Fearsome Magics

by Jonathan Strahan

  The old dagger, while not needing any such muscular preparation, was an entrapped extra-dimensional entity that tended towards a less than useful relationship with its various wielders. It had unique powers and, unfortunately, a mind of its own. A not very improved or civilized mind, which made it an unreliable and often unpleasant companion even when not being actively employed. When it was used, it became extraordinarily dangerous. Fortunately, some three centuries after its initial forging, some long-forgotten sorcerer had made the dagger a scabbard which put it into a comfortable and apparently very satisfying sleep, quietening its complaints, insults and attempts at solo forays.

  Like the cannon, the dagger was a weapon of last resort.

  Sir Hereward thought of this as he reached over the side and undid the straps on the topmost of the six large bags that hung down the side of the moklek in a nested cascade of pink canvas. The old dagger was the sole item in the top bag. He pulled it out, and carefully checked that the peace strings and accompanying wax seals were still in place, and the weapon secure in its scabbard.

  It was a surprisingly small dagger. The blade measured less than the distance from his wrist to the tip of his index finger, and the hilt appeared to have been made to fit a child’s hand. Yet in its own way, the dagger was as dangerous a weapon as the vast cannon the mokleks dragged behind them...

  Tucking the dagger through his belt, Sir Hereward took out a mahogany box from a howdah bag on the other side of the moklek. It contained two duelling pistols; ready-made paper cartridges of powder; a dozen perfectly-round silver pistol balls; priming powder in a patented triangular applicator that was far less useful than its inventor imagined; pre-cut wads of thick felt that had been printed with curses and imprecations; and a serviceable ramrod that had replaced the uselessly ornate one that had been in the original set.

  Hereward quickly loaded and primed the pistols and settled them in his broad leather belt. Only then did he take up his spyglass again and focus it upon the large and imposing gate of the manor house ahead, just in time to catch a flash of colour and movement.

  The flash came from the wine-red dress of a woman as she hitched it up at the thighs so that it wouldn’t drag in the ankle-deep water that surrounded the house. Through the glass, she appeared to be no more than forty, and comely, though Hereward could not yet make out whether she bore the facial scarifications that to him would elevate her from mere prettiness to true beauty.

  She had a hand-and-a-half sword slung on her back, the bronze cross-piece almost as wide as her shoulders and the blade stretching from neck to knees. Hereward looked at the corded muscle in her wrists and knew that she could use the massive sword. The weapon was not just for show.

  A dozen women followed half a dozen yards behind the tall one with the over-sized sword. They wore serviceable boiled leather cuirasses over plain linen shifts and several of them, Sir Hereward noted, carried racked crossbows with bolts in place, and all of them bore dirks in tinned iron sheaths tied to their thighs.

  “Halt the mokleks,” said Sir Hereward. “I would lief as not stay out of range of those arbalests.”

  “They will not shoot,” said Mister Fitz. “Look, their chief advances alone, greatsword sheathed upon her back. You should descend and meet her.”

  Sir Hereward could walk faster than the mokleks’ steady pace, at least when they were dragging the giant cannon, but he was not overly keen to do so. The extremely thick, wrinkled skin of moklek might turn a crossbow bolt, but he wore no armour in the heat, his linen shirt offering no protection against anything but the sun.

  “I think we need to get inside soon,” said Mister Fitz slowly, once again surveying the land around them. “It is also likely these women have knowledge of... whatever is going to happen.”

  “Which is what?” asked Sir Hereward crossly, as he clambered out of the howdah and cautiously crawled over the flat, broad head of the moklek.

  “I do not know,” said Mister Fitz slowly. “Something is coming. From some other plane that intersects here, where it should not.”

  Sir Hereward heard the tone in the puppet’s voice. Though Mister Fitz was never afraid as such, there was a certain amount of what could only be described as dread in his words.

  The knight grabbed the highest knot of the dozen or so that ran the length of the strand of ear-hair, swung so as to place his feet on a lower knot, and descended knot by knot to the ground. There, he matched his pace to the moklek’s, and looked back up to Mister Fitz.

  “Throw down my sabre,” he said. “If you would be so kind.”

  Mister Fitz easily lifted the weapon from the howdah, and pitched it down. Sir Hereward caught it and buckled the scabbard on, drawing the blade out a few inches and back again, to ensure that it moved freely. His hand was slightly sweaty, but the sabre’s sharkskin grip was never slippery, be it inundated in sweat, blood or other fluids. Mister Fitz had ensorcelled it long ago, together with several other minor enchantments that made it a most valuable blade.

  “You’re sure these women are friendly?” asked Sir Hereward.

  “Moderately so,” replied Mister Fitz. His hand was tightly closed, but even so there was now the hint of some horrible brightness beneath his wooden fist, indicating he held his last sorcerous needle there. “I stand ready in the event I am mistaken.”

  Taking a deep breath, Sir Hereward settled his pistols for a quick draw, and splashed forward to meet the woman in the deep red dress, thinking that if her cohorts did raise their arbalests it would be a tricky thing to dive under the bolts without his pistols taking in rather too much water, and a sodden dash forward with his sabre would also be rather slower than desired, perhaps even allowing them time to reload and retension their weapons. In which case, he would have to use the old dagger, and this was potentially more dangerous than meeting a fusillade of crossbow bolts, even with Mister Fitz standing by with his sorcerous needle to protect him...

  As he drew closer, Sir Hereward observed the women handled their weapons well and were watching carefully. But their attentions were not exclusive to him. Most of them were actually looking out across the Shallows to the left and right, as if some enemy might emerge from the waters. Nevertheless, Sir Hereward took care to keep himself in line with their leader, so that only the flankers would get a decent shot. When he was half a dozen paces away, the swordswoman stopped, and Sir Hereward followed suit.

  “Well met, good sir,” said the woman, her voice evidently trained for authority and projection. “I am the Archimandress Withra. You are a most welcome guest, for this Wedding Night.”

  Sir Hereward instinctively took a step backward at the mention of a wedding. But his natural good manners did not desert him, and he managed to incorporate this backward step into a sweeping bow, though his eyes never left the Archimandress or the crossbows of her companions.

  “Sir Hereward of the High Pale,” he said. He gestured back at the lead moklek, where Mister Fitz could be seen perched on the howdah. “And my companion, Mister Fitz.”

  “A self-willed puppet,” said the Archimandress, raising her eyebrows. The tiny jewels pasted there caught the sunlight as they moved. “It is long since we have been fortunate enough to welcome a puppet entertainer. I hope he will play and sing for us at our feast.”

  Sir Hereward kept his face immobile, not wanting to reveal any hint that unlike the vast majority of self-willed puppets, Mister Fitz was not an entertainer.

  “We bid you both welcome, Sir Hereward, and invite you to take refuge within our convent.”

  “Refuge?” asked Sir Hereward.

  “Indeed,” said the Archimandress. She cast a glance towards the western horizon, where the sun was beginning to settle. “As a man, you have chosen an inopportune time to cross the Shallows.”

  “As a man?” asked Hereward.

  “Tonight the Hag of the Shallows seeks a husband,” said Withra. “She roams the Shallows looking for suitable candidates till the dawn. But I expect we can keep you sa
fe inside our house.”

  “What precisely is this ‘Hag of the Shallows’?” asked Sir Hereward. “And what does she do with her... ahem... husbands?”

  “She rises from the Shallows this one day of the year, a thing of impenetrable darkness wreathed in fog and rain,” said Withra, not really answering the question. “Her chosen husbands are found soon after dawn, or rather the chewed remnants of them are found...”

  “I see,” said Sir Hereward. He looked back at the lead moklek, which was ambling forward again. This was a conversation that Mister Fitz needed to be involved in, and the sooner the puppet was involved, the happier Sir Hereward would be. “And what exactly do you ladies do here, may I ask?”

  “We belong to the Sacred Order of the Sisters of Mercantile Fairness of the Goddess Lanith-Eremot,” said Withra. “Our convent here was established with a perpetual endowment from the Council of Seven in the city of Kquq, in order that we might protect their weed-gatherers from competitors, predators and unfortunate events. But come, the light already fails. We must all withdraw inside.”

  Sir Hereward hesitated. Mister Fitz had said they should seek shelter, but uncharacteristically he felt more cautious than he usually did when conversing with an attractive woman who was inviting him indoors. He had no knowledge of the goddess Lanith-Eremot, so there was a possibility she was proscribed and thus no friend to the likes of the knight and his puppet companion. Nor had he ever heard of the Sisters of Mercantile Fairness.

  “I hesitate to ask,” he said. “But I trust that in accepting your kind and gracious invitation, we will not be incurring any debt or entering into any arrangement beyond the mere acceptance of customary shelter, and that we will be free to leave unhindered and unharmed in the morning?”

  “The Sisterhood has no ill intentions toward anyone save weed-stealers or other criminals, and it is part of the charter of the Sisters of Mercantile Fairness to offer hospitality to travellers. In some other convents there is a small charge for this, but not here, the Kquq Council of Seven having provided sufficient funds for the purpose in the original endowment. Ah, your puppet friend closes. Greetings, Master Puppet.”

  “Greetings,” replied Mister Fitz from atop the moklek. He inclined his pumpkin-shaped head stiffly, moving slowly with small jerks and tics. This was a common practice with him, to instil in strangers a false notion of his flexibility and speed.

  “This is the Archimandress Withra of the Sisters of Mercantile Fairness, who follow the goddess Lanith-Eremot,” said Sir Hereward quickly, only half-turning towards Mister Fitz, at the same time calculating that he could shoot the two closer crossbow priestesses, throw his pistols down, draw his sabre and run Withra through before she could get the greatsword off her back, and then retreat holding her body up as a shield—

  “I know of your order,” said Mister Fitz. He pitched his voice higher and softer than usual, to enhance the impression he was one of the entertaining type of self-willed puppets. “Your good reputation travels far, and I am very pleased that we should meet such noble sisters here.”

  Sir Hereward’s thoughts made a sharp turn away from the consideration of imminent combat and he relaxed a little. Mister Fitz would not speak so fulsomely if Lanith-Eremot was proscribed, or the Sisters an outlawed organization. But while he was less worried about the women, he was growing ever more concerned at the gathering dusk and the threat of this creature that sought a husband, or as seemed more accurate to say, a meal to be made of a male personage.

  “The Archimandress invites us inside,” said Hereward. “Apparently there is a... thing... called the Hag of the Shallows that will rise tonight and seek a husband, and I fear I am the only eligible prospect.”

  “A situation not to be envied, I apprehend,” said Mister Fitz gravely. He looked around again, his tongue of blue stippled leather tasting the air, as if it had slipped out by accident.

  “Perhaps if we continued on apace,” said Sir Hereward. Fitz seemed undecided and he wanted to distract the priestess from the puppet. “We might remove ourselves from this Hag’s hunting grounds in time?”

  “I fear she ranges very widely,” said Withra. “There is less than an hour until full dark, and already I feel her emanations gathering.”

  “Perhaps we should take shelter, Sir Hereward,” said Mister Fitz, adding a quaver to his voice. “What might this Hag do to a puppet of the masculine persuasion? I am called ‘Mister’ after all!”

  “True, true,” said Sir Hereward, relieved that Fitz had come to a decision. “But first we must relieve the mokleks of their harness and let them forage and bathe. That is...”

  He paused.

  “Does this Hag of the Shallows molest animals as well?” he continued, thinking of their mission to deliver the cannon, which would be impossible without the mokleks.

  “If they are male, of a certainty,” said Withra. “However, having suffered the cut, they should be safe enough.”

  Hereward suppressed a wince at the thought of that cut. He had seen the thing done upon one occasion, which was more than enough. However, he did not want to reveal a weakness in front of the priestess and her womenfolk.

  “If you will grant us a little time, milady, we will tend to our mokleks and then accept your kind invitation and enter your fortress,” said Sir Hereward.

  “Certainly,” replied Withra. “Our doors are open to you, and you are welcome guests. But do be sure you come within before night falls. The gate will be locked then, and not reopened until well after the dawn.”

  Sir Hereward bowed and backed away. Withra inclined her head and did an about turn to slosh back to the manor house, her followers in two files behind. The sun, now setting behind the fortification, cast a red glint across everything and made the priestess’s shadows long and thin and predatory, rippling across the shallow water.

  It took Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz only twenty minutes to lift down the essential items they wished to carry inside, unbuckle the mokleks from their harness and slide the howdah off the back of the lead beast by means of its cunning system of blocks and lines. After a word with Mister Fitz, the massive creatures trod further into the Shallows, into a deeper pool. There, they took up water in their trunks and sprayed themselves and each other with all the gravity and deliberation that tired human workers might show upon taking a long-awaited bath after a weary day.

  The cannon lay on its wagons, pointing at the north-western corner of the manor house. Sir Hereward hadn’t noticed this at first, and it now irritated his professional instincts. The gun was charged, because this was the safest way to transport the arcane powder, a massive five-hundred weight cartridge bag made of seven thicknesses of calico, designed to keep out both water and stray sparks. But the cannon was not loaded with shot. In fact, it was unlikely anywhere within a thousand leagues could supply a ball of the prodigious size necessary to fit the bore, let alone one with the required sorcerous properties to complement the magic that had been infused in the weapon.

  The chamber that held the charge was also kept open rather than being rotated shut in the firing position, so in the event of accidental discharge, there would be a lesser effluxion of flame and bits of calico out the business end of the barrel. But even without shot and the chamber open, Sir Hereward considered that in the event of accident the concussive and fiery force delivered would be extremely detrimental to the fabric of the building. The cannon really should not be aimed at anything but sky.

  However, as the sun was now but a reddish blur on the horizon and the mokleks loosed, there was no time to put it right. He dismissed his uneasiness as mere parade ground soldiering, the kind of rigid thinking that desired everything to be just so at all times regardless of circumstance, a form of thought that he despised.

  Going towards the manor, Sir Hereward spoke quietly and close to Mister Fitz, who had been silent throughout the process of freeing the mokleks, his head shifting and his blue eyes constantly searching the Shallows about them as if he had little attent
ion to spare for harnesses.

  “What might this Hag of the Shallows be, do you think? And can our hostesses be entirely trusted?”

  “Judging by the emanations I perceive, the Hag of the Shallows must be a powerful inter-dimensional entity that manifests here when there is some temporary but regular alignment of the spheres,” said Mister Fitz quietly. “As to the sisters, their order has a good reputation. However, an isolated house like this may not conform to the characteristics of the sorority in general. As always, we must be on guard.”

  “At least the place looks defensible,” said Sir Hereward, as they walked up the ramp of packed earth to the main gate, which was made of the black timber called urross, always much in demand for gates and doors due to its strength and resistance to fire. The gate was further studded for reinforcement with steel bolts, and daubed with runes which, to Sir Hereward at least, looked ancient and powerful.

  “The sorcerous protections are competent,” said Mister Fitz. “Augmented by the powers of the congregation within, they should suffice to keep out a marauding godlet.”

  “Good,” said Sir Hereward, with some relief. “That is to say, excellent.”

  “Yet I am still uneasy,” continued Mister Fitz. “I sense the immanence, but I cannot fix upon its location. However, on the balance of probability we should be safer within than without.”

  Sir Hereward didn’t answer, his attention caught by the inner gate, likewise of urross, the murder holes in the ceiling of the passage between, and the hotfoot gutters that ran between the paving stones. Not that hot oil above and below would have any effect on your typical godlet, but there were often mortal allies to be reckoned with as well, priests and soldiers and fanatical followers. At least here in a temple building it was to be presumed that the goddess would provide powerful protection against enemies mortal and otherwise, imbuing the stones and mortar with her essence, and her followers with powers of both harm and healing. Though the strength of this protection depended greatly upon the relative presence of the goddess in question.