Fearsome Magics

by Jonathan Strahan

  “Where lies the locus of the goddess Lanith-Eremot?” whispered Hereward to Mister Fitz as the outer gate was shut and barred behind them by two of the priestesses, and others opened the gate within. “Close by, I trust? Not too distant?”

  “Two thousand leagues or more, by a straight path,” said Mister Fitz. “Longer if a mortal must tread the way.”

  “A long way for a godlet to exert her power,” said Sir Hereward dubiously.

  “The distance in this case may not be material to the strength of Lanith-Eremot here. It is possible, even likely, that this place is a point of intersection for a number of different realities, hence the manifestation of the Hag. The natural barriers which resist otherworldly intrusions were worn thin by the conflict between Yeogh-Yeogh and Ryzha, and so interdimensional connections of various kinds will have occurred.”

  A great hall lay beyond the inner gate, a scene of considerable bustle and noise, evidently in preparation for a feast or celebration, with an array of long tables bedecked with good linen cloth and piled with silver plate. There were many more sisters here, engaged in arranging tablecloths, plate, cutlery, salt cellars, candlesticks and floral decorations. These buzzing workers wore simple habits of bright silver cloth for the novices and shimmering gold for the full sisters, but there were also many of the warriors about, two score at least of armed and armoured priestesses, who stood against the walls in obvious positions of guard.

  One of the silver-clad novices, a comely lass with her black hair coiled on top of her head, approached and bowed to Sir Hereward.

  “My name is Parnailam,” she said. “I am to show you to the baths we reserve for our male guests, to rest and cleanse yourselves before the feast. I regret, Master Puppet, that we were not sure whether you bathe or not, but various oils and unguents have been laid by that may prove of use to you.”

  “I need nothing, but I thank you,” said Mister Fitz absently. His head was craned back on his spindly neck, looking up at the hammer-beamed ceiling and the dyed-paper decorations that hung there. They were of red and blue, and showed a very male figure with a great phallus entwined by a godlet who was depicted as a kind of black cloud with six, grasping tentacular arms. “Tell me, what is the feast you celebrate tonight?”

  “Why, it is the Wedding!” exclaimed Parnailam. “One of our principal feast-days.”

  “And what does the feast celebrate, what does this Wedding signify?” continued Mister Fitz.

  Parnailam looked confused.

  “I am only a novice,” she said hesitantly. “You would have to ask one of the sisters, or the Archimandress herself. We do not participate in the full mysteries. After I show you to the baths, we will have hot spiced milk, sing hymn number five and go off to bed. I know the full sisters stay up very late and are oft tired and cross the next morning.”

  “Ah,” said Sir Hereward. He looked up at the decorations and then around at all the priestesses and thoughts of the coupling nymphs of the Participatory Theatre of Hurshell once more flitted through his mind.

  Mister Fitz did not ask any more questions, but strode jerkily along next to Sir Hereward, as if invisible strings pulled upon legs and arms that had become stiff from lack of lubrication, indicating a sorcerous puppet who had lived beyond his mysterious lifespan, the internal magic winding down with every step. He was almost over-doing the deception, thought Hereward, but as none of the priestesses seemed particularly to notice, perhaps the puppet knew best. As he usually did.

  The bath house the two travellers were lead to was not of the ‘Most Excellent Supreme Soakwash, Scrub and Toe Cleanse’ class of the Kapoman caravanserais, but it boasted a large circular hot pool with steam rising in wafts, indicating it was warmed either by sorcery or more likely by subterranean fires; a narrow rectangular cold pool to wade up and down in; and a very shallow dish-like pool for soaking feet, this last already infused with pleasant-smelling herbs. Several enormous cushions sat nearby, next to an open cupboard stacked with towels beside a low table on which were arrayed brushes, sponges and numerous bottles of scent, oil and cleansing unguents.

  “Do you require someone to scrub your back, Sir Hereward?” asked Parnailam, in an innocent tone that suggested she meant precisely that and no more.

  Hereward glanced at Mister Fitz, who turned his head very slightly. Not quite a visible shake but a clear indication to the knight that this offer should be refused.

  “I thank you, but no,” said Sir Hereward. “I must first offer my devotions to my gods before I bathe, and this cannot be done in company. Besides, you have to get to your hot milk.”

  “Oh, they won’t serve the milk till the bell,” said Parnailam. “I will wait outside in case you need anything!”

  She inclined her head and retreated out the door. Mister Fitz went to it as it shut and placed one wooden hand against the timber, to sense if she was close enough to listen. Sir Hereward put down his saddlebags, put his pistols carefully on the table, unhooked his sabre and balanced it against the cupboard and then fell back into the largest cushion. Stretching out, he luxuriated in the soft embrace of good goose feather stuffing, a relieving contrast to the howdah’s bottom-numbing accommodations.

  But he had little time to enjoy the comfort. Mister Fitz came away from the door and signaled to him to come close. Sir Hereward obeyed, getting up with a sigh to crouch down near the puppet, their heads close together.

  “There is something wrong with the sisters,” whispered Mister Fitz.

  “What?” asked Sir Hereward. “Isn’t it enough to have this Hag of the Shallows lurking about outside, we have to have a problem inside?”

  “I am afraid I may have made an error,” said Mister Fitz. “I am quite familiar with both Lanith-Eremot and the Sisters of Mercantile Fairness. There is no wedding of any kind celebrated in the worship of the goddess by either her secular or ecclesiastical followers.”

  “No wedding,” repeated Sir Hereward.

  “None,” said Mister Fitz. “And the goddess is never depicted as a dark cloud with tentacular arms. Or even as a human female figure. She is normally portrayed as a sort of friendly money-lending monkey atop a pile of coins.”

  “You think the sisters have transferred their loyalties to some other godlet?”

  “Possibly. If they have, most likely it will be to this Hag of the Shallows.”

  “And the Hag is what you sensed outside.”

  “Probably,” said Mister Fitz. He hesitated, then added, “Though not only outside.”

  “You sense something within the walls?”

  “Yes,” said Mister Fitz. “And no.”

  “I fail to understand you,” said Sir Hereward stiffly.

  “It is both within and without,” said Mister Fitz. “I cannot tell more exactly. But given that it is within as well, the sisters cannot be unaware of it and most likely are complicit in its actions.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Sir Hereward dubiously.

  “No,” answered Mister Fitz, shaking his head. “They seem to all my... usual... senses to be no more or less than they present themselves. But I don’t like this wedding business. We should make plans to depart.”

  “Depart?” asked Sir Hereward. “Need I remind you this is a fortress?”

  He stood up and replaced his pistols and sabre, and nervously fingered the heavy wax of the peace seals that kept the old dagger scabbarded and slumbering, content on his belt.

  “We cannot sneak out the way we came. Dozens of armed sisters in the hall, the two gates and the guards there... how wide was that arrow slit up above, where Withra looked out?”

  “You could not pass through it,” adjudged Mister Fitz.

  “We might be able to fight our way out with this,” said Sir Hereward, very gently tapping the scabbard of the old dagger.

  “A most unreliable artifact,” said Mister Fitz. “With only one needle I am not certain I could protect you when it rebounds, as it always does.”

  Sir Hereward frowned. He knew
only an outline of the history of the dagger. But he did know that after slaying a particular number of enemies—a number it alone decided in any given circumstance, without recourse to any outside advice or reckoning—it would return and kill its wielder as well, before resuming its slumber. The only times it had failed to do this had occurred when the wielder was protected by potent sorcery, and in two other singular cases. Once when deployed by the famous inventor Kalitheke, who had launched it from a massive ballista at his rivals in conclave several miles away and had then taken ship for distant parts, the dagger failing to pursue him across the ocean for fear of rust; and the second when it was employed by the incomparable duellist known only as the Swordmistress of Heganarat, who upon the dagger’s return after it had killed her faithless husband and her six paramours, parried and danced around the weapon’s thrusts and sallies for seven and a half hours before it dropped from exhaustion and demanded its scabbard. The Swordmistress died of a heart attack the next day, but it was still considered her greatest victory.

  “Barricade and defend ourselves here till dawn?” asked Sir Hereward, looking around the room. There was only the one doorway, but the door was mere oak and would not hold long against mundane attacks, let alone anything sorcerous or extra-dimensional.

  “Even if the entity that comes departs with daylight, the sisters will still be here,” said Mister Fitz.

  “The pool is heated,” said Sir Hereward. “There is presumably a hypocaust beneath. We can drain it, break the tiles... you, at least, might exit through those tunnels.”

  “Perhaps,” said Mister Fitz. “Go and summon our guide. I am sure she will not be far away.”

  “What do you intend for her?” asked Sir Hereward.

  “I will take a little blood and examine the signatures within,” said Mister Fitz. “If we find evidence of an unknown godlet we will know the sisters are under its thrall and must act accordingly. If we do not... then there is a chance we will be able to negotiate with them. Lanith-Eremot was ever fair-minded.”

  “And if we can’t negotiate?”

  “I still have one needle,” said Mister Fitz. “I can get us out, I think. After that, we might have a chance, if we take the lead moklek only and strike across the water. But that is a last resort, for we would certainly be pursued.”

  Sir Hereward nodded, his face grim. Opening the door, he looked out along the narrow corridor. Sure enough, Parnailam was standing by the doorway to the hall, chatting quietly to another silver-clad novice.

  “I fear I need assistance with the removal of my boots,” called out Sir Hereward. “Mister Fitz lacks the strength and I have left my jack in one of the moklek bags we didn’t bring inside. Could I ask you to help me?”

  “Surely, sir,” called Parnailam. She came quickly to the door. Hereward stepped aside to let her pass and as she went into the room Mister Fitz jumped upon her back, ran up onto her shoulders and pressed his wooden fingers into the woman’s temples. She gasped and dropped unconscious into Hereward’s arms. He laid her gently down on one of the big cushions and shut the door.

  As he had latched the door closed, the puppet took a very small but intensely sharp knife and a glass slide from somewhere about his person and nicked the young woman’s thumb, catching a droplet of blood. Taking this to his portable sewing desk, a wooden case that casual observers presumed to be an instrument case for a clavichord or something similar, Mister Fitz smeared the blood across the slide and applied a series of alchemical fluids from small bottles. This fixed the blood in place and slowly revealed a striation of coloured lines, in the main blue and green with some yellow between, the colours to be expected from a generally benevolent godlet’s presence in the bloodstream of one of its devout worshippers.

  “Lanith-Eremot,” said Mister Fitz. “I don’t even need to check the book, I know the signature well. And no sign of anything else. It is extremely puzzling.”

  “Perhaps the novices and younger sisters are not part of the conspiracy,” said Sir Hereward. “You recall they are sent to bed. How long will she slumber?”

  “A few minutes,” said Mister Fitz.

  “If I draw her companion in, and we take their robes, could you cast a glamour upon us?” asked Sir Hereward.

  Mister Fitz shook his head.

  “Consecrated robes would resist our wearing them, and I dare not waste the power of my needle in small workings. No. Given the signature, I think—”

  Sir Hereward held up his hand and jerked his head towards the door. Many feet could be heard, and not the soft swish of novice’s slippers, but the boots of armed priestesses.

  Knight and puppet moved quickly. Sir Hereward took one corner, levelling a pistol in his left hand and cocking it before also drawing his sabre. Mister Fitz scrambled up on top of the towel cupboard and drew out his last sorcerous needle, cupping it close in his hand, its harsh, blinding light leaking out in narrow, brilliant rays between his fingers.

  There was no knock upon the door, but neither was it flung open as at the beginning of an assault. The latch ascended slowly, the door swung open, and the Archimandress Withra looked cautiously into the room, her entire body encased in a pearly nimbus indicative of some divine protective power. She saw Parnailam laid out on the cushion and her face set for a moment, but cleared as she saw the novice’s breast slowly rise and fall.

  “She lives then,” said Withra, glancing across at Sir Hereward. “I felt her slip from my mind, and feared the worst.”

  “She has taken no hurt,” said Sir Hereward. “We merely wished to ascertain her true allegiance.”

  “And how would you do—” Withra began. She stopped talking as she caught a momentary flash of the violet brilliance contained in Mister Fitz’s hand, and looked up and across at the cupboard. Stepping back, a curious expression passed fleetingly across her face, one Sir Hereward could not fully read, for it seemed in equal parts anger, relief and fear. “Ah, I see. You are not an entertaining puppet. My apologies, Magister.”

  “You know me?” asked Mister Fitz mildly.

  “I know of you,” said Withra. “I had thought you in the category of long-lost legend.”

  Her tone of voice conveyed respect and a healthy fear. Those who knew much about Mister Fitz’s real powers and experience were generally extremely wary of him. Not to mention very polite.

  “What exactly is going on here?” asked Sir Hereward peremptorily. He was somewhat miffed that Mister Fitz was getting all the respectful attention. “My companion tells me there is no wedding feast in your sisterhood’s usual rites, and he... we... are concerned that you have transferred your allegiance to this Hag of the Shallows.”

  “Never!” spat out the Archimandress. She hesitated, then added, “However, it is true that we have had to make an accommodation with the Hag. I had hoped to keep you both in ignorance of this. However, clearly this is not possible.”

  Withra snapped her fingers, and the pearly radiance about her disappeared.

  “There is no trouble. Go back to the hall,” she said over her shoulder, her words answered by the sound of shuffling boots as a large party of armed priestesses withdrew along the passage outside.

  Mister Fitz replaced his sorcerous needle inside his doublet, and Sir Hereward carefully closed the pan on his pistol and uncocked the lock, before replacing it through his belt.

  “You made an accommodation?” asked Sir Hereward.

  “Not at first,” said Withra. “When the Hag appeared some sixty years ago, she was weak, and initially believed to be merely some sort of revenant or ghost, reappearing at the site of her demise. But as time went on, this haunting spirit grew more troublesome, so the sisters tried to exorcise it, without success. It grew stronger with every year, and a number of serious battles were fought. Though it only appeared once a year and for a single night, these were very costly fights. Great damage was done—this house is the third we have built since the Hag’s appearance, you must have seen the remnants of the previous buildings. Eventua
lly, my predecessor hit upon the idea that instead of fighting the revenant, we should placate the Hag by offering up the pretense of worship. It is only one day, after all—”

  “Worship would not be sufficient in itself,” interrupted Mister Fitz. He jumped easily down from the cupboard and went to stand near Sir Hereward. Though his round head only came up to the knight’s belt, he dominated the room. “You must give the Hag something as well. A sacrifice.”

  Withra nodded reluctantly, licked her lips and swallowed, as if her mouth had suddenly dried.

  “We give her half a dozen men. Weed-stealers, that have been caught by us, tried fairly in Kquq, sentenced to death and sent back.”

  Sir Hereward looked at Mister Fitz. A demand for human sacrifice was one of the defining characteristics that would place a godlet on the list of proscribed inter-dimensional entities.

  “Do you know who or what the Hag actually is?” asked Mister Fitz. “You must have had many opportunities to take its signature.”

  “We have,” said Withra. She had shrunk a little, it seemed, her shoulders lower. From shame, Sir Hereward suspected. “It is a relict of the malevolent portion of the combined entity known as Yeogh-Yeogh the Two-Headed. It was on this spot that the godlet died, and it is here that it returns on the evening of every seventh day of Rainith, returning to haunt us.”

  “I am extremely surprised the Grandmother-Marshal of your order would allow your ‘accommodation’,” continued Mister Fitz. “Surely greater forces could be arrayed and this relict of Yeogh-Yeogh banished for good and all?”