by Paul Barrett
I shook him until he stopped and stared at me, his eyes wide in fear and nose crinkled in disgust. I answered his impertinent question. “It’s worth me going to jail for picking up that wand and beating you with it until you squeal like an infant harpy. Other than that, not much. Which way?”
“Greenstreet Lane. Two blocks east and one north,” he squeaked as he tried to breathe through his mouth. “It takes up the whole block.”
“Thank you.” I let him go before some do-good noble saw me and tried to interfere. He ran into the night, his wand forgotten on the walkway. I had really frightened him. Losing that wand would get him in serious trouble with his masters at the Lighters’ Guild. He would undoubtedly get worse than I was going to give him. If he had called my bluff, I wouldn’t have beaten him.
At least I like to think I wouldn’t.
I picked up the wand. I would have Siralanna return it to the guild. No sense getting the twerp in trouble just because I was having a bad day.
I tucked the wand in my belt and followed the kid’s directions. I did my best to look inconspicuous covered in foul water and zombie gunk. Thankfully the streets had gone barren for the most part.
Siralanna’s house was a giant three-story building at least twice as large as Quinitas’, with a well-manicured yard of actual grass. Like the smaller manor, this one had been painted gold and covered in gilded fern leaves. There were also topiaries carved into graceful animals. So much green made me want to sneeze.
I immediately sensed something wrong. The gates stood open with no guards before them. A social blunder in this district. I walked through the gates and headed for the front door. Fifty feet of lush yard and a path bordered by multicolored flowers stood between me and the manor. Some of the flowers had been trampled and lay on the walkway like dead soldiers. The topiary animals looked ready to pounce on me. I picked up the pace. My concern had turned to outright worry. If something had happened to Siralanna, I wouldn’t get paid.
When I reached the doorway, I heard sounds of a scuffle coming from somewhere on the second floor. I dashed up a staircase so wide a dragon would have felt at home perched on it. When I reached the top, I paused and listened, trying to pinpoint the sound.
I heard the moans at the same time I caught the smell. Both came from an open doorway twenty feet ahead down a hall covered with gold paint and obscenely large paintings.
More undead. Great. “Slejumwok,” I muttered as I drew my wand in one hand and axe in the other. I didn’t know what I would find when I reached the room, so I wanted to be ready for anything. I ran down the hallway.
It wasn’t as bad as I feared. Siralanna had crowded into a corner. Two of her guard held three zombies at bay while shielding her. Four zombies and one guard lay on the ground. Blood soaked the green carpet. Furniture had been smashed to large splinters. Siralanna spotted me, and her eyes changed from terrified to merely frightened. I guess she thought I did little more than even the odds. I knew I could manage a bit better. I’ve had more experience than many dealing with things walking that shouldn’t be.
The zombies faced away from me. Intent on the guards, they hadn’t noticed my entrance. That made things easy. I ran up behind them, fired my wand at the base of one’s spine and slammed my axe into the other. The bolt tore through the creature with the sound of water on a hot griddle. Its head lolled back as hot blood gushed from its ragged throat. The bolt slammed into the wall and made a black and red splotch on the pristine paint. My arm jarred as blood spumed around the axe blade and spattered the rug. I wrenched it out, slinging more gouts behind me. I suddenly thought of raw steak and almost brought up the dinner I hadn’t eaten.
The creatures collapsed forward into a guard. He shoved them away with a cry of disgust as his face went pale. The third zombie turned his head to look at me, and the other guard took advantage. His sword slammed into the creature’s midsection. The body fell sideways. It landed at my feet, spine still intact. The zombie’s eyes locked on mine. Its jaw moved, wanting to bite me. I pulled my axe from the first zombie’s back and smashed it into the neck of the downed creature. The body twitched as the head rolled across the carpet. Blood spurted from the neck stump like beer from a broken tap. Soon both parts stopped moving, and the crimson flow died to a trickle. No more than fifteen seconds after I showed up, the fight was over.
Immediately, Siralanna recovered and took command. She looked at the two surviving guards. “Take Mikala from this place and send a boy to the Gravemen’s Union to come collect him.” She pointed at the zombies. “You can get this other trash later. I need to speak with Snazdaggin.”
They looked more than happy to leave the charnel house. Each grabbed an end of their fallen comrade, and they departed.
I studied Siralanna. She seemed calmer than I would expect someone to be after such an attack. Her golden hair hadn’t even been mussed. She was one tough flutter. “Are you okay?”
“Shaken but otherwise fine.”
“Sorry about your guard.”
She shrugged. “That’s what they get paid for,” she said.
The cold-hearted statement didn’t surprise me. That’s likely why she hired human guards. She wouldn’t risk her family, and no elf cared if humans died. From an elf’s perspective, human lives were about as long as a fly’s.
Pleasantries out of the way, I said, “Your brother went into a sewer, met with an ogre who told him to go to Stinkhole and speak to someone about something called the Falchion Trigger. Then the ogre screamed something about being betrayed. Then the zombies attacked, and I left. I’ll collect my pay and move on to something else now.”
“What do you mean?” she lifted the hem of her low-cut saffron dress and stepped over the zombies. “You said you’d follow him for a week.”
“I also mentioned nothing supernatural.” I pulled my axe from the floor, where it had embedded after cleaving the zombie’s neck. “These things don’t get up and walk by themselves.”
“We need to find out where the Trigger is.”
“You need to find out where the Trigger is. I need food, a bottle, a bath, and a change of clothes. In that order.”
Her mood changed like a chameleon’s skin. She went from demanding to sultry as natural as breathing. “Well, I can give you those. I’ll even help you with the bath.”
I gave it a moment’s thought. Only a moment, because I knew too well the hook she was trying to sink into me. “Thanks, but I don’t want the servants to think you’re rutting below your station. I’ll take my pay and go.” I reached up to remove the amulet. She grabbed my bloodstained hands in hers and dropped onto her knees.
“You don’t understand. The Trigger is an immensely powerful magic item. If the Cult of Caldere gets hold of it, they’ll use me as a sacrifice to activate it.”
“How do you know all this?”
She looked at the floor and blushed; a breathtaking sight. “My brother has his manor warded against magic, but only from spells cast from outside. For some reason, he hires those filthy, untrustworthy goblins to work on his household staff. You can’t trust any of them, so I took advantage of his foolishness and bribed one of his servants to sneak out a decanter from the manor’s study. I cast a listening spell on it and delayed it for a day so his wards couldn’t pick it up. Then I had the servant sneak it back in.”
“Hold on, sister,” I said. “I’m not the brightest candle when it comes to magic but isn’t a delaying spell also magic? Why didn’t his wards pick that up?”
“The signature on a delay is small enough that it slipped by his wards. I wasn’t sure it would work.” She shrugged, a dainty toss of her shoulders. “If it didn’t, the goblin would get caught with it and punished. No great loss.”
I shrugged with her. Had my dislike of goblins not been so intense, her casual disregard and willingness to sacrifice her pawns might have registered more with me.
She continued. “The spell worked, and two days later I heard my brother speaking with another
man. He had a strange accent, possibly southern. My brother outlined the plans, and when the man explained they needed a sacrifice and it had to be the blood of family, my brother laughed and said, ‘I’ll use my sister, I…” she stopped as tears ran down her face and she composed herself. “’I don’t like her anyway,’ he said.”
“So you didn’t only suspect he was a member of Caldere’s cult, you knew it.”
She nodded as she let go of my hands and went to wipe at her eyes. She stopped when she noticed the blood and looked around for something to clean them.
“Then why didn’t you tell me that from the beginning?”
“I didn’t want to scare you away.”
I barked out a laugh. “That almost didn’t work for you, did it? Your brother wanting to sacrifice you explains the zombies here. They were coming to kidnap you. It doesn’t explain the ones in the sewer.”
“Maybe it was a double-cross. Once Quinitas got the information he wanted, he had his minions attack the informants. My brother has always been devious, and he is highly skilled in Necromancy.”
“I thought the elf Clans outlawed Necromancy a thousand years ago.”
“Yes, and psionics still exist despite the Council of Wizards outlawing them a hundred years ago.”
Her eyes gave away nothing to indicate that her statement had been anything more than random comparison. It still rattled me. She hit too close to the mark. I needed to get out of here. She stared at me, her cheeks wet, her face filled with hope that I would still help her. I almost gave in. Then I remembered all the zombies who tried to make me their evening meal. “I can’t follow him. He’s a mage, so he’ll just teleport or something equally quick.”
Siralanna smiled and wiped at her eyes. “He doesn’t teleport. Not since the accident with our uncle.”
“He certainly had no problem teleporting the zombies in to do his fighting, assuming you’re right about the double cross.” I didn’t bother to mention the cost and effort involved. Of course, if he had a cult as big as Caldere’s behind him, neither of those were a factor.
“He doesn’t mind teleportation. He just doesn’t do it to himself. Most likely he’ll use one of the family Ziploons.”
“Really?” I asked. The gnome-designed Zippy Balloons, or Ziploons, were a great means of travel, although their name constituted false advertising. Snail with wings would have been a better name for them. “I think he’d be in more of a hurry than that.”
“You don’t know my brother. He hates discomfort.”
“Of course, he’s an elf.”
Her eyes narrowed at the remark, but she let it pass. “That he went into a sewer tells me just how far he’s gone into madness. I can assure you he will take the Ziploon. He may enchant it to go faster, but you should still be able to reach Stinkhole ahead of him. If you take a dragon.”
A dragon flight. Great. This just kept getting better. “Can’t you teleport me?”
She shook her lovely head, her hair dancing like excited stalks of wheat. “I only do simple spells. Teleportation is well beyond my capabilities. That’s why Quinitas is the Clanmage and not me.”
I grunted. The only easy job is the one you don’t take, I reminded myself. Way against my better judgment, such as it was, I said, “Okay, I’ll go to Stinkhole and find out more about this Trigger. But my rate just doubled.”
She started to squawk in protest. I held up a hand. “Double or nothing.”
She fumed, beautiful even then. Seeing I wasn’t going to budge, she nodded. No elf will ever outstubborn a dwarf.
“Once I learn about the Trigger, we need to take this to the Grand Wizard Gosley or one of his assistants.”
She winced. Elves are insular, and she wanted to keep this quiet. Too bad.
“Interfering with a snide elf I’ll do,” I said. “Messing with an entire cult and possibly a guild of assassins is more than I want to tackle. Gosley seems to enjoy saving the city, so let him do it. What you need to do right now is go somewhere safe, where you can’t be attacked.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’m sure,” I said, “but many more attacks and you’ll run out of guards. You’re better off hiding until I get back.”
She nodded unhappily. She was used to being the one giving orders, not taking them. “I imagine you have some little rat hole where I can go cower.”
“Go to Old Harbor, to a bar called the Oyster and Gull. Talk to Krunarik behind the bar and tell him Spade says ‘the tide rises every other day.’ He’ll take you to a basement lined with krellum. You can stay there until I come to get you.”
“A basement?”
“It’s furnished and nicer than it sounds. You won’t have servants, but you will have a chance to keep on living. I’ll let you decide which is more important.”
She seemed to seriously think about it for a moment. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some common dwarf sense into her. She sighed, a sound breathy, titillating, and frustrating. As if throwing herself off a cliff, she said, “I’ll do it. Do I need to leave now?”
I shook my head. “You should be safe tonight. Keep your guards close and your doors locked. I’ll tell the night guard to make some extra patrols around your perimeter.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“I may not have much left,” I growled, “but I still have acquaintances in the city watch. You’ll be fine. But when you go tomorrow, wear less refined clothing. Think dockworker or doxy.”
“Both of which I know a great deal about, of course.”
“Then think servant. Think anything other than rich and stylish.”
“When are you going to leave?”
“I’ll head out in the morning. I need to gather some things. Which reminds me, this necklace is nice, but if I can’t sell it, it’s useless for getting me food or supplies.”
“Talk to Calithan, my seneschal. He’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
It didn’t sound as much fun as being bathed by Siralanna. I couldn’t let such things distract me. “Did your brother happen to say what exactly he wants to do with this almighty magic item?”
“He wants to take over Mage City and then spread his rule across the continent.”
Of course. That’s what they always want. “Exactly what does this device do?”
“When it’s assembled, it will allow its controller to summon hordes of devils and undead, the size of which will make the last war look like a skirmish.”
5
Since Siralanna’s dire prediction of summoned demons and ultimate death wasn’t imminent, I managed to garner a bath, food, and clothing from her seneschal. It surprised me when a hobgoblin dressed in green-gold silk shirt and pants came into the room carrying a set of clothing. Considering her disdain for her brother’s bodyguards, I would never have expected her to have a hob servant. He introduced himself as Calithan.
“That’s not your name,” I said. Calithan was an Elvish moniker. A hob growing up with that name would have been beaten daily by his creche mates.
“It’s what the mistress wishes to call me,” he said with a slight crinkle in his black lips.
I shrugged. Her choice. She could call me the Great Wizard Gosley’s Asshole as long as she paid me. I wondered if Calithan felt the same. I decided to probe further. “Is she a good employer?”
“She is an employer,” he said with no inflection.
“She doesn’t seem to have much respect for your people.”
“Few elves do. She pays me. Poorly.” A trace of resentment came through, even though he tried to maintain a neutral tone.
“She ever call you names?”
“Not to my face but I have overheard her at times. Her remarks are less than kind.”
“That must piss you off.”
His black eyes betrayed his anger. Only for a moment. I still saw it. “If I could find—” he stopped and looked around the room fearfully. Then his face went impassive again. “Here are the clothes.”
/> So Siralanna wasn’t going to win any Goblinoid Lover of the Year awards. Good to know.
The garments must have belonged to an elfling, since they fit me. Possibly Quinitas when he was a child. The clothing was so delicate and frilly I didn’t know whether to laugh or vomit. It was better than what I had, so I suffered in silence.
With a look of disgust on his broad hobgoblin face, Calithan offered to have my clothes washed. Or burned, if I preferred. I smirked at his delicate nature. Not that long ago, during the war, he was probably rooting in garbage for his next meal. How quickly we grow used to comfort.
I accepted the offer of cleaning since the soiled garments were one of only three sets of clothing I owned.
I left her house an hour later with my body bathed, my beard trimmed, and my belly filled. Siralanna hadn’t helped me with my bath. Much as that disappointed me, it was probably just as well. I pride myself on pleasing the two women I’ve been with. I didn’t want my reputation to suffer because of a headache.
Thankfully it was late enough that the few people who saw me on the streets likely thought they were having drunken hallucinations.
As soon as I opened the door to my office, Crizlyk laughed in my face. “Boss, I’m glad you’re okay, but when did you start to identify as a woman?”
“Shut up and get me something to drink,” I said as I slammed the office door. I shouldn’t have. The sound reverberated through my body and bounced between my temples.
“Sorry boss, we’re out. Do I smell roses…and bacon?”
“Out of whisky?” I groaned. “That’s it; I’m going to bed. Here.” Calithan had sent me from the house with a few provisions. I tossed the small carry sack to my assistant. He pulled out several rashers of bacon, a wedge of Elfwood cheese, and honey glazed fey biscuits.
“Thanks, boss,” Crizlyk said as he eyed the feast. He set about shoving it into his long snout, barely bothering to chew.
I began to remove my clothing while Crizlyk, stuffing food with one hand, used his other to roll out the two sets of feather-filled padding and thin blankets that served as our beds. Thankfully, it never got cold in Mage City. Crizlyk was cold blooded. I didn’t know what would be worse: losing him as an assistant because of forced hibernation or waking up to find him cuddled against me for warmth.
