion.
Heavy breaths mixed with muttered grumbles and the chink of armor as Daemon Mercer’s men closed. Merl tried to control his shallow breaths, drew his blade back, and imagined his enemy approaching. He waited. He held his ground at the top of the steps, and he yelled his lungs empty, startling the climbing soldiers. He swiped the katana in an arc. It connected, blade on skin, blade through artery, through neck, clean through. Shock became fixed on dead lips as the lead soldier’s head slipped from his body. Merl backed away in detached horror. The grisly stump fell toward him, washing him in hot, sticky blood. This time, he had no room for regret.
Quaiyl twisted heads, immune to their blades, their punches, or the cluttered stairwell. Slipping and sliding in newly spilled blood, Merl scrambled back, pushing aside the dead man and lunging for the next. He took a chop to his shoulder, a bruising blow that failed to penetrate, then got a stab in himself, but it forced his elbow outward as the body twisted. Merl pushed himself back, the katana sinking farther into the soldier in front of him. Startled eyes stared out at him as Merl slammed into the wall behind. He unequipped his katana and equipped the shorter wakizashi. After gulping down a breath, Merl rejoined Quaiyl. He parried, he stabbed, and the bodies piled up, stifling any pursuit, like he wanted, like they needed, and the groans of the dying filled the stairwell.
Then another low moan sung out, vibrating stone and hitting Merl’s mind with an instant crescendo. Horror upon horror rose in front of him as the newly dead, the dying, and even the beheaded began to stand and lumber toward them with a far-too-familiar gait.
“Oh, sweet Andula!” Merl cried as the newly risen zombays lurched after him.
Quaiyl grabbed him, spinning him away and shoving him up the steps. Merl ran, Gloomy Joe scrambling along in front. The horrors below turned. More screams rang out as the undead attacked the living remnants of Daemon Mercer’s men.
Merl came to the steps’ top, a small square of stone with three doors occupying its three walls. Merl panicked, a press of undead behind. Then the groan of the dreadnails redoubled, as if more had joined the attack. Quaiyl bolted straight ahead, opening the door dead in front to usher Gloomy and Merl through, then shutting it with a satisfying press.
Two ranks of desks greeted them, leading away in a tight room, six deep on either side. Each had an empty picture frame above it, and a chair tucked under. At the end of the room another taller but empty frame was attached a stone wall.
Merl took it all in in an instant. He ran his fingers quickly along the desks but withdrew them as static sparked and pinched them. Instead, he traced the top half of the large frame hung on the end wall.
“What the hell is this place?” he muttered.
Quaiyl whipped a chair out, pulling Merl down into its seat. Merl glanced from the seat to Quaiyl and back. He tilted his head, unspoken questions in his eyes, then sat, and Quaiyl shoved the chair in. The Origin grabbed Merl’s hand, and a warming glow ran through him, similar in feeling to when he’d taught Merl to swordfight. Knowledge flooded into Merl, but not knowledge he could in any way comprehend. They were numbers. He recognized them, but they were joined by strange symbols and dashes, squiggles and dots. He did understand one thing.
Time was running out to do whatever Quaiyl needed doing.
Thumps and feral pounding resounded as the zombays attacked the door. Merl feared it would give way at any moment. He reached out, encouraged by Quaiyl, and touched the frame in front of him. Its edge felt cold. Merl tried not to hurry, but he desperately wanted out of this tiny hellish room. Luminous blue suddenly filled the frame. It crackled like miniature lightning, and fizzed and sparked before it settled to an azure sheen.
Understanding came—instant knowledge with a certain origin.
“Frank,” he said, but knew that Frank’s title was incomplete. He realized he didn’t know anything more other than that Frank was the so-called Butcher of Malinger Cross.
The azure sheet cracked, rippled, and then returned to a flat sheen.
“Desmelda…Witch of Wormloe Tump?”
It cracked and rippled again but settled back.
Shouts and barks erupted. Enraged zombays pounded the door. Quaiyl had his back against it. His hand held its knob.
“Billy Muckspreader!” Merl screamed in desperation. “Show me Billy Muckspreader!”
The azure frame glowed white. A picture opened up in its center, crackling in a web of sparking bolts. It slowly resolved to a green screen, then sharpened further to show grass, bushes, then a valley with a river running through it and rockfaces lining its sides. Merl leaned closer, picking out a small camp with three people huddled around a fire. Mushroom stood close by.
“Billy! Frank! Desmelda! Mushroom!” he cried, then leaned even closer until his nose touched the scene. It folded inward, like it was a skin of some kind, then sparked and flashed. Merl swore he could smell fresh grass, dewy morning mist, and smoke, smoke tainted with a familiar, brothy smell.
More pounding thumped through the room. The groan of the dreadnails seeped in between chaos outside. The whispers of the dormerbeast tugged at his mind, pulling it to certain slumber. The door’s brass knob clattered onto the floor, as the door itself opened and then slamned shut, as Quaiyl braced himself and tried to keep the zombay soldiers back. Gloomy began barking at the tall frame in between the desks. Merl ripped his gaze away from the one in front of him, and he saw the tall one was now filled with a similar, green scene. Another rush of understanding flooded through him. He shot up, standing before it, poking his head through, pressing the sparking plasma, and seeing a different world; and an empty valley, a green and lush land. He snapped his head back, picked up Gloomy, and prayed to Andula as he tossed the dune dog through.
A roar from behind told him the soldiers had burst in. Quaiyl barged into Merl, shoving him through the frame. Merl hoped beyond all hope that he’d understood and gotten it right. He prayed that Gloomy Joe would be waiting on the other side. A wet feeling coated him, like morning mist. It folded around him and pulled him forward in a rush of silver sparks that formed an ever-receding corridor. That corridor then rushed toward him at a colossal speed and brought with it a square of green that smashed into him. It sent him stumbling and tumbling, falling and rolling into long, green grass, covered in dew. Gloomy Joe jumped on top of him, slapping licks like they’d been apart forever.
Quaiyl tumbled into being followed by a zombay soldier. Merl scrambled to his feet. He equipped his katana, and he rushed back up the slope. Another zombay appeared in the blue portal, but before it came completely through, a sharp light exploded in a vertical line, chopping the undead in half, and the portal ceased to be. The zombay fell, a slab of rotting meat staining the lush green grass. Quaiyl snapped the first zombay’s neck, tossing him to the ground and then walking to Merl. He pointed down the valley, pointed at a small funnel of twisting smoke.
Merl stood, aghast. “Now?” Merl shouted at him. “Now you point? You point when I know the bloody way?” But Quaiyl was already loping toward the fire.
35
Merl’s cheeks ached from grinning. He’d grinned all evening. He’d grinned while he washed in the freezing river, and he’d grinned while he slept half in and half out of Frank’s level-one mud hut.
Frank had questioned Merl while Desmelda had served both Merl and Gloomy some broth. Their journey through the caverns and caves piqued Frank’s interest, but it was the stone go
lem, the dormerbeast, and the strange picture frames that really caught his attention. The stone golem, he concluded, was evidence of Daemon Mercer’s attempt to find dire artifacts and talismans at the hand of the dormerbeast. He surmised that the dormerbeast somehow controlled a man’s slumber. The pictures frames, he decided, were evidence of the old lord’s ability to translocate.
Merl had known Billy Muckspreader for near enough his whole life. He’d heard tall tales, plenty of them, but none as tall as Frank had relayed that night. He’d said that the old lords could not only translocate themselves, but they could move entire castles. Merl had nearly spat out his broth at that.
“Yer’d have to fit ‘em through one of them frames, like,” he’d told Frank, and then gone into great detail about the frames, how he’d had to run his finger around their edges, how it had glowed blue, and how it had changed when he’d called Billy’s name.
Frank had likened the frames to spells, but Merl had disagreed.
“More like a crossbow. You could throw a bolt if you had a mind, but using a crossbow is more effective,” Merl had said. “I got the sense that the frame makes it easier to picture the scene you travel through.”
Frank had stared at him then. “But you didn’t know the spell? Quaiyl didn’t tell you the spell?”
Merl had shrugged. “It was just like the swordfighting, Frank. He let me know how to do it. That’s all. And I knew, Frank. The instant he’d told me, I knew. It was like it was embedded in me and he set it free.”
Frank had been quiet after that, and with a full stomach Merl had welcomed that quiet. He’d slept like a log, a deep dreamless sleep, not even tainted by dying soldiers or stone golems, and in the morning, they’d set out for Quintz. After the dark of the underground, its sun was more than welcome.
Mountains pushed them on, filling the horizon behind them. Frank set a sure course, following the flow of a great river until they came to a rocky bluff, where he stood like a conquering hero. Merl drew aside him.
The land fell away, a lush, green carpet flowing with the river, undulating edged on both sides by a climbing forest. Two huge stone birds towered up on either side of them, their pointed beaks angled slightly in.
“Mala’s birds,” Frank said. “Goddess of the Sacred Secret. I should tell you her story, Merl.”
“Quintz is down there?” Merl said, no other thought or story important to him at that moment. “Somewhere in that green?”
“Size of an ant’s toe,” Billy added, scrambling up onto the rock.
“How are we ever going to find it?” Merl asked.
“Quintz? How are we ever going to find Quintz in that lot?” Frank grinned. “Well, it’s on the righthand side of the river, just about there.” He pointed. “You can’t go far wrong.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Desmelda said, joining them. “You’re actually telling me that Quintz is the size of an ant’s toe?”
Mushroom walked up, tiny little steps made with his tiny little legs. “This walking lark’s just plain time consuming, take me an age.”
“It is no bigger than a speck of dew, and no larger than an ant’s toe,” Frank confirmed, ignoring Mushroom’s whining. “Shall we?”
But they stood for a while and looked down the great valley. Merl thought all the way back to Morgan Mount, and he wondered what Portius was up to. He wondered if she’d had adventures like he’d been through. He was tired, the type of tired that you get at the end of a great journey, and he was relieved. They’d made it.
Frank jumped off the rock and they followed him one by one. Gloomy Joe ran in the tall grass, relishing the morning sun. Merl summoned his guardians and commanded them to form up on either side of the party, just so the group could relax and so they could enjoy the breadth of the great valley without having to worry about monsters or any of Daemon Mercer’s patrols.
They weaved through the tall grass, a column of adventurers, and by late afternoon Merl judged them to be close to where Frank had pointed. The Wizard of Quintz had fallen silent while he picked his way along with the Staff of Morrison White in his hand.
“You sure this place exists?” said Billy Muckspreader.
“Oh, not too far now,” Frank replied, bunching the guardians close. “It’ll be nice to walk in with an escort. Makes me feel kind of important.”
Merl patted Gloomy Joe. The dune dog looked up, panting, that strange waggling walk of his in time with his wagging tail. The grass grew around them, waist high, then shoulder high. A dewy teardrop hung from the tip of one, but it was too large, nearly the size of Merl’s head. The grass grew fatter and fatter, and the sky receded. Frank pointed forward, and Merl saw a huge blade of grass ahead, arcing up and down like a great, verdant, bridge.
Then Merl realized that Frank was walking along it, Desmelda too, and that the ranks of guardians fitted on it as well. Mushroom waddled along, and Billy Muckspreader turned, scratched his head, and shrugged his shoulders. Merl pulled Gloomy close. Quaiyl ambled by his side. He stepped on to the grassy blade, walking up to its cusp. Butterflies filled his stomach. His grin spread from ear to ear.
“I think we’re here, Gloomy. I think we made it to Quintz.” As he said it, he crested the blade of grass and looked down at a magnificent city nestled in a bed of leaves. When he walked toward it, the city became larger and larger until its magnificent, white walls towered above him. Frank stopped, and Desmelda stood by him with Mushroom and Billy. Merl, Quaiyl and Gloomy Joe drew aside them, the guardians halted, and Frank spread his arms wide.
“Quintz,” he said. “I give you the magical, hidden city of Quintz.”
THE END
This marks the end of book one of The Wizard of Quintz. Merl and his companion’s adventures continue in book two of the Dead Server Seven series: The Mark of Daemon Mercer.
My bit
Hi!
My back matter is pretty much the same in every book. That’s a lie. It’s not pretty much, it’s exactly the same. Why? Because I love to write and the rest… As a schoolteacher would say - must try harder.
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Ember
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