Barclay, J [2008] Vault of Deeds

by James Barclay

  Kettifer’s gaze drilled into his forehead. Grincheux had to stop himself scratching at his brow.

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? And you’d be wrong. There was me, doing the decent thing and providing the men and women to keep the population alive and failing…failing they told me, to keep the coffers of the treasury topped up. So you know what they did?’

  Grincheux shook his head slowly. ‘No, Principal Kettifer.’

  ‘No, Principal Kettifer,’ came the mimic

  Kettifer marched towards him, his palm open again. Grincheux couldn’t back away quite fast enough. Kettifer was right up to his toes, patting him lightly on the cheek and sending spiralling agony across his face and down his neck, across the back of his head and into his shoulders.

  ‘Then I’ll tell you. They bled my pension pot dry…’

  Slap. Fizz.

  ‘…they sold the deeds to my mansion…’

  Slap. Gnnnnh.

  ‘…they rented the building out the day before I was due to move in…’

  Slap. Crrrrrk.

  ‘…they rewrote my contract, keeping me in this hole for another ten years…’

  Slap. Mmmmmm.

  ‘…and they promised to expel me from Goedterre should I fail to right my fff-failings.’

  SLAP. Frrrritzz.

  Grincheux fell backwards, his legs no longer able to support him. Smoke was rising from him. His face was covered in little burns. His lips were blistered and his scalp itched like a thousand bites had been visited upon it. His clothes sported blackened streaks. The after effects of the multiple slaps echoed through his body, giving him a twitch in the head and a palsy to the skin.

  ‘N-n-n none of th-th-is is my faulttt,’ managed Grincheux. ‘Pl-please no mmmore.’

  ‘But you would stop me claiming back what is mine,’ said Kettifer. ‘You and that bitch elf hireling you call your hero. I cannot let you do that.’

  Grincheux breathed deeply and his shudder was deeper still. He felt someone was tugging at the back of his neck and the hand he raised to wipe his stinging mouth was almost impossible to control.

  ‘But you’re going to visit evil upon countless innocents.’ Grincheux tried to rub his nose and instead poked himself in the eye. ‘Ow.’

  ‘I’ll admit that the success of my plan will have the odd unfortunate little consequence.’

  Grincheux dragged himself back to his feet. ‘If I may. Is not plunging our land into an age or darkness, torture and terror more than a little unfortunate?’

  Kettifer shrugged and stepped back half a pace. ‘Well, not for me. I’ll be loaded and living on the Boralis Archipelago where the sun will still be shining. And anyway, have I not delivered on my fiscal promises? My genius in offering places to rich and willing students from outside of the kingdom has left the treasury full to bursting. I feel to is my right to retain a little for my own modest purposes.’

  ‘But…but,’ said Grincheux.

  ‘But what use is a full treasury when the forces of darkness are ensconced on the gilded throne? Not my problem. I suggest you address your question to those who rewrote my key commitments for the coming decade. All fiscal goals, no mention of provision of replacement heroes. Tut tut. Basic management error, I’d say. I could make a strong case in my next appraisal for an “exceeded” bonus.’

  ‘You’re joking, right?’ said Grincheux, the shivering, twitching and smoking subsiding.

  Kettifer’s stare was cold and blank. ‘I gave up joking years ago. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I am about to realise my retirement dream and the rest of you can go hang yourselves from the gantry in the pit.’

  ‘You haven’t got away with this yet.’

  ‘Ah, thank you, Grincheux.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For reminding me it’s time to kill you.’

  Kettifer advanced again, his palms facing Grincheux. Gone was the lightning and in its place, a dark, spiralling freezing void that gained speed and intensity. Whatever it was, it didn’t represent a friendly handshake. The scribe backed away. The scream of an elf reverberated around the Vault. Kettifer smiled. The terrified roar of a major demon eclipsed the elven pain. Pandemonium erupted. The floor of the Vault shook. Kettifer fell flat on his face.

  Grincheux, clutching at a book dais to keep himself upright looked down at the prone form of the Principal and saw one last chance. He turned on his heel and ran into the shadowy ranks of the books of heroes.

  Cassandra sliced her sword down through the tentacles of a Galler, side-stepped and reversed her blade into the gut of another, and ducked the grabbing beak of a third. She powered up, jumping high into the passageway. She paddled her feet against a wall and turned a graceful backward somersault to land a pace clear of the remainder of the enemy.

  Cassandra brought her sword to the ready. She beckoned them on with one hand. A trident flashed over the crouching Gallers. Cassandra saw it, turned and ducked, raising an arm defensively. One prong caught her in the flesh above the elbow. She screamed and fell backwards, flicking her arm out to dislodge the appalling old demonic cliché.

  It clattered to the ground.

  ‘I can’t believe they still really use those things,’ she muttered, struggling to rise.

  But the Gallers were upon her. She scuttled backwards as fast as she could, feet sliding on the polished stone of the passageway, injured arm protesting as she used it for balance, sword held out at her foe. They were so quick. Scampering along the walls, scuttling over the floor and grasping at her with tentacle, trapping her with beak.

  Cassandra opened her mouth to scream her last as she felt the first chill touch on her soul. But instead, Bloodchild bellowed pure fear and began to stampede toward her, crushing minion and Galler alike. Delighted gurgling turned to desperate shrieking. Cassandra found herself wrapped up in Gallers trying not to kill her but to cling on in the hope she might evade the careering Orgascz.

  And then she heard song and it sent a shudder through the floor of the Vault, rippling beneath stone and loosening the dust of ages past to fall like, well, dust to the ground. The Gallers clung tighter as if forgetting who their intended saviour actually was. The song, ancient, elvish and full of restorative power, was beautiful, seductive and unearthly. And mostly, Cassandra loved to hear the gentle lilting chant and the ethereal harmonies. Today, mind you…

  ‘Hey, enough of the squawking. Get your arses over here and get these fucking things off me!’

  Cassandra had the humility to pray that Grincheux hadn’t heard that particular line. He wouldn’t understand and worse, would be horrified at her lack of style. No human really understood the necessity for the elven formal tongue. But it was about to save Cassandra’s life.

  Junior elven heroes surged into the passageway. Bloodchild barrelled past her, one of his mighty taloned feet smashing through the stone right by her skull splattering an unfortunate minion. Gallers crawled all over her. Questing tentacles were sniffing out the roots of her soul, base instinct overcoming their fear. Bodies pressed down on her, stopping her lifting her sword to strike or her injured arm to prise them off.

  A beak snapped suddenly into her face. She turned her head, feeling the bone scratch her cheek. The foot of an elf trod down in her eye line, moving past her.

  ‘Oi! Forget the demon, fuckwit. Down here. Their curry shit breath stench is making me puke. Get these effing wankers off me now. Got it?’

  The pressure began to lift. Blades whipped left and right above her body. She was sprayed in Galler innards, interestingly smelling less obnoxious than their breath. The rank creatures were dragged from her, run through and cast aside. Cassandra pushed her self up on her elbows. An elven hand reached down to help her up.

  ‘Fuck me, that was close, wasn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Tossers nearly had me, Danerth. Good work. Now let’s finish this bullshit invasion. Keep an eye on the traitor back there. I need to save my scribe. With me?’

  ‘You’d better fucki
ng believe it.’

  They bowed, touching foreheads.

  ‘Slit the bastards from gizzard to bollocks,’ they intoned in the ancient fashion.

  Forty young elven heroes, the entirety of class seven unmasked, charged into the main Vault where Cassandra could hear Grincheux’s warbling voice rising above desultory explosions and the bellows of the enraged Orgascz.

  Grincheux snatched his hand from a book plinth just as it disintegrated. Kettifer’s spell smashed it to shards, incinerating the book and casting priceless, precious heroic deeds into oblivion. Grincheux could hear the words wailing as they were snatched to nowhere.

  ‘No escape, scribe!’ shouted Kettifer. ‘I hear the heavy footsteps of your doom coming to cut you off. Time passes too slowly. Don’t waste your last breaths in a futile attempt to trap me.’

  In the vastness of the Vault, sounds clashed and fought for dominance. Grincheux could hear the thundering footsteps Kettifer had mentioned and they were all too familiar. He could hear the sound of sword on flesh too and that was a little encouraging. And he could hear most loudly of all, his own wheezing breath searching a route from his tortured, fizzing lungs and out through his swollen lips. Time to add to the cacophony. Grincheux turned sharp left and sprinted off towards the centre of the Vault, ducking low. And as he went, he raised his voice as he must.

  ‘“Were I, your scribe, to write these words on uninvested parchment, you would be correctly forthright in your ridicule. However, though I may embellish I may never lie for the spells binding these books recognise untruths and expunge them from the record.”’

  Another black orb missed him by a hair and drove into the base of a plinth. The ancient marble shattered, spilling the book onto the floor. It burst open but did not disgorge its pages. A small mercy amidst terrible desecration. Grincheux increased his pace as best he could.

  ‘“Behind the quadrangle stood a man loved by all in Goedterre. Feted by the Gods is he and one whose soul all believed to be of the purest and kindest. Surely he resided in the pit of evil against his will. Surely a prisoner of the fell creatures that surrounded him.

  ‘“Yet no. O tragic day, o day of desolation and devastation. For it was our own beloved Principal Kettifer who stood there yet these minions of the dark were not his jailors nor his tormentors. They were the honour guard of his personage.”’

  Orgascz appeared in front of him, Krisja, the black axe, held high.

  ‘Oh bugger,’ said Grincheux. ‘Cassandra!’

  Grincheux slithered to a halt and dived to the right. Krisja’s blade split the stone where he had been standing, sending shards of carved granite in every direction. Grincheux felt something rip through the flesh of his calf. He stumbled, rolled and came back to his hands and knees, scrabbling up and running on.

  The sound of his breath was loud in his ears. Every pace sent pains up from the cut in his leg. His lungs were burning and his heart was attempting escape through his ribcage, and would soon be successful, or so it felt. Grincheux forced himself to focus. A black orb droned over his head and ploughed into a line of books. Plinths exploded up and out. Books were set to flame. Words mourned as they died.

  ‘“Cassandra the Swiftblade had no time to grieve the passing of a good soul into night. A towering force amongst the mewling minions of evil. Their best students of the dark arts stood before her and for them, no grace, no mercy would be shown. Fleet as a shadow chased by the sun, she struck. Her blade smote down, rending cursed flesh and laying bare her evil foe…” bugger it again.’

  Grincheux slewed to a halt and turned left, racing away from the hulk of Orgascz once more.

  [Bellow of frustration].

  ‘“And while Cassandra, pure of heart, swift of blade and true of soul, displayed the courage that would mark her a premier hero of Goedterre, I, her scribe did uncover the desperate truth. Sold. The secrets of our heroes past and present. Sold for coin. Sold. The freedom of Goedterre. Sold for nothing when all the riches of the world would be mere pittance against such beauty. Light sold to dark. Hero sold to the grave. And our once beloved Principal stood there the prime benefactor of this most fell of deeds.”’

  Kettifer stepped around a grand-looking plinth, all eagle’s wings and open beaks. His arms were folded but the expression on his face was altogether too confident.

  ‘Stop,’ he said.

  And Grincheux did as if fetching up against a transparent barrier into which he could prod and push but through which he could not pass. He spun around, ready to run clear. But Orgascz was right on him, Krisja again ready to sweep the life from him in a particularly painful manner.

  Grincheux backed into the barrier. Bloodchild’s mouth opened. His fangs dripped drool onto the floor where it spat, hissed and bubbled.

  ‘Scribe have no escape.’

  Grincheux’s smile was thin in the extreme.

  ‘How observant of you.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Kettifer. ‘The foul stench of inevitability.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Grincheux. ‘I’m a little nervous.’

  Orgascz tensed his huge biceps. Krisja was ready. Grincheux sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, sending quiet apology to the population of Goedterre.

  ‘I have failed you all,’ he said.

  He decided that keeping his eyes closed was probably the best tactic. He couldn’t imagine it would ever be a sound plan to see the sharpened metal that was about to end your life. Apparently some people chose to lie face up on the execution block refusing the blindfold. Apparently it was a courageous act. Seemed a bit stupid to Grincheux. It wasn’t like you’d hear the gasping awe of the crowd when the axe had fallen. The bravest thing Grincheux had done was keep his eyes open when he dived into a lake off a high bank once. No one had gasped in awe then either. And it had made his eyes sting.

  A few heartbeats later. Quite a number given the rate of his heart. Quite a few heartbeats later, Grincheux was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was not only still breathing but that his head remained steadfastly attached to his neck. Things were looking up. Even more so when the strangled gurgle of fear he thought to be his own turned out to belong to Orgascz.

  Grincheux opened one eye. And then the other. A figure stood with its back to him. Slender, dressed in grubby shirt and trousers and bleeding from a few places. More importantly, the figure held a blade under Orgascz’s throat. Tall fellow, that Bloodchild and so the figure was stretching a little but the intent was still there.

  ‘Didn’t you know it is against the rules to kill scribes?’ said the figure.

  Grincheux’s whole body flooded with pride. A smile began to spread across his battered face.

  ‘One elf maiden not bring Bloodchild down,’ grunted Orgascz.

  ‘Count again, fiend,’ said Cassandra.

  A forest of blades appeared around Orgascz, each one held by an elf who stepped from the shadows cast by the ranks of books. Grincheux stared hard. He didn’t remember this many elves being inducted into the ranks of student heroes. Actually, he didn’t remember any. And some of them looked strangely familiar, despite the pointy ears, slanty eyes and daft haircuts. One on the right there hadn’t taken all the make-up off his ear.

  ‘Harman?’

  The cheeks of the elf reddened a little.

  ‘Harman He-man the Human?’

  Harman shrugged and blushed scarlet. Cassandra glanced around briefly.

  ‘Is this really a priority?’

  ‘Yes but, why did you all have to wear disguises?’

  ‘Don’t be thick, my scribe. What do you think?’

  Cassandra looked meaningfully past Grincheux. He followed her gaze to where Kettifer stood surrounded by another forest, well more of a spinney, of blades. The Principal was still standing defiant though his eyes betrayed the pain of his capture.

  ‘Ummm.’

  ‘And you questioned my intelligence. Can you not think of one reason why our beloved Principal might change the entrance criteria for the A
cademy and perhaps not encourage elven applications?’

  Cassandra waved her sword at Orgascz. The demon lord growled and flinched. Light dawned.

  ‘Ah. I see.’

  ‘Good. Now, we have work to do.’

  Behind Grincheux, Kettifer scoffed.

  ‘Work as hard as you like. The die is cast.’

  Cassandra jabbed her blade at the Bloodchild once more.

  ‘Get him away from here. His defilement of this sanctuary can no longer be tolerated.’

  ‘Yes, Cassandra,’ said Harman. He and a dozen elves marched Orgascz towards the entrance to the Vault.

  Cassandra stalked over to Kettifer.

  ‘And neither can yours.’

  ‘You are too late,’ said Kettifer and there was genuine sympathy in his tone.

  Cassandra shook her head. ‘You are ignorant of that which is known about the evil perpetrated here. You are ignorant about the number of elves in your own corridors. Even now, our people are ready to move into the pit. Our armies are poised to bolster the borders of Goedterre. The only thing we needed was the name of the mastermind. It is the greatest disappointment that you are that man.’

  Cassandra sighed and her shoulders sagged. Grincheux saw tears standing in her eyes and indeed on the cheeks of some of those elves with their blades to Kettifer’s neck.

  ‘We admired you,’ said Cassandra. ‘For your selfless devotion. Your extraordinary loyalty. For everything you represented to our people. You were the human to whom we all looked for our moral guidance, the one who we wanted our children to emulate. We loved you. Why did you do it? Why did you betray us?’

  The defiance bled from Kettifer like water from a split skin. He pressed his lips together and his head fell to his chest. Cassandra waved a hand and elves led the unresisting Kettifer away. She turned to Grincheux, sheathed her sword and wiped the tears from her face. She forced a smile onto her face.

  ‘You are the true hero here, my scribe. You are the one who led me to the answers we needed. How will you chronicle all of this? Seems to me you need a scribe of your own. Such courage.’