by Max Anthony
“How hard can it be?” he asked himself.
Having traversed the yard, Skulks considered the best method of entry. There was no window without bars and though he felt he could yank them free, the effort might alert those with a keen ear. He also needed to find Grindy’s cell, for he thought it likely that every prisoner would claim to be her if he started whispering through doors to ask for directions.
On the other side of the main door, three guards were stationed, two of whom were dozing while the third kept watch in case the warden decided to make a surprise visit. The awake guard was scarcely so, with his head drifting gently to his chest before he dragged himself awake with a snuffle and a grunt. The warden had a long and pointy stick which he liked to use on the prisoners, but had been known to shove it into tender areas of the guards if he caught them slacking. It was this threat that prevented the final guard falling into a deeper slumber.
He was roused by a heavy click. This was the same noise the iron front door made when it was opened. Not being desirous of a sharp stick in the crotch, the guard was instantly awake, dashing across the room to shake his colleagues awake.
“Get up you twits. It’s the boss!”
Within seconds, prison guards Duffer, Blower and Hoot were on their feet, attempting to look as alert as possible, though Blower’s hat was on backwards and Hoot’s chin was glistening with drool. After a full minute of the three guards striding purposefully around, twirling their truncheons, the warden still hadn’t entered their stationing room. In fact, no-one had entered.
“Boss? Is that you?” asked Duffer, directing his words at the main door, which it could be seen was open a crack. His words not met with a response. The guards were starting to become suspicious now, for this wasn’t how the warden normally made his surprise visits. Usually the front door would be unlocked and pushed wide as the warden strode in barking questions and orders, for he was not a man of great patience.
Duffer and Hoots shuffled forward with their beating sticks in hand. Duffer reached out and gave the door a firm tug to open it further.
“Boss?”
The guards were too stupid to be alarmed and it was lucky for them that the person who had opened the door was not intending to do them any harm. There were oil-lamps to either side of the door on the outside, so Duffer was able to see that there was nobody in the vicinity of the entrance.
“It’s the Hanged Smuggler!” whispered Blower from further in the room, referring to a legendary ghost which was reported to haunt the docks at Casks.
“Shush, you fool! Don’t say those words!” hissed Duffer, for it was rumoured that even to speak of the Hanged Smuggler was to bring him forth.
“Quick close the door, Duffer. Before the ‘Anged ‘Uggler gets in!” said Hoots, pronouncing the first consonants silently so as not to invoke this restless spirit.
Unfortunately for these guards, the ‘Anged ‘Uggler was already inside, silently slipping out of the back door of the office and deeper into the prison building. In its ghostly hand was grasped Blower’s lunch, this being a cheese sandwich his mam had made for him.
With the prison door re-closed and locked the guards milled about, agitated and shaky.
“That was a close run thing!”
“Yeah, I saw me life pass before me eyes!”
“Where’s me lunch gone? Have you eaten it again Duffer?”
“You know I can’t stand cheese.”
They looked at each other in fear, skins pale in the dim light of the oil lamps.
“The ‘Anged ‘Uggler likes cheese I hear.”
“Let’s hope your sandwich is all it wants.”
As it happens, the ‘Anged ‘Uggler, being of course a stealthy Tan Skulks, had finished the cheese sandwich, and, finding it acceptable, had a fancy for a sweet cake, though none were to be found here. Now that he had made his way further into the prison, he was hoping to find a record book in order to locate the cell of Grindy. Had he been in Hardened, there would have been copious records pertaining to the denizens of the prison, albeit many of them stuffed away in anonymous crates somewhere in the basement of the Chamber Building. Casks did things differently; in Casks, paper was for wiping one’s bum if one was lucky enough to be able to afford it. If words or jottings ever found their way onto paper it was only occasionally and in the past some scholars had been hanged for witchcraft, simply for putting their thoughts onto paper. Though the city was now more enlightened, it was starting from a very low base and thus there was no record book of the prisoners to be found.
There were other guards though, dotted here and there as they patrolled alertly in pairs. Some of them even appeared to have a greater amount of competence than the bumbling trio in the entrance room. Having used his Wielding to slip by four of these guards unseen, Skulks had gained a fair idea of the layout. Only a part of the building was used as a prison, with the secure storage rooms of the old warehouse having been converted into cells. Skulks estimated that there might be as many as two hundred such cells over three floors, though he wasn’t sure how many were occupied.
His first thought was to simply open all of the cell doors, let all of the prisoners escape and see if he could find Lula Grindy in the ensuing scrum. This idea appealed to the chaotic side of Skulks’ character, as well as appealing to his natural disdain for forward planning. Just as he was smiling inwardly at his plan, the image of Heathen Spout popped unbidden into his head, shaking her head disapprovingly like the mother he couldn’t remember.
“Don’t do it, Tan. There could be murderers and worse in these cells,” said the voice of Spout.
With his first choice plan scuppered by these imagined words of wisdom, he needed another. The ground floor cells were found on either side of a long corridor, sealed off with a metal-clad door to block out the groaning, whimpers and cursing of those trapped within. Skulks let himself into this corridor and closed the door silently shut behind him. There were no guards present at the moment, and he didn’t know if they’d patrol here at night. Creeping up to one of the cells, he looked inside. The door was made of stout wood, with a grille at face height through which one could look into the cell. If one had been a naughty boy or girl, or had made the simple mistake of complaining about a new tax within hearing of the King’s Ears, one could look out as well. This cell was occupied. Skulks could see perfectly well in the dark, but the occupant was huddled and wretched on their cot in one corner, facing away and covered in rags. There was little way of identifying whether it was male or female.
Focusing his mind, Skulks concentrated hard. He used his Wielding powers to listen for the words which had been spoken at this door earlier in the evening. This power didn’t allow him to go back more than a few hours, but it was enough for him to hear the words “Klumpty, here’s your swill”. The sound of a hatch being scraped back accompanied these words, as well as a grunt, presumably from Prisoner Klumpty.
With one cell eliminated and only another one-hundred-and-ninety-nine to go, Skulks gave up on this plan. Listening to the past was slow work and it left him vulnerable to a surprise attack. It was best used in calmer, safer surroundings. He slipped back out of the corridor and went looking for some more guards.
It did not take him long to find them, as they walked a predictable patrol route around the lower floor of the prison. Fortunately, one of them seemed to be an avowed gossip, for he chattered away incessantly. In the ten minutes Skulks spent in the shadows behind them, this guard talked at length about his new shoes, before moving on to describe his sister’s birthday party. Then he mentioned a really good stick he’d seen on the ground outside and after that confided how he’d chipped one of his mother’s dinner plates but hidden it at the bottom of the pile to escape detection. The other guard was more taciturn by nature, answering mostly in grunts. With his eyes glazing and fearful of being propelled into slumber by the first guard’s droning, Skulks’ patience was finally rewarded.
“So when’s Grindy getting the, you know
,” the guard made a play of putting both hands around his neck, followed by a description of the imagined noise, “scri-i-i-t?”
“Ten in the morning. There’s going to be a big crowd. King Meugh’s put posters up telling everyone to turn up for the show.”
“Oh that’ll be great! My cousin, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned him to you before? Well, he’s just set himself up as a sausage vendor! Get that! A sausage vendor! I hope he knows about the execution because I’m sure he’ll sell out in minutes at a public hanging!”
“Yeah well, Grindy’s a good Casks lass. You tell your cousin to go shove his sausages up his arse.”
Pausing only briefly as his mind assimilated the insult, before filing it away in the ‘Let’s Pretend I Didn’t Hear That’ drawer, the first guard continued:
“Think she’ll escape again?”
“From the basement? With Meugh’s pet mage on the door? Not this time.” Skulks detected sympathy in the man’s voice.
Leaving them to it, Skulks slipped away. It sounded like they had special cells below ground. If Meugh had put a mage at the door, then Grindy must be important indeed. Though he hadn’t investigated at the time, Skulks had seen a couple of locked doors as he’d explored the building. Normally he’d open a locked door as a matter of course, for if someone had taken the time and effort to lock a door it was because there was something behind it they didn’t want stolen. And if there was something that they didn’t want stolen, Tan Skulks generally wanted to see what it was in order to decide if it was something that was worth stealing. Tonight he’d been a little remiss in his duties, as he felt somewhat pressed for time. These international relations were important business and he didn’t want to be distracted by mere baubles, unless he was certain they were very valuable baubles.
Tracing back his route, Skulks returned to the first of the doors he’d walked past. It was a short distance away from the entrance office where the three guards were still bickering over the missing cheese sandwich. Skulks knew this because he was listening intently for sounds behind the locked door. His hearing was far beyond that of normal men and while he could hear no sound behind this door, he could definitely hear the word ‘cheese’ being spoken repeatedly in the entrance office.
Touching the door, he prodded it gently into opening and watched as it drifted an inch or two away from its frame. There was darkness beyond, a darkness which betrayed no secrets for it had none to betray. The locked door had concealed nothing more than an empty room. Undeterred by this modest setback, Skulks returned to his shadowed state and took himself to the second of the two locked doors he had noticed, which was just another door in another otherwise featureless corridor wall. He listened once more and though there were no sounds, he imagined that a lone mage was unlikely to be dancing a lively jig and singing a bawdy song to pass the time.
The door was free of magical wards, so Skulks teased the lock open and nudged the door inwards. He peeked around the door, unaware that a tiny green-winged bat was already fluttering silently back to its master to whisper treachery into his ear. Oblivious to this, Skulks had found that the door opened onto a flight of steps, descending some twenty feet where they ended at an arched doorway, through which could be seen the wavering light of an oil lamp.
He descended carefully, wrapping the shadows tightly about him in case the mage was awake and looking at the archway. There was indeed a mage in the room beyond, perched on a stool in front of another sturdy standard-issue prison door. His head was forward on his chest and he snuffled slightly and mumbled. Emboldened by the apparent tranquil state of the man, Skulks began to cross the room, in order that he could deliver a hefty clonk to the mage’s skull with the pommel of his dagger-sword, to render him more deeply asleep.
Having been alerted by his leathery-winged familiar, the mage sprung his trap, leaping up from his stool and pointing directly at the hidden Skulks.
“Baboon!” he shouted.
And yea didst a baboon appear, hairy and smelly with a bald bum, teeth sharp and pointed. Though the mage was not to know it, his choice of summon was an appropriate one, for Skulks did not like baboons. It is said that animals are naturally attracted to those who fear them, and so it was with Skulks and baboons. Tiopan Lunder had also summoned a baboon in his mission to destroy Skulks and though it had failed its task it had reminded Skulks how much he disliked these furry monstrosities. However, it has also been proposed that the best cure for a fear is exposure to it and the mage was doing his best to present this gracious opportunity to Tan Skulks.
“Baboon!” he shouted again, conjuring forth another whilst Skulks punched the first beast in the mouth, sending it tumbling backwards.
To continue the lecture on fear, some scholars have observed that very large animals are occasionally fearful of the very small, even though the smaller creature may be docile and lacking in toxins. These same scholars have been mystified as to why the larger creature fails to simply stand on the smaller, removing the perceived threat by the practical act of flattening it. Skulks was much more powerful and faster than a baboon, so it was strange that he should be worried by them.
As the tricked Wielder grappled with the second baboon, the mage continued to shout, looking on with glee as his wiry charges poured onwards at his command.
“Baboon! Baboon! Baboon!”
With two pairs of baboon hands on his neck attempting to throttle him, Skulks’ worst fears were realised as he felt a third pair of hands attempting to steal his boots, quickly joined by another pair scrabbling at his favourite and only pair of trousers. Even when in grave danger, Skulks was normally calm; placid even. Now, he roared in anger.
“Raaargh!” shouted he at the mound of baboons piling atop him, finding the shout gave him strength and hope as he cast them from him, dashing one baboon against a wall and tearing the arm from another as it pulled free a boot. Skulks’ other boot connected with its body, hurling the creature across the room as its ragged stump sprayed blood onto the mage.
“Raaargh!” shouted the wizard, now in his own rage, for he had just that morning paid the last instalment on his robes and he knew that blood would never come out in the wash.
It was not common in the taverns of Rhult, Ko-Chak or the Treads Archipelago to ponder the eternal question “What happens when an unstoppable baboon meets an immovable wizard?”. In fact, it may be that this question had never been asked in the entire history of drunken tavern talk. Tonight, however, that exact question would be answered and the answer would be a messy one.
Rising up like a drowning man bursting free from an ice-covered lake, Skulks discovered a strength that even Jake the Headcracker would have found impressive. The closest baboon found itself torn from Skulks’ leg where it was berthed and slung sideways at the wizard, shrieking in harsh baboon alarm as it spun once before impacting the mage’s chest. The sigils about the man’s body, implanted for his physical defence, flared up brightly as they spent themselves in the protection of their caster. The baboon was frozen for a split second, highlighted in a bright blue. Then it exploded. Not into small pieces, but into very, very small pieces that coated every corner of the room in a dark red colour, leaving no part of the mage’s frontage untouched and his robes comprehensively ruined.
“My robes, you swine!” bellowed the angry mage.
“My trousers, you scoundrel!” yelled back an angry Skulks, as the remaining baboon fled to the corner of the room where it huddled, whimpering and wishing it was back in its comfortable tree.
Advancing across the room, the mage cast flames from both hands, burning one of Skulks’ arms until it was black and crispy with the faint smell of barbequed chicken. Not enjoying the pain, Skulks rolled away from the mage who was now mumbling in preparation of another spell. Feeling himself to be on the receiving end of an unwarranted kicking, Skulks forced the mage into not seeing him, an act which would see him raiding King Meugh’s kitchen in the morning, were he to survive this encounter. Without a target the sp
ell fizzled to nothing, ensuring the mage would need to spend several additional hours at his spellbook later in order to relearn it, were he to survive this encounter.
Not perturbed and curiously quick-thinking for a wizard, the Wielder’s crafty opponent produced a swirling cloud of snowflakes, which landed on Skulks’ unseen form and made him faintly visible as an outline in the far corner where he’d retreated to await an opening. With his repertoire of baboon spells exhausted, the mage advanced, intending to complete the barbequing process by burning Skulks’ other limbs.
With one arm temporarily out of action, Skulks drew forth a dagger-sword with his good arm and was a half-second from throwing it into his opponent’s throat, when his own aim was disturbed by a different sort of missile thrown by the now-rebellious baboon. Brown and unpleasant, it was a big, fat turd, excreted from the foul beast’s bottom and cast with accuracy into the side of Skulks’ head, causing his dagger-sword to miss the wizard by a good two feet.
Cackling, the wizard prepared to unleash his final burning doom upon Skulks. Instead of delivering red-hot death, the mage toppled forward, landing face-first on the stone floor with a crack.
“You’d best free Grindy and get out of here,” said the taciturn guard whom Skulks had followed earlier. His truncheon was in his hand. “And don’t tell anyone you saw me.”
“What happened to your friend?” asked Skulks, casually throwing his second dagger-sword into the remaining duplicitous baboon.
The guard smiled. “He’s gone for a little nap.”
“Thank you,” said Skulks to his un-named benefactor. “I’ll get Grindy to safety.”
