by Jon Kiln
The man clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. The mention of the place beyond life clearly brought him great distress. Whoever this man was in life, he had not found the favor of the gods.
“I do not know what kind of sorcerers you must be, to have brought me back from the infernal screaming, but I will not question your practices. I only thank you,” he said, looking from one man to another. “It seems that my time on this earth was a very long time ago, and my memories have faded greatly in the unspeakable darkness, but I will strive to recall whatever I can to answer your queries.”
“You’ve been gone and dead for less than a week,” blurted Harwin, clearly beginning to lose his patience with this experiment.
“Nay,” said Peregrin. “Time on the other side is not like our time. The wise one’s say that in the light, where the righteous go, a thousand years is like a day. But in the darkness, wherein evil is cast, every hour is like a lifetime.” Peregrin leaned closer to the man, curling his nose against his stench. “I think we know what kind of man we are dealing with.”
Rothar could see that, in spite of his kindness in treating the man’s wounds, Peregrin was harboring a growing rage against this undead soul. He knew why Peregrin hated this man so, and he felt responsible for putting his friend in such a state.
The deadly medicine that Rothar had used to revive this man, who was clearly a deplorable wretch in life, could have saved Peregrin’s father, had Peregrin believed in it’s power and sought to use it. Peregrin was caught in a state of regret and self loathing, and before him was a man given a gift that he was not worthy of. The very fact that he had not yet returned the corpse to the darkness was a credit to him.
However, the ghoul before them may well have made it closer to the manor than they had yet ventured, and if they could extract any information from him about that, the whole endeavor may be worth the sacrifice.
“Leave him be,” said Rothar gently. Peregrin recoiled in disgust, but obliged.
“Do you remember being pursued by the Southlanders?” Rothar asked the man.
Looking down at the ground, the wretch seemed to be trying to block out the pain and the horror of life since death.
“I do not remember being pursued at all,” he replied.
Harwin sighed in frustration.
“You were shot by the devils, you must remember something about that. You must try to,” Rothar said, more firmly.
The man squinted at Rothar. “Oh… yes… I suppose I was shot. I remember the pain…” he commenced moaning again.
Peregrin kicked the man in the knee and he squalled loudly.
“What happened, you damned fool?” Peregrin shouted.
“Easy, Peregrin!” commanded Rothar. “If you must cause him more pain, make it pain that helps us.”
Rothar reached around the man’s back and placed his hand on the two arrows that still protruded from his back.
“When did you feel this?” he asked, pushing gently on the arrows.
The man growled and then cried out, “In the manor! I was in the great hall of the manor when they pierced me! Get them out! Get them out, now!”
Harwin leaned in, his voice intense. “If we take them out, you will surely die… again. Now tell us why you were in the manor and why you were killed.”
Rothar released his pressure on the arrows and the man tried to collect himself. It occurred to Rothar how absurd the whole scene was. Three bedraggled, dirty, tired men; one a huntsman, one a blacksmith and one a royal assassin, all interrogating and torturing a man who was most recently and most decidedly dead. No one would ever believe it.
“I brought the good Duchess a delivery,” the man panted, trying to get a grasp on his pain. “She received me into the great hall and then became very angry with me. My offering was not acceptable, I must suppose.”
Harwin’s face darkened as he asked, “What was your delivery?”
Even in death, a man knows when he has struck a dangerous chord. The man looked at Harwin and stammered a bit when he said, “Just an offering of good will is all. My family has always been in good standing with the Duke and Duchess, but my house fell out of favor a time ago.”
The resurrected gentleman fell into a fit of coughing and the labor brought more blood to his wounds. The rags that Harwin and Rothar had tied about him darkened ominously, and the vacancy of death started to creep back into his eyes. Rothar knew that they had little time left to question him, and he had yet to provide them with any answers.
“Why was your offering not accepted?” Rothar asked hastily.
“Oh… well… I suppose they were too old,” the man replied, his head nodding.
Harwin drew back his fist in a motion to crush the man’s face, but Rothar reached out to stop the blow.
“How is it that we found you in the hills? Why did they not burn you with the rubbish?” Now Rothar was having a hard time concealing his hatred for the scoundrel.
The man managed a rasping laugh, dark blood sprayed from his mouth. “They put some arrows in me, but I got into the tunnel, and I barred the door,” he cackled again.
Rothar stared at the despicable man. Harwin and Peregrin stood behind him. Rothar could hear Peregrin’s heavy breathing and Harwin’s knuckles cracking. He wondered at how much pain and distress his friends must be feeling, seeing this man who should be dead - who was dead, this man who perpetuated the evil that had beset Esme.
“Tell us your name, and we shall be done troubling you,” Rothar said.
The undead looked up at them, uncomprehending. The blackness of death was already creeping back into his eyes, but it mattered not.
“My name is Ebenezer Sleeth, prodigal son of the King of Blackwater.”
Rothar turned to Harwin and Peregrin.
“Send him back to the darkness, but be slow, and take turns.”
Chapter 28
Once Ebenezer Sleeth was returned to the blackness to which he belonged, Harwin and Peregrin cleaned their hands, and the three men returned to the place where they had found the dead man.
Rothar climbed off Stormbringer and began to inspect the ground. There were no tracks, for it had been several days since the wretch had crawled to what should have been his final resting place. Peregrin joined Rothar in his search as Harwin remained aboard his horse, looking out for roving guards.
“I regret that I had to do that in front of you, Peregrin,” Rothar said.
Peregrin breathed a long breath out through his nose. “For how long have you known that the Quietus myth was real?” he asked.
“I truly did not know for certain, until our treacherous friend up there sprang to life,” Rothar replied. “But I had no choice but to try, given the circumstances. If it gives you any comfort, I first suspected the powers of the Quietus were two fold when I lopped of the head of my very dead and very good friend, Brath.”
“That gives me no comfort,” Peregrin said bluntly. “But I suppose that must have been quite a great shock to you, albeit a brief one.”
Rothar nodded somberly. “Indeed.”
Peregrin crouched low to the ground on the spot where Ebenezer had laid. Looking all about, his expert eye soon spotted some stout weeds that had been bent by a heavy and lumbering weight. Crawling on his belly through the brush with Rothar close behind, Peregrin soon tracked the rumpled weeds to a flat rock, inconspicuous on the hillside. Lifting the edge of the rock, they found a hollow that opened into a larger tunnel, inky black and musty.
Rothar and Peregrin went back to where Harwin was waiting, and the three men found a dark place to leave the horses. The well trained Stormbringer and Garnett were left unfettered. The horse that Harwin had procured from the King’s stables was tethered to a tree. The men collected three thick tree limbs and wrapped the ends in strips of cloth they had torn from what was left of Ebenezer’s garments. Peregrin soaked the rags with lantern oil that he carried in a flask.
Lighting the torches, Rothar, Peregrin and Harwin climbed down into the
narrow tunnel beneath the rock. Rothar led the way, Peregrin behind him, still sullen. Bringing up the rear, the hulking Harwin nearly filled the passageway. The tunnel was just tall enough for an average man to stand up in and barely wider than Harwin’s shoulders. At times, the passage narrowed and the walls seemed to close in. All three men had to turn sideways to proceed, and Harwin nearly became stuck more than once.
The air was stagnant and thick and the walls of the tunnel were crudely built of ancient limestone. The floor was hard packed earth. Here and there were markings on the walls, simple pictures and dirty limericks. All of the markings were low on the stones, no higher than Rothar’s waist. It seemed that at some point in history the secret passageway had served as a child’s play place.
The corridor wound left and right, but always downwards, making its way out of the high hills and towards Miranda’s Manor. At long last, the terrain evened out and they knew they were out of the hills and quite near the manor grounds. The passageway also widened and the air seemed less stifling.
The three men eventually came into a circular chamber within the tunnel. There were several other passageways leading away at angles, all around the room.
“We be directly under the house,” Rothar whispered, turning to look all around the manifold. “These passages run out like spokes from a wheel. I’m sure that we could get to any part of the main floor from here, but the entrances may well be blockaded. And we will not know until we try.”
“Why is this place not guarded?” Harwin asked, his face red in the torchlight.
“It seems to be a secret place, and very well hidden. We would never have suspected it’s existence were it not for the late Mr. Sleeth,” Rothar replied. “The Sleeth family has been shamefully linked with Baelzpass nobility for generations,” he explained to Harwin. “It is possible that the two families were the only ones aware of the tunnels, until today.”
There were no markings on any of the passageways, no way to tell where any corridor might lead.
“How shall we choose our path, Rothar?” asked Peregrin.
There truly was no good way to determine which route might lead to the children, or which may lead to a hall teeming with Southlanders.
Before Rothar could answer, Harwin interjected. “We must split up.”
Rothar immediately disagreed. “I cannot let either of you take on this enemy alone. It is my fight, sanctioned by the King, and if I die then it is in the King’s service and no one may question that. But if one of you goes off alone and is killed, then I have to carry that burden with me for as long as I may live. I have lost enough friends recently.”
Harwin’s eyes narrowed and he scrutinized Rothar with incredulity.
“You may have been sent by the King, old friend, but I was beckoned here by my daughter, my only flesh and blood,” Harwin said. “If we split up we are three times as fast at finding something, anything. Every moment that passes, who knows what may be done to Esme or any of those other children. Forgive me, Rothar, but I am going to have to overrule you for the first, and probably only time.”
“He’s right, Rothar,” Peregrin spoke up. “It would take us the rest of the day to search these tunnels together. We are faster apart. We must be wise about it though. Each passageway that we take, we must find where it ends and then return to this place to report, no matter what we find. No one heads into a new passage until all three of us have reported.”
Rothar nodded. It was as good of a plan as they could wish for at a time like this. He turned to Harwin.
“I am sorry, my friend.”
Harwin simply shook his head, no more words needed to be said between the two men. They had known each other long enough to understand that.
Each man picked a passage and headed off with the promise to return with a report of what lie at the end. As it turned out, the task was more complicated than Rothar would have hoped. As he moved down his chosen tunnel, he found that it led not to one room, but to many.
The wall was dotted with tiny doorways, only large enough for a man to crawl through. He checked each one carefully and quietly. Most were locked, and the first few that were unlocked opened only to silent, musty storage chambers and closets. Rothar knew that he could infiltrate the manor through any of the open doorways, but given his promise to report, and the time sensitive nature of the moment, he moved on.
At the end of the passage was a larger portal, made of wood and with a lock on the tunnel side. Rothar put his ear to the door. A low rumbling could be heard on the other side. Carefully picking the lock with the fine tip of his dagger, Rothar eased the door open only a fraction of an inch and peered inside.
Before him was a large room, teeming with bronze skinned men, shouting and speaking over one another. No less than seventy five of the Southlanders were sitting on the floor or standing around the perimeter of the room. A long table ran across the center of the open space, piled with foods of all kinds. Being accustomed to only what the barren desert offered, the devils seemed to be quite excited about the exotic meats and fruits, and nobody noticed the infinitesimal movement at the base of the wall, or heard the tiny click of Rothar re-locking the portal. This was certainly not the passage he wanted.
Chapter 29
Rothar returned to the round chamber to find Peregrin already waiting.
“Any luck?” the huntsman asked.
“Only if you are interested in a chamber full of feasting devils,” Rothar replied.
Peregrin chuckled. Rothar was glad to see his friend show some emotion besides anger or apathy, but he was not surprised. The way of the hunter is to move forward, and Peregrin’s dwelling on old regrets was uncharacteristic and unbecoming of a huntsman.
“Well you had more excitement than I,” Peregrin told him. “Only one door was open, and it revealed only a room full of women’s underclothes.”
“How then, did I have more excitement than you?” Rothar laughed.
Harwin entered the chamber and the two men fell silent, feeling guilty about showing levity at such a time. Theirs was a different breed, however. Men like Rothar and Peregrin were more accustomed to peril, and their humor was merely a way to cope with the strain.
They filled Harwin in on what they had encountered. Even in his strife, Harwin grinned at Peregrin’s recounting of the closet full of unmentionables.
“I found nothing of consequence either,” Harwin told them. “But I did hear something that is worth mentioning. There was one portal in my tunnel, about this tall.” Harwin held his hand just above his waist. “I tried the handle and found it unlocked, but there was suddenly an awful scratching and growling at the other side. I felt that if I opened the door I would be beset upon by all the hounds of hell… and I have had enough of hell for today.”
Rothar nodded. “Let’s be aware that we know not what type of pets the Duchess is fond of keeping.”
Each man took care to put a mark above the tunnel they had just explored. Harwin wrote “dog” above his passage. Rothar wrote “devils” above his. Peregrin scrawled a crude picture of a nude woman above the tunnel he had just exited.
The trio chose new corridors and set off again. This time, Rothar’s route could not have been more different. The passage wound and twisted darkly, but there were no doors of any size lining the walls. After what seemed like a long time, he reached the end. There was no door in the wall, but a small ladder at the dead end reached up to a round portal in the ceiling.
Rothar climbed the ladder and gently lifted the portal only enough that he could peer out. Sunlight streamed in through the crack and he had to blink his eyes for a moment as they adjusted to the brightness. There were tall grasses growing around the portal, and he had to reach outside with one hand to carefully push them aside. He was looking out at a wide and spacious garden, filled with a myriad of colored blossoms and trees heavy with fruits of all kinds. Somewhere a stream trickled, and Rothar could hear birds singing. A bee hummed past his hand and flew into the tunnel with h
im.
On the far end of the garden, Rothar could see the shapes of two people, one much larger than the other. The two figures were sitting on the ground, facing one another, only a few feet apart. Their legs were bent in front of them, and their arms rested on their knees. They did not appear to be speaking, only staring intensely ahead. After a while, he could make out that one of the figures was a shirtless Southlander. The other appeared to be a young Southlander boy, tall and strong for his age. The two were obscured by waves of heat that seemed to be rising from the ground all around them.
The sun was beginning to set, and the day had not been exceptionally hot, so Rothar was perplexed as to why there seemed to be such a scorching heat surrounding the man and boy. His question was soon answered, however, when two Southland soldiers came out of a door at the edge of the garden, each carrying a pair of heavy metal buckets. The soldiers’ bare arms were red and blistered, and ripples of heat bent the air around them as they carried the buckets to where the leader sat with the pupil. Sweating, the soldiers poured glowing hot coals out of the buckets, dumping them in a long oval around the motionless pair.
A muscle in the boy’s neck twitched, but he did not stir or shift away from the heat. Rothar dared to raise the lid of the portal a little higher, and could see that the mound of coals around the man and lad was heaped quite high. They had apparently been at this for a while.
Rothar had seen this once before, long ago. He had been with the huntsmen when they made a trip into the badlands to do business with the Southlanders. It was an unusually cool and rainy season in the desert. Bakal had been depressed about it, and called it a curse from the northern gods.
“How can we train our boys to be strong, when the fire is gone from the wind?” he had asked of anyone who would listen.
The trainers had responded by piling firewood into the shape of long, narrow boxes in the sand. The boys in training were made to sit inside the boxes before the logs were set aflame. Any boy who tried to escape the sweltering heat was beaten severely, and then thrown back into the ring of fire.
