by Scott Taylor
This was Urban Cloud, the hidden city of the Head Hunters.
‘Is there any way in?’ asked the dwarf, looking for some kind of opening.
Justas Marl suggested that they look around the underside. There had to be some kind of access. It was a city and like all cities there were pipes, ducts, entrance tunnels, that sort of thing. Maybe there was a way in large enough for a cloud and seven people to enter.
‘There!’ Colonel Warclaw pointed.
The others gazed upon the immense size of the levitating city. An aperture opened suddenly and green slime and water filtered out, sending waste and refuse away over the sky as though a cloud had just burst. It was foul smelling. Tweak pinched his nose and held his breath. The six mages almost got the full brunt of it, but the deluge only veered off to the side with the force of the wind.
‘That’s our access point’ Marl spoke.
‘You have to be joking’ Katt Brutal commented, holding her nose.
In they went, into the arse-end of the sky-worthy leviathan, into the ductwork and up, before finally reaching the plumbing. They had abandoned their wispy mode of transportation and had taken to crawling through the network of piping before reaching an access to the main command deck. A grating in the floor’s plating lifted up and a head emerged. It was Marl’s head. He looked around to see the last occupant of the room leave. The coast was clear. They materialized from the vent one after the other.
‘We’ll need some kind of internal map or something’ Iron May suggested, looking around the corner into the next corridor. Katt who was small and lithe leapt like a gymnast, and began to scramble across the ceiling with the dexterity of a spider, or a monkey. She was gone before the others could object.
‘Come on!’ ordered Marl to the others. ‘It’ll do us no good if she gets herself captured.’
The rest of the party followed Marl’s lead through a series of corridors. This place had to be immense. There were many rooms on board the command level, all of which were manned by officers and Head Hunters. It was hazardous to be wandering about in these spaces without any idea of where they were going. Suddenly the alarms sounded and the five mages that were left were surrounded in an instant. Soldiers entered, flooding into the tiny space, their guns focused on the intruders.
Marl and the others lifted their arms to indicate their surrender. Not surprising really that none of the mages, or Tweak, or even Fabian had ever seen a gun, but it didn’t take a genius to sense a gunner’s intentions, however unfamiliar his choice of weapon.
Cougar Chuko was at the head of his security team.
‘Mages’ Chuko said, rubbing his fur lined chin thoughtfully. ‘You would have to be mages, wouldn’t you? You are the people on this backwater world capable of reaching this city in the sky. It was all for nought anyway, as you will soon discover.’
Chuko turned to his lieutenant.
‘I want the other one found immediately. Take as many hunters and troops as you need, but find her.’
‘Yes, master. At once.’ the lieutenant spoke.
The creature moved away, pulling his gun from his holster. The hunt was on.
◆◆◆
Katt was swift, darting through the ship, covering more distance alone than she would have if she had stayed with her companions. At times, impetuosity was an advantage, she thought. Through the ductwork and tiny spaces she crawled. There were indeed places, corners in this vast and unparalleled city that Katt had never imagined, not even in her remotest imaginings. Worlds beyond worlds; rooms beyond doors; conduits which would lead to a thousand other possibilities… there were literally billions upon billions of spaces and existences that would make even the world from which she had come look tame and commonplace.
Katt emerged from the small grate. She then chose a direction and decided to follow it. Entering the next room in the traditional way, which was to say, vertically, Katt discovered the next adjacent room was a complete contrast in decorative style to the last one she had entered. What a spectacle of slender Doric columns greeted her eyes. The frieze and the entablature went in a continuous line around the wall. Her eyes penetrated the room. Searching upwards, tilting her head, Katt saw the magnificent circular paintings stretching out above the entablature and the frieze. Complete frescos, portraits of heroes, gods and goddesses, wallowing in lavishness, circled the length of these spaces like a story being told in pictures. The wonderful black and white fret patterns on the tiled floor, the golden architrave—all these designs Katt barely recognised.
After taking in the sites, she moved to the adjoining room and here she was greeted by a circular area with a single flight of stairs. The landing at the top of the stairs began to section off in either direction, making the introduction to a circular stairwell that began to stretch upwards, so it seemed, without end. Katt was utterly breath taken.
She ascended the staircase quietly, slowly taking in all the delicate fixtures and shades of the colours gold and emerald, and green. There were beautiful balustrades; iron sconces and extremely narrow pilasters between which paintings or mirrors were positioned. Suddenly, she noticed a human shape in the distance, some flights up. She saw the form of a man or some such creature dressed in grey robes. The voice that spoke sliced through the tense calm:
‘Stop her! Fire your weapons!’
◆◆◆
As the guards accompanied the prisoners to the detention wing Justas Marl called upon his bird tattoo to warn Katt of the contingency. The bright golden artwork that adorned the soft tissue of his face began to flutter and flap gracefully. In an astonishing display of enchantment ink separated from flesh, flapping its imaginary wings, flying straight in a direct line towards the bulkhead. Passing through the wall, the magical tattoo made all haste to where Katt was positioned.
One of the guards, upon witnessing this magic trick, turned and jammed the butt of his rifle into the back of Marl’s neck. The mage fell to the ground unconscious with a loud groan.
‘Pick that up’ the man ordered to his subordinate. ‘I’ll have no more of that augury here!’
The guard approached and collected the insentient mage, lifting him up and then carrying him the rest of the way.
‘There’ the guard uttered blockishly to the prisoners that were still very much conscious, ‘A nice prison cell for each of you. Hope you all get dry rot. You’re going to be here a while.’
The guards burst into laughter as they busied themselves, ushering their guests into their respective cages. And that is all they were: cages unfit even for animals.
A small stubby creature, resembling something like a flea or termite, gurgled and chortled aloud, it’s dozens of tiny, larvae-like mandibles skittered and writhed. The unsightly creature wore a leather apron and appeared to be holding a pair of metal tongs or tweezers down, partially submerged in a small vat of chemicals.
The guards turned to the creature before leaving the victims to their fate:
‘Make sure our guests are comfortable, Vorm, that’s a good man!’
The guards left the room laughing boisterously.
Fabian who had been goaded into a large birdcage, suspended from a steel cable from the ceiling, could not help but notice the little man they had called Vorm, who was beginning to prepare his implements of torture.
◆◆◆
The bird tattoo searched for Katt. It examined deck after deck until it came across a stairwell. The stairs seemed to spiral in either direction forever, though there were sounds, sounds of angry voices directly below that alerted the magical tattoo bird to the immediate danger. Maybe it was too late to warn Katt. ‘Stop her
‘Stop her!’ came the voices in the distance. ‘Fire your weapons!’
The command was followed by a barrage of heavy fire, all of which Katt was able to avoid. The tattoo bird plunged down the stairwell, down to the very epicentre where the action was taking place. It circled the heads of the soldiers, drawing their fire long enough for the lithe little Katt to escap
e.
‘You fools!’ reprimanded the lieutenant. ‘Send the hunter in after her! Go! Go!’
Katt and the bird both covered quite a substantial distance together. The cat-like mage was fast, almost like a real cat, darting from room to room, and then vanishing, and appearing mischievously for a moment, only to evaporate mysteriously again.
These stairs seemed to spiral on upwards forever.
Finally, the mage stopped before a door, looked behind to see if she was still being followed by Head Hunters. Then, with a wily little smile, she vanished and was gone from sight.
The Head Hunter’s shouts were perfectly audible even from a distance, though there was no fixed position to pinpoint the sounds. Katt entered the room, searching this way and then that. This place appeared to be a gallery of some kind, an extended room with an endless chain of rooms beyond, separated by basic round arches, and decorated with landscape paintings and various portraits.
It occurred to her suddenly that this city was not merely a city, but an entire universe, infinite in measure. Each room was like a magical portal to another world. An infinite number of magical portals laced these corridors, all doorways to other rooms, other worlds, equal and infinite in number. She considered the concept for a moment: it was a world perhaps as vast as her own universe, a universe made up of rooms like this, labyrinthine, and inestimable. Just imagine! The architectural genius it must have taken to conceive of this infinite place. Room upon room, upon room, upon room…endless! It grew upwards and outwards like a tree, branching, lateral. It was an immeasurable world fashioned for the sake of longevity perhaps, like a story told by Scheherazade. Why, this was not a universe of comets or stars, or gas giants, or space debris. There were no inhabited planets, and no suns. There were only billions upon billions of galleries, never-ending stairs and quarters. It was dizzying. The mind could not stretch to such possibilities.
Behind her the violent shouts of ‘Employ the hunter! Find her!’ could be discerned.
Katt slipped away, out of sight.
One room followed another, and then another, and another, until she reached an attached wing veering to the right and to the left. Katt was beginning to feel worried. What if she could never find her way back again? What if she ended up losing her way? The thought of this was terrifying.
There was another door directly in front of her. She entered swiftly, glancing behind momentarily to watch the progress of her pursuers, only to vanish again. The tattoo bird could sense an ambush. Cautiously, Katt entered the room.
Another chamber greeted her with its walls coated in stucco, with niches decorated with busts and statues. Marble pillars adorned the outer area with plinths cut to the neat profile of many plumes.
Katt scanned the room from top to bottom. There was no sign of another door by which she could make a swift exit. There had to be something though. There was no such thing as a cul de sac where this city was concerned. It didn’t make any sense.
Something didn’t feel right. Katt got the strange sense that she had been goaded into entering this room.
She turned around, looking to see if she could see anything that might have indicated a way out, a secret trapdoor, anything. She turned repeatedly on her feet. The walls were like a spinning carousel. The feeling was unsettling. It was like being caught in some kind of dimensional shift. There appeared a door suddenly, but not a conventional door. There was no lintel or framework, only momentary lapses of time, a discreet reallocation of matter. Before she knew what had happened she had been transported molecule by molecule to another part of the city.
Katt found herself unexpectedly standing in a much different place. She saw a tall throne made of shining gold. A rather high and elegant man rose from a luxuriously upholstered seat and was on his feet the second Katt caught sight of him. The stranger wore a golden mask over his face, intricate in pattern, and Machiavellian in purpose, it was accentuated and framed by a design similar to a cobra’s outstretched hood. The creature looked intently back at her with shrewd eyes that were heavily piercing, drawn behind the subtle shaded sockets of that burnished mask. His skin revealed many scales as if he was more reptilian than man.
‘Who are you? What is your name?’ the man who resembled an ancient potentate suddenly inquired. His words were in a strange dialect which Katt could barely understand.
She stood in stunned silence, not knowing how dangerous he was.
‘May I ask what you are doing here...?’ the other asked again.
When Katt did not answer, the stranger said, ‘Well...? You come into my universe uninvited and unannounced. Who are you? Prey, why are you here? Answer me!’
As his anger and fury rose from the trough of his diaphragm he was instantly joined by another man, if a man is what you could call him. For like the being that had spoken, he too had reptilian features. Katt however recognised this creature straight away. Fear rose in her as she was able to make out the faction and division to which he and his reptilian brethren belonged. This vile creature was none other than Cotton Jaw, a member of one of Malecarjan’s snake hunters. As one appeared, another followed from behind the throne. This one wore a long flowing trench coat and an old tri corner hat. His face was fully elongated and his mouth was full of rows of serrated teeth. He was acknowledged as Coachwhip. Then another warrior came into full view, followed by yet another, and another. These three were known primarily as Hook-nose, Saw Scale, and The Black Monda. Three very dangerous snakes indeed.
The one who had appeared first, the creature standing directly before the throne, reached up with a clawed hand to activate the mask he was wearing. The golden and intricately carved visor gave a small but audible hissing sound as it parted slowly in the centre nomenclature, and then lifting steadily of its own mechanics to reveal a real face, a scaly, alien face which Katt now recognised. This was their general, the fearless Aspasian.
Katt commenced to back away slowly, knowing full well she was well and truly in trouble.
‘Why do you not answer?’ the leader who was known as Aspasian requested, losing his patience. ‘I’ll ask you again: what are you doing here?’
Katt continued to back away. She was almost to the door.
‘Do you know where you are?’ the other challenged.
Again, Katt did not answer. After all, she had a rough idea.
‘This is the underworld’ Malecarjan’s general aimed to enlighten her. ‘This is the world of phantoms.’
The mage continued to step backwards. The other began to take a series of large steps toward her also. His enormous red robes swirled and danced around his feet as he moved, picking up speed with every stride.
The snake known as Coachwhip whirled his powerful cat-o-nine-tails above his head and brought it swiftly to the floor that made a piercing thwack upon the marble.
Cotton Jaw merely stood his ground, dislocated his jaw like an anaconda, and spat out fine threads from the back of his throat. Much akin to a spider spinning a web, he hurled the threads in Katt’s direction hoping to ensnare her in his many strands.
Katt, with her great agility, managed to evade the attack.
“Answer me! Who are you? Why did you come here?” continued Aspasian while he sustained his pursuit. ‘You can run, but against my power you are helpless to evade capture!’
Katt continued to look on, alarmed, fearful of what she saw. It only took a split second; Aspasian was changing, not only in appearance, but in bulk and stature as well. Katt was well aware of this creature’s powers as she and her companions had faced his likes before, and knew that Aspasian was a shape shifter. She watched helplessly as the transformation began. Muscles and sinews swelled, undulating, heaving under the camouflage of skin. Veins—veins as large as rope surged beneath the layers of flesh, like dark and bloody cables. The transformation was swift and terrible. It was a kind of lycanthropy. The creature who was once Malecarjan’s second in command quickly removed and discarded the golden mask, revealing the face of a vicious sna
ke creature, like nothing Katt had seen before. Its teeth bore down as it snivelled and howled. On close scrutiny, it appeared more like a snake god than a werewolf. Nevertheless, there was no distinction…either could be equally powerful and deadly. The body of a great hound was followed by the tail that emerged with the head of a snake at one end. Half-hound/half serpent, he had become the anthropomorphic creature of nightmares.
Katt turned on her heels and ran. The tattoo bird followed, making its warning cry.
The monster lurched forward, going down on all fours. It barked and rasped. Red eyes, eyes that once appeared human, bore down on its prey.
“Come here!” it snarled. “You cannot flee the death!”
It howled and barked, demonstrating the grey madness of a soul that believed and trusted nothing. It bayed for Katt’s suffering. Its footfalls were laboured, though they sounded like dull thunderbolts on the marble floor.
Chapter 10
There was very little time for torture or fun. No sooner had the jailer taken his tongs out of the acid vat Cougar Chuko returned with fresh orders. He gestured towards Fabian in his hanging birdcage.
‘The one hanging up there is to be transferred to the arena immediately. Have him change and sent directly to the circus master to be processed. The others are not to be harmed, you understand?’
Chuko left the room more quickly than he had entered. The freakish little jailer shot a quick expletive in the direction of the door, and dropped the tongs back into the vat with a sharp and bothered thrust of his stubby hand.
Fabian turned his attentions to the guard, and then to the keys he was shuffling about in his gloved hands. Heavens be praised, he was actually going to be let out.
‘Don’t start gettin’ your hopes up’ the guard uttered in a thuggish tone as he placed the appropriate key in the lock. ‘You’re going to wish you’d stayed here under Vorm’s tender mercy rather than face the ordeal that awaits you, my young friend.’
