by Dante King
I snuffed at the air. “Scent?” I asked, nonplussed.
“You don’t smell it?” Chaosbane said.
“No.”
“It smells like… trouble.” He grinned widely and, for the first time, I noticed that one of his molars was made from pure silver.
We rounded the corner of Long Street, ironically the shortest street in Nevermoor, and found ourselves in the town square.
“What in all that is holy is this?” Ragnar Ironskin asked no one in particular.
The whole town was gathered in the square. Every head was facing in the same direction. There was no merriment or cheer though, nothing that made me think that whatever had captured everyone’s attention, and brought all the locals out into the street on such a misty, moody day, was going to be anything good.
“Make way, coming through,” Chaosbane said. He muttered something under his breath. I saw his hand glow red, as if it were made of metal and he’d just pulled it from a forge. He pressed his red-hot hand to the rump of a large woman who was stubbornly blocking his way. She gave a little yelp and hopped out of the way.
“Thank you, madam,” Chaosbane said gravely as he passed her. “Much obliged.”
A low murmuring filled in the space behind us as our crew of thirteen filed through. I imagined that it was because the villagers had not seen such an assortment of bad-assery such as this for a long time. We continued to make our way through the crowd, helped every now and again by the gentle, tactical application of Chaosbane’s hot hand, until we emerged out into the front row.
“Ah, shit,” I said.
The townsfolk had gathered about the well that stood in the middle of Nevermoor. This well was your typical town well; it was made of stone, had a little roof on it and a bucket on a chain. It was quite quaint, as these things went, and rather run-of-the-mill. What was not quite run of the mill, however, was the zombie that had been chained to the well.
“Is that—is that fucking Arun?” Damien asked from over my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, it is.”
Arun Lightson was gray-skinned and milky-eyed now. His jaw hung slack, snapping occasionally at anyone who got too close to him. His usually sleek orange hair was mussed and full of mud and leaves. His clothes were ripped and dirty.
“And I thought he was fugly before,” Janet said. Clearly, the news that her father had been arrested had not put her in an overly sensitive mood.
“Yeah,” I said, noting the scorch marks and the puckered and blistered flesh across Arun’s chest, “I figure that’s what getting killed does for your sex appeal.”
Arun was most definitely dead. You didn’t need to be a mortician to see that. Apart from the scorch marks on the front of his torso there were also holes blown in his back—spell exit wounds, I realized.
“This is going to do nothing for our admissions numbers,” Chaosbane muttered, running his eyes with interest over Arun.
“What, you don’t think people are going to be excited to come to an Academy where people are murdered and left in the town square?” I asked drily.
“Hm? No, no—and I’m sure the Lightson family is going to be far from happy,” said Chaosbane. “What bothers me isn’t the fact that someone killed him—that’s the risk you run being a student at a War Mage Academy—but that someone resurrected him and animated his body. That’s just not good form, mate.”
I ground my teeth at the sight of the thing that had once been a fellow student bumbling and moaning its way around the well.
“It was that prick Horatio,” I said.
“Most likely,” Alura said.
“He killed his cousin,” Cecilia said in a disbelieving little voice.
“And just when Arun was looking like he might not be an asshole all the way through,” I said.
“You know,” Chaosbane said thoughtfully, “seeing Mr. Lightson shuffling about like this, I’m put in mind of that pestilential cousin of mine, Igor, on his very worst hungover days.”
Odette Scaleblade slipped between Chaosbane and myself so that she could peer more closely at Arun’s wounds.
“Yes,” she said softly, “there can be no doubt; it was Death Magic that killed ’im.”
Chaosbane nodded, tapping and running his finger around his perfectly groomed mustaches and beard. “Bastards,” he said mildly.
“Hey,” Rick murmured, giving me a nudge in the back that almost sent me into Arun’s arms, “does that make him an Ar-undead?”
Nigel and Damien let out twin groans.
“How about we get this goddamn show on the road?” I suggested.
Chaosbane turned and took in my determined face, and the set faces of the mages that were gathered in behind me.
“Yes,” he said, “and what a shitastrophe of a show it promises to be!”
Chapter Twenty-One
As we pushed our way out of the square, I asked Chaosbane, “What’s going to happen to Arun now?”
“That decision rests with the Lightsons ultimately,” he said as he led the way out of the crowd.
We came out the other side of Nevermoor and up the road that Cecilia and I had last taken in her horseless carriage. The circle of standing stones stood as they had done before, as they had probably done for millenia. The milky gravel path was as scrupulously kept as it had been the last time we were there. The old dwarf, with eyebrows enough for three, was sitting in his little booth. By the way he was hunched and leaning against the wall of the little kiosk, it looked as if he was asleep.
“Leave these negotiations to me,” Chaosbane told our group as we approached out of the fog. “This old fellow must be handled with care for, as I said before, I’m fairly certain that he reports to the Arcane Council. He has received your message that you will be on your way here to make use of the portal, of course, and he will no doubt be aware that the Arcane Council has been locked in convocation for the past few hours. He’ll be waiting until he knows that they are done up at the Academy before he risks running up to tell them what you are planning to do.”
“If he’s such a duplicitous little scrotum,” Damien said, “why does the Mazirian Academy put up with him?”
Chaosbane held up a finger once again. “Ah, say not a duplicitous little scrotum—this old boy never professed to be for the Academy. And it is not for me to decide at which door any one person lays their allegiance, mate.”
“How do you propose to deal with him, Reginald?” Ironskin asked. I noticed that he was casually fingering a knife that he had strapped in a sheath under his arm. It struck me once again that Ragnar Ironskin was not the sort of guy you’d want after your blood on a cold, foggy day such as this.
“I am the epitome of suavity and gentle persuasion when I must be, Ragnar, my old china,” Chaosbane said, waving his hands in an arbitrary manner. “Leave it to me. I shall pour the old snake oil in his ear and make him see reason.”
We approached the kiosk where the slumbering guard continued his restful dozing. On closer inspection, I could see that he had a knitted blanket tucked around his short legs.
Chaosbane held the rest of us back with a gesture and swaggered up to the Portal Porter’s cabin.
“Wake up, Petram, you crusty flatulus antiquitus!” he bellowed.
The dwarf, Petram, jumped like he’d just had his genitals connected to a car battery. His little golden spectacles flew off the end of his nose, and Chaosbane caught them deftly. The dwarf looked wildly about him, blinking as he tried to get a handle on just what the hell was going on.
“Chop chop, mate,” Chaosbane said jollily, “we haven’t got all day.”
“M-m-master Chaosbane?” Petram stammered, squinting across his desk at the Headmaster.
“Right in one,” Chaosbane said, handing the porter back his glasses. “Very good. Now, look lively, I need a portal—that is to say, I wish to catch a lift on a portal that you’re already organizing for Miss Chillgrave, Miss Thunderstone, and the Mazirian Academy’s very own resident prince
ss.”
The old dwarf licked his lips and looked nervously about. I didn’t blame him for being agitated. Chaosbane was staring at him with those unwavering dark eyes of his, which seemed to look right through your head and out to the horizon on the other side, scrambling up your thoughts on the way through.
Chaosbane leaned forward nonchalantly. He was smiling still, but the smile had changed somewhat. Now, it was less the smile of an amiable inebriate and more the sort of smile that you’d expect to see on the face of something that hunted seal pups for lunch. As the Headmaster leaned forward, Petram leaned backward.
“Let us cut to the chase, you and I,” Chaosbane said. “I know that you are not an unprincipled bloke. You just look out for yourself, which is quite understandable in this helter-skelter world. I, on the other hand, am the sort of unpredictable and crooked character that has to unscrew his trousers to get them off at the end of the day. You don’t get to be Headmaster of the Academy without a thorough understanding of guile, coercion, blackmail, and good old bribery. So, here’s my offer, mate; you set up the portal to the Eldritch Prison and say nothing to the Arcane Council, and I’ll speak to Sister Moll and get you a month-long, no-holds-barred pass to the nunnery over the hill. Or else… Well, use your imagination.”
Petram didn’t bother asking something stupid like, ‘Or else what?’ The possibilities were endless as far as other possibilities were concerned. He could easily end up smeared across the ceiling of his booth, or whisked up and bottled as some sort of chutney. Magic is magic after all.
Instead, he snapped out a flawless salute and said, “That’s a mighty fine bribe, Master Chaosbane. I’d be happy to oblige.”
“Excellent!” Chaosbane said, straightening up. He waved the rest of us over and pointed at the circle.”All aboard, team.” As we passed, he wagged a roguish finger at the old dwarf and said, “And remember, Petram, you rascal, I’ll know quite well if you’ve sailed us up the river.”
“Not a worry, sir!” Petram said, going so far as to click his heels while he held his salute. “The allure of the nuns yonder is more than enough to secure my silence, sir!”
“Good lad,” Chaosbane said. “Send us through to the Warden’s office.”
The flipping, disorientating whirl of color and sound didn’t affect me quite so much on this run through the portal as it had when Cecilia had taken me to the Tower of Argenti. I stumbled only a little when we slammed feet first into the hard rock of the Eldritch Prison.
Rick, on the other hand, fell over and smashed straight through one of Idman Thunderstone’s ebony bookcases, turning it into kindling.
“Maybe, you could not mention that to your father?” he asked Janet gruffly as he was helped to his feet by Enwyn.
“Don’t worry, Rick,” Janet replied, “I think my dad is going to have more on his mind right now than his office furnishings.”
“I hope so,” Rick rumbled under his breath to Nigel and Damien. “He scares the shit out of me, that man.”
Madame Xel, Odette, Enwyn, and Ragnar Ironskin had taken up positions facing the door to Idman’s office.
“Okie dokie, gather around,” Chaosbane said, indicating me, the frat brothers, Janet, Cecilia, and Alura. “It is time for you to imbibe the Transmogrification Potion.”
The eight of us gathered in close to the Headmaster, who pulled out the musty scarf. At this range I was definitely getting some undertones of boiled cabbage and just a whiff of tuna.
Bradley pulled out a few bottles of the Transmogrification Potion and handed them around the circle.
“A couple of sips each will do,” Madame Xel called in a soft voice. “We don’t plan on being here too long I imagine.”
Chaosbane shook his head. “No. Now, to add the Jotunn pubes…”
“Lovely,” Alura muttered.
“Jotunn?” Bradley asked.
“Frost Giants,” Nigel told him.
Chaosbane plucked a few of the silky blue-white hairs from the scarf and dropped one each into the bottles of potion. The potions sizzled and fizzed briefly, then turned a robin egg blue.
“Down the hatch,” Chaosbane said, moving his hands casually through the air so that his battered hip flask materialized into being.
As he passed around the bottles of potion and each of us drank, Chaosbane said, “Here are my thoughts on the plan—”
“The eight of us play the role of Jotunn guards and escort you, Enwyn, Odette, Ironskin, and Madame Xel through the prison until we find out where Idman is being held?” I asked, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The potion had the vaguely metallic taste of blood, combined with fresh turned earth and fish fingers. It wasn’t totally unpleasant. Definitely not as bad as I expected a cocktail containing the short and curlies of a Jotunn to taste anyway.
Chaosbane snapped his fingers. “Exactly,” he said.
It was a good thing that Idman Thunderstone had a large office. The Transmogrification Potion hit harder and faster than a shot of vodka taken through the eyeball. My head span and my stomach lurched. Suddenly, I was doubled over. I didn’t feel sick, as I thought I might. On the contrary, I felt momentarily ravenous. Then I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach —the same way it does when a rollercoaster starts to plummet downward—and I staggered. I heard Alura and Bradley gasping and spluttering next to me and figured that they were undergoing the same buzzy sensation. Then my vision blurred for a second and refocused, my hearing cut in and out like a car radio going through a tunnel and then…
I looked up—or, I should say, I looked down. I was at least two feet taller than I usually was. Gazing about me, I found that I was surrounded by seven Jotunn; yellow tusks, shaggy dirty-white pelts and bloodshot eyes of the palest sapphire blue.
“Splendid,” Chaosbane said, “let’s be ankling off, shall we?”
The eight of us that were disguised as Jotunn guards exited Idman Thunderstone’s office first, making sure that the coast was clear. We then formed a loose group with the five Academy employees in the middle, four Frost Giants at the front, and four at the back.
“Any idea where we should be going?” I asked Enwyn out of the corner of my fanged mouth as we marched through the roomy stone corridors.
“There is no one that knows this place better than Idman,” Enwyn said quietly. “I’m sure the Arcane Council would have instructed him to be kept in the deepest, darkest cell in the whole place.”
“Surely, if anyone would know how to get out of the deepest, darkest cell in the Eldritch Prison,” I said, “it would be the man who built it?”
“Yes,” Ironskin said, from next to Enwyn, “but his placement would be more about ensuring that, if he was to escape, he would have the longest and hardest route to get out of the prison.”
“What about the Frost Giants?” I asked. “Are they no longer loyal to Thunderstone?”
Madame Xel sniffed amusedly and tossed her hair. “Loyalty is a murky thing. The Jotunn are loyal as far as it goes, but they are not intelligent creatures. It would not be difficult for the Arcane Council to bully, bribe, and confuse them into thinking that the Council are their new masters.”
“They might even have performed magic to wipe their minds of Thunderstone altogether,” Odette Scaleblade said. “The same magic they used to remove the memories of the Twin Spirits.”
We passed many Frost Giants as we made our way through the echoing halls and corridors of the Eldritch Prison. I was worried that we might be accosted by some chatty Jotunn and give ourselves away since none of us spoke their tongue, but it seemed that the hulking creatures were content to stand at their posts and gaze gormlessly at the opposite wall until they were called upon to do something else.
With Chaosbane’s subtly hissed directions, we made our way deeper into the heart of Idman Thundersone’s labrythinine lair. We walked up and down stairs and zig-zagged through crooked passageways. We crossed one bridge that spanned a drop so black that I got the impression you’d be able to sing all of
Highway to Hell before you hit the bottom.
“None of these guys seem like they’re on very high alert,” I muttered to Rick who was trudging along in disguise next to me.
Rick shook his big hairy head, glancing around warily. He looked very much like he thought we were walking into a trap. We could have well been doing just that.
“Yes,” Enwyn said, having overheard me, “it seems very odd that all the portals here have been closed up, seeing as there’s seemingly nothing going down.”
Things were progressing along rather smoothly, so I guessed that it was inevitable that a whole wagonload of shit was bound to hit the windmill sooner rather than later.
We entered a long, rough-hewn chamber filled with tables made of rough boards and lined with flickering torches that burned cleanly. There was a huge long table across one side, and it was piled with all sorts of roasted meats—pigs on spits, haunches of venison, and sides of beef, as well as many other dead, cooked things that I couldn’t place. Many Frost Giants sat around the tables, chewing whole turkeys, ripping chunks out of wyvern legs, and generally working on some serious constipation.
“The refectory,” Chaosbane murmured. “This will be near the heart of the complex, a place close to where the guardians sleep, isn’t that right, Miss Thunderstone?”
As I was one of the four Jotun at the front of our little group of prisoners, I only heard the grunt of agreement that came from Janet at the back.
And that was when an alarm bell started ringing. A continuous deep peel that reverberated through the refectory, sounding like it was never going to stop. The Frost Giants, as one, looked up from their meals, many stopping in mid-chew, grease glistening in the fur around their mouths.
Then, with a screeching of wood on stone, the benches were pushed away from the tables and the Jotunn stood.
“That’s the general alarm,” Janet said, not having to keep her voice down over the din of the bell. “The signal for a breach or an escape.”
