by C. L. Werner
‘I am pleased to be the first to greet you, captain,’ the tall man said, bowing slightly at the waist. Zelten strode forward quickly. Brunner noted the haste in his companion’s steps and discreetly fingered the grip of his pistol. He relaxed slightly, however, when he noted the bright, eager look in Zelten’s eyes. Clearly whatever this foppish shape represented, the mercenary did not regard him as a menace.
‘Corvino!’ the mercenary shouted. The foppish man bowed his head once more as the mercenary addressed him. Before Zelten could add anything to his greeting, Corvino spoke again.
‘I was here to give you a message,’ he said, ‘and to conduct you to the palazzo with all haste.’
Zelten nodded to the tall man, then looked over at Brunner. ‘This may take some time,’ he apologised, his words rapidly spoken. ‘Please consider my offer again. When Tacca arrives, I’ll present you to Prince Gambini.’ Having said his piece, the mercenary turned and was led away by the garishly costumed Corvino.
‘And who exactly was that?’ Brunner asked, directing his question at Horst. The large, wild-haired soldier was leaning against the wall support of the stall in which his horse stood.
‘Corvino, Prince Gambini’s fool,’ replied the warrior, casting a sour look after the departed men.
‘You don’t sound like one of his admirers,’ the bounty hunter said. Horst detached himself from the wall and strode toward Brunner.
‘Let’s just say I don’t share his sense of humour,’ the bearded man said, sucking at his teeth. ‘Manfred’s had some dealings with him, the fool is always bringing him messages at all hours of the day. I’m sure he’s gotten Manfred involved in some matter he’d be better off not being entangled with.’
‘So, all is not quite as idyllic in the Gambini household as your captain would paint it,’ commented Brunner. The bounty hunter rolled his shoulders, resettling the weapons and bags he had removed from his horses. ‘Perhaps you might show me where you men are billeted. This gear isn’t getting any lighter.’
Horst nodded his head. ‘Come along, I’ll show you where our barracks are.’ Brunner began to follow the warrior out of the stables.
‘Once I’m situated, perhaps you might also suggest a good tavern in the vicinity,’ Brunner said. ‘I imagine that Tacca will be some time ensuring the safe storage of his goods. Long enough that I might have a chance to wash the taste of the road from my mouth.’
Horst chuckled as Brunner spoke. It was the first sign of anything approaching human feeling the bearded mercenary had heard the bounty hunter give voice to. He did not know that the bounty hunter was not looking for ale and wine. His desire to find a drinking hole was not to find drink, but to fish for information. It had been the bounty hunter’s experience that taverns gathered as much lore within their walls as any library, you just had to know how to ferret it out. If the soldiers of Prince Gambini frequented a particular establishment, there might be some useful information that the seemingly indifferent barkeeps and serving wenches might have heard and remembered.
Brunner was led past the towers on the edge of the bridge, before turning left, toward the lagoon and the waterfront. The bounty hunter knew that Horst’s reasons for escorting him were based on suspicion rather than any concern for the bounty hunter’s safety, but he was also realistic enough to know that it would save him considerable time having a guide in the unfamiliar city, whatever the man’s motives might be. If he decided that he did not want the bearded mercenary looking over his shoulder, it would be easy enough for him to lose the big man.
The streets leading from the Great Reman Bridge to the waterfront were a marked contrast to the blighted, fear-haunted lanes Brunner and Zelten had travelled before. Instead of dour, silent buildings, here thrived all manner of businesses. Alehouses, wine shops, taverns and grog shops were in abundance, their wooden signs displaying names often as creative as they were vulgar. Brothels, fighting pits, gambling houses and weirdroot dens openly enticed their patrons from the street with vividly painted depictions of the vices they offered to sate. Remas was a prosperous city, thriving upon both the mercantile goods brought to the port from lands as near as Luccini to as distant as Marienburg, and as exotic as the cities of Araby. It was not unknown for a trading ship of the elves of Ulthuan or one of the great steam-powered ironclads from the dwarf port of Barak Varr to visit the city. Beyond such trade, the city of Remas boasted the most prosperous fishing fleets in the Old World, their fishermen pulling catches from the surrounding waters and the inland lagoon itself that were unrivalled in any other land. Indeed, much of the vast catch was preserved in salt and shipped across the length and breadth of Tilea, drawing still more gold into the coffers of the city.
The salty tang of the sea was heavy here, the occasional grey-feathered gull circling overhead, its squawking cry adding to the din of the street. Though the close streets denied him any view of the lagoon, evidence of its nearness was everywhere. The streets were filled with men from dozens of lands. Brunner could see sailors from Tobaro in their stripped, loose pantaloons rubbing shoulders with scar-faced mariners in the blue and gold of Marienburg. Dusky skinned Arabyan traders, their heads encased in wound turbans, jostled against black moustached ship captains from Estalia, croaking, cawing birds perched upon the shoulders of their crimson tunics. Sometimes a common fisherman would push his way through the crowd, a net filled with wriggling scaly shapes dripping from his back, destined for the larder of some nearby grog shop or tavern.
Interspersed between the houses of entertainment were crammed all manner of stalls and shops, virtually any ware imaginable presented to entice the custom of passers-by. Here, the bounty hunter’s progress was hindered by larger crowds of people and animals, the air a constant murmur of voices speaking in a dozen dialects and nearly as many languages. He could see hawkers peddling everything from dried fish to rusty old pieces of armour to trained, swan-necked fisher-birds wherever a bare patch of wall gave them a place to stand.
Entertainers blocked the mouths of alley ways, small crowds gathered about them, watching with rapt attention as they performed, sometimes tossing copper, or more rarely silver, into the upturned hat or bowl set before them. Brunner saw an Arabyan snake charmer carefully taunting a fell-looking hooded serpent, swaying its body in time with the Arabyan’s movements, the dusky skinned man sometimes leaning forward to tap the reptile’s head with his finger, much to the thrill of the crowd. Just a few yards away, across the narrow street, a pretty Strigany woman danced before a cheering crowd of sailors and soldiers, her shapely hip batting against the tambourine held in her hand as she whirled before them.
Brunner was just considering that obviously the stern, unrelenting discipline of the cult of Solkan must not apply to this district, that the disciplinarian temple must confine its activities to the outer reaches of the city, when he noticed a pair of white-cloaked figures stalking through the crowd, their faces hidden behind their wooden masks. The bounty hunter tensed, hand falling automatically to the hilt of his gigantic knife. Normally, he thought of the Headsman more as a tool than a weapon, but in the thick press of bodies around him, a sword would be unwieldy. What was coming would be work for a knife.
Horst noted Brunner’s action and chuckled. ‘No reason to be worried about them,’ he laughed. ‘Not here, anyway. The temple knows better than to try and push the people here. It would be bad for business, and the council wouldn’t look too favourably on that.’ The bearded mercenary laughed again. ‘Besides, the people around here would push back! No, those fanatics prowl around here just to remind people that they’re around, to remind the credulous that their heathen god is always watching.’
‘I’m surprised that the rulers of Remas tolerate them at all,’ commented Brunner as he watched the crowd swallow up the two zealots. Horst shook his head.
‘This isn’t the Empire,’ he said. ‘They have strange ideas down here in the south. Odd ways of waging war and odd ways of governing their cities. Remas, for instance
, is a republic. No single ruler, but a council of fifty elected and appointed by the good people of Remas, with a triumvirate of their choosing above them.
In theory, any citizen could sit on that council, though in practice only the richest of the merchant princes ever do. But even so, they have to be very careful about just how much power they exhibit. There have been numerous wars here, uprisings when some ambitious triumvir decided to try and seize control from the council and the other triumvirs, or when the council itself grew too corrupt and self-serving. Insurrection is probably the biggest thing the inhabitants of this city fear.’
The two men continued to make their way through the crowd. Brunner noticed a few soldiers in the colours of the republican guard walking past them, clearly headed back toward the bridge. What made them noticeable to the bounty hunter was the fact that they were the first soldiers he had seen since leaving the towers behind. As if picking up on his thoughts, Horst continued to explain the state of things in the city.
‘Above all, the people feel that they control the government, even if they do nothing more than change which faces fill the council every few years. They don’t like any show of force, don’t tolerate a large army within their walls, an army that could be used against them.’ Horst paused before a man selling small iron bucklers, inspecting one of the small shields before handing it back to the trader and continuing. ‘That is where the Temple of Solkan comes in. While the people won’t tolerate the council sending companies of soldiers through the streets, who are they to question a god? When the temple was first founded, they were just another cult, just another pack of priests preying on the gullible.’
Brunner caught a note of resentment and scorn in the mercenary’s voice as he spoke of the gullible. ‘But slowly the council began to see a way that they might turn the cult’s fanaticism to their advantage. They began to turn a blind eye to the temple’s witch hunts, to their often violent excesses of faith. Those who protested the actions of the temple to the council somehow were found out by the cult and exposed as daemon-worshippers and heretics. Naturally, very soon there was no one willing to stand up against the temple. Where an army of soldiers could not be used to keep the people in their place, an army of religious fanatics has. So long as they don’t interfere with the mercantile interests of the city and don’t bother the nobles, the temple is allowed to conduct itself pretty much as it pleases.’
Brunner shook his head, marvelling at the ruthless politics of the city. Better a tyrant secure in his position than a gathering of politicos frightened about maintaining their own status.
The two men continued to walk along the busy street, the light of day slowly giving way to the long shadows of the night. Lamplighters began to appear, igniting the numerous oil lanterns fastened to the walls of the buildings that lined the street. Ahead, Brunner could see that the street made a sharp turn. Set in the angle of that turn was a small wooden stage. The bounty hunter could see a pair of the whitecloaked followers of Solkan flanking the structure, though their presence did not seem to deter a small crowd from gathering to watch the performance.
Drawing nearer, Brunner saw that what was going on was a puppet show. A number of robed puppeteers stood above the stage, manipulating several wooden dolls by means of numerous strings leading from the dolls to the wooden handles held by the entertainers. Brunner paused for a moment, watching the curious performance. A number of tiny wooden figures in small cloth costumes pranced about the stage, in what was clearly intended to be fright. A much larger puppet dominated the centre of the stage. It was clothed in a long black cloak, its face that of a grinning skull. In its hands it held a huge scythe. As the deathly puppet swung its scythe, several of the other puppets dropped as though they had been slain.
‘I did not realise that the cult of Solkan had dealings with the cult of Morr,’ Brunner observed, indicating the puppet show. Like the masked men flanking the stage, the puppeteers also wore white cloaks. Clearly the performance was intended as some sort of passion play, a disguised sermon to minister to the wayward souls of the Reman waterfront.
‘No, thats not meant to be Morr,’ replied Horst. ‘Though I thought so myself. It is some sort of daemon, some fell creature that supposedly nearly destroyed Remas long ago, just after the elves had gone away. According to the cult of Solkan, the daemon was only stopped when Solkan sent a good spirit to do battle with it. They fought, so the cult says, for a year and a day before the good spirit overcame the daemon and imprisoned its soul in a bottle.’ Horst allowed himself a short laugh. ‘The cult says the spirit sent by Solkan was called a Viydagg, though an elf ship captain I once talked to said that such spirits are associated with a goddess called Arianka, not Solkan. All heathen nonsense if you ask me.’
A feeling of dread began to crawl up Brunner’s spine as he watched the puppet daemon continue to cut down the little wooden people on the stage. ‘What about the daemon?’ he asked. ‘Does it have a name?’
‘Yes,’ Horst answered. ‘They call it the Mardagg.’
V
He lay rigid in his bed, every muscle tensed. The man’s skin seemed to crawl where it touched the blanket, as though it was alive with thousands of lice. The man slammed his fists against the mattress, trying to will the sensation away. There was nothing in his bedding, the man knew this, he knew that it was impossible for anything to be crawling across his skin. He boiled his bedclothes every night, accepting the warm dampness in exchange for the possibility of any six-legged thing scuttling across his flesh.
The man gritted his teeth against the tormenting sensation, knowing that he had to overcome it before it grew worse, knowing that he would not. The smell of burning flesh filled his nose and the man groaned. He knew that it was not a real odour, that it was some phantom of his mind, but still its sickly stink made his stomach turn. He fought against the bile rising in his throat. He smashed his fists against the bedding once more, trying to force his senses to obey.
Next would come the sounds. He moaned, praying, begging any god that would listen to spare him the sounds. But no god, it seemed, cared to hear him. First the rattle of chains slithered into the man’s ears. Then the sound of harsh, brutal voices, voices snarling and laughing, cruel and wicked in their tones. Then the screams, such screams, echoing through his brain. Louder, louder, and louder still they grew. Why could they not just kill him? Why would the screams refuse to end? The tormented man folded the edge of his blanket and bit down upon it to keep from repeating the shrieks pounding upon the inside of his skull.
He spat it out with disgust. It tasted like blood and filth, the flesh of a rat, raw and salty, its excrement staining its rancid fur. The man moaned again, fighting to keep the sound from rising into a scream.
What would happen if he opened his eyes, he wondered? Would he see anything? Would there be anything to see? Oh please, let there be something to see! Let there be light in his cell! Let his captors have had that much pity! But he knew it would be dark, he knew that his captors were without mercy. If he opened his eyes, he would see nothing, only the blackness of his prison.
The skin upon the man’s back began to crawl. It felt as if it was trying to rip itself free from his body. The agony built and built, like a red-hot iron slowly pressed against his naked flesh. The tortured man clenched his teeth against the pain. He must not give in, he must not submit!
The man’s eyes snapped open as his scream filled the room. His body shook as he felt the agony wash away. No, it was still there, like a dull ache in the back of his skull, just waiting to rise up and devour him once more. The man looked around him. He was still in the palazzo of Prince Gambini, as he knew he must be. He had endured the terror many times, yet he was always shocked to find himself somewhere other than the Caliph of Martek’s dungeons. He sometimes wondered if his escape from that place and all that had happened after was nothing more than some dream concocted by his tortured mind. Had he ever really left that blighted place?
The man shook his he
ad, cradling it in his hands. Yes, he had escaped the dungeons of Martek, and he had brought their evil with him. He could still feel the sensation of the skin on his back crawling. The evil was there, waiting, hungering. Soon it would need to be fed.
The man cried softly, pulling his knees to his chest and slowly rocking upon his bed. Soon he would have to allow the evil to feed.
It was quite late when Brunner at last returned to the Gambini palace. He had spent some time in the tavern Horst had led him to, an establishment named the Red Horse. As Brunner had suspected, the mercenary was a prodigious drinker, and he found it not too difficult to slip from the man’s company once he was in his cups.
Unfortunately, there was little to be learned in the tavern. Many of the Gambini soldiers did indeed frequent the Red Horse, but if the man he was after was among them, he had left no clues among the serving wenches and bar keeps. A few pieces of gossip and rumour about the Gambinis were related to Brunner, the eccentricities of Prince Gambini’s uncle, the elderly Remaro (none would be so bold as to call the old aristocrat mad) and the peculiarities of Remaro’s son, the decadent Alfredo Gambini. But there was little of real value to Brunner’s hunt. Certainly a few of the soldiers who had been involved in escorting Princess Juliana down from Pavona had spoken of their important duty, but the few names Brunner was able to pry from the serving wenches’ addled memories hardly accounted for all of them. Still, it was a start.
The bounty hunter helped a drunken Horst back to the palace, placing him in the custody of the gate sentries as soon as the guards had allowed the two men back into the courtyard. Brunner paid no attention to their demands that the bounty hunter conduct the nearly insensible mercenary back to the barracks. He had carried the hulking soldier far enough, he reasoned. If he had been certain that the sentries would have allowed him back into the palace without him, Brunner would have left the man to sleep it off in the tavern, to be robbed or rolled into the street as the tavern keepers decided.
