Wistril Compleat

by Frank Tuttle

  Finally, here are some excerpts for you to enjoy...

  DEAD MAN'S RAIN

  Markhat is a finder, charged with the post-war task of tracking down sons and fathers gone suddenly missing when an outbreak of peace left the army abandoned where they stood. But now it's ten years after the war, and all Markhat is finding these days is trouble.

  This time, trouble comes in the form of a rich widow with a problem. Her dearly departed husband, Ebed Merlat, keeps ambling back from the grave for terrifying nocturnal visits. Markhat saw numerous horrors during the war, but he's never seen anyone, rich or poor, rise from the grave and go tromping around their old haunts. But for the right price, Markhat is willing to have a look.

  As a storm gathers and night falls, Markhat finds darker things than even murder lurking amid the shadows of House Merlat.

  Enjoy the following excerpt from "Dead Man's Rain!

  DEAD MAN'S RAIN

  copyright 2008 Frank Tuttle

  Noon found me standing at the edge of a fresh-dug grave. Sunlight mocked and set the blue-jays to singing but couldn't quite reach the Sarge's casket, no matter how hard the sun shone. I crumbled a damp clod of earth, let it fall.

  We'd lived through the War, the Sarge and I. Lived through the three-month siege at Ghant. Lived through the fall of Little Illa. Lived through two years in the swamps. I'd once seen the Sarge snatch an arrow out of the air and shove it in a charging Troll's eye, and now he was dead after slipping and falling in a public bath.

  "Bye, Sarge," I said. "You deserved better."

  I met an Orthodox priest as I walked away. He dipped his red mask in greeting and slowed to a traipse, but I fixed my eyes on a big old pin oak and marched past. I'd said all my words, and had no use for his.

  I was halfway to the cemetery gates when Mama Hog stepped out of the shadow of a poor man's head-stone and planted herself squat and square in my path. And that's when it started. I knew before she spoke what she was going to say. And I knew that I should just keep walking, ignoring her like I did the priest, ignoring everything and everybody except a bar-keep named One-Eyed Eddie and his endless supply of tall, cold glasses. The Sarge was dead and I turned forty with the sunrise and the Hell with everything else.

  But I stopped. "What is it, Mama?" I said, gazing out over the neat, still ranks of sad-eyed angels and tall white grave-wards. "Come to pick out a spot?"

  Mama grinned up at me with all three of her best teeth.

  "Come to find you, boy," she said. "Come to send you some business."

  "The only kind of business I need now is the kind Eddie runs," I said. "Anything else can wait."

  Mama frowned. "This ain't any old business," she said, shaking a stubby finger at my navel. "This is Hill business." Behind us, the first spade of dirt hit the Sarge's coffin with a muted, faraway thump.

  "Hill business," I said. "One of your rich ladies need a finder?"

  Mama's card-and-potion shop does a brisk business in sleek black carriages that hurry to her curb and disgorge Hill ladies wrapped in more cloaks and veils than the weather truly demands. I don't know how Mama attracts such well-heeled clients, but she does, and more than twice a week.

  Mama Hog cackled. "Rich widow, boy. Rich widow." She grinned and shook her head. "She needs more than a finder, I reckon, but you're the best I can do."

  The thump-thumps of earth on coffin came faster now. I squinted toward the gate, not wanting the Sarge's widow to catch me in the graveyard. Outsiders aren't welcome at Orthodox funerals, and the service would begin as soon as the coffin-lid was fully covered with earth.

  I sighed. "Let's walk, Mama," I said. "You can tell me on the way."

  Thump-thump. Another shovel rose and fell.

  "He was a good man, your Sergeant," said Mama. She fell in step beside me. "No words taste more bitter than goodbye."

  "Tell me about my new client, Mama," I said. "What's her name, how high up the Hill is her house, and what does she want me to do about her dear sweet Nephew Pewsey and that awful conniving gypsy girl?"

  Mama Hog chuckled. "Her name," she said, "is Merlat."

  Behind us, after a while, I heard the Sarge's widow start to cry.

  THE MISTER TROPHY

  "We seek the finder named Markhat," boomed the Troll.

  And that's when Markhat's troubles begin, right there in One-eyed Eddie's unfortunately named Dead Troll Tavern. Three Troll warriors have traveled all the way across the magic-blasted Wastes in search of something, and now Mama Hog has told them only the dauntless finder named Markhat can lead the Trolls to that which they seek.

  Now Markhat is trapped between the powerful Dark Houses of the halfdead and three determined Trolls.

  THE MISTER TROPHY

  Copyright 2008 Frank Tuttle

  "Somebody sicced a Troll army on me, Mama," I said. "I'm betting it was you." No one but Mama knew my haunts that well.

  Mama Hog grinned. "The Walking Stone found you, did he?"

  "He did," I said. "And his friends." Mama motioned me inside. I went, and she shut the door.

  "Smells like you're brewing up something special, Mama," I said, while she settled her stooped old bones into a chair and motioned for me to be seated as well. "Wouldn't be Troll after-shave, would it?"

  "Might be a drought to shut smart mouths," said Mama, brushing a tangle of matted grey hair out of her face. "Then where would you be, boy?"

  "Out of work." I shoved the owl aside and picked up a worn deck of fortune cards.

  "What's in my future, Mama?" I asked. "Trolls? Gold? Angry vampire hordes?"

  The old lady snorted. "The halfdead are no joke, boy," she said. Her eyes might be old, but they're sharp as knife-points, and they glittered. "No joke."

  I plopped down a card. "Neither are Trolls, Mama," I said. "This bunch might wind up losing their tempers. Soon."

  "They might," said Mama Hog, her voice softening, losing some of the old-hag put-on rasp. "Certainly so, if they find that which they seek."

  I threw down another card. "So you know?"

  "I know."

  "They tell you?"

  "They told me."

  I shuffled, cut, tossed down a card. "So who else knows? Eddie? The Watch? Who?"

  Mama Hog smiled and scooped up the three cards I'd tossed out. "No one else knows," she said. "I told them to trust you, and only you."

  "You told them that? Mama, why in the Nine High Heavens did you tell them that?"

  "Your fate and their task meet now, Finder," she said, her eyes bright and hard in the candlelight. "Meet, and mingle, and merge."

  "Drop the carnival sooth-sayer act, Mama," I said. "It won't wash with me."

  She slammed a card--one of my three cards--down on the table, face up in the flickering light.

  I could just make out the worn, faded image of a man running away, a sack slung over his shoulder. Coins dribbled out of a tear in the sack.

  "Greed," said Mama Hog. "Flight. Abandonment. How much can they pay you for your soul, Finder?"

  "I don't know, Mama," I said. "How much do you charge for fate?"

  The second card went down. Crossed daggers glinted against a half-full moon. "Vengeance," hissed Mama Hog. "How many lives will you waste to avenge a single death?"

  "Six," I snapped. "Maybe five, if it's wash day."

  The third card hit the table. On it a skeletal hand beckoned, bony forefinger crooked in invitation.

  "Death," I said, standing. "Even I know that one. Death, the Final Dancer, the Last Guy You'll Ever See and Boy Will You Hope There's Been a Mistake."

  Mama Hog stood as well. "Jest if you will, Finder," she said. "But take care. You stand at a crossroads. One way leads to the dark."

  "How much do I owe you, Mama?"

  Mama Hog went stiff. All four feet of her puffed up and for a moment I honest to gods thought she was going to slap me. Then she let out her breath in a whoosh and broke into chuckles.

  "No charge to neighbors," she said. "Even disres
pectful unbelieving smart-mouthed jackanapes who don't know their friends from their boot-heels."

  "My friends don't usually send feuding Trolls to my door, Mama."

  "This one did," she replied. "Now get out. I've got an appointment."

  I stomped blinking into the street, telling myself that Mama's cards were just so much tattered pasteboard and third-rate flummery.

  The street stank, and in the absence of my Troll friends, it bustled. Wagons creaked, carriage drivers cussed, horses snorted, and everywhere people rushed back and forth, hurrying against the daylight so the night people could have the city by night.

  A man passed in front of me, a sack slung over his shoulder, just like on Mama's card.

  I fell in step behind him all the way to Haverlock.

  HOLD THE DARK

  Quiet, hard-working seamstresses aren't the kind that normally go missing, even in a tough town like Rannit. Martha Hoobin's disappearance, though, quickly draws Markhat into a deadly struggle between a halfdead blood cult and the infamous sorcerer known only as the Corpsemaster.

  A powerful magical artifact may be both his only hope of survival-and the source of his own inescapable damnation.

  Markat's search leads him to the one thing that's been missing in his life But even love may not save him from the darkness a strange magic has unleashed inside his own soul.

  Enjoy the following excerpt from "Hold the Dark!"

  HOLD THE DARK

  copyright 2008 Frank Tuttle

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  I jumped, spilled warm beer and felt my head begin to throb.

  Mama's voice rang out. She tried the latch, cussed and shoved hard at the door.

  I threw the bottle in the trash bucket and managed to get out of my chair and to the door before Mama broke it down.

  "I'm coming, I'm coming," I said, fumbling with the latch. The daylight through my bubbled-glass door-pane was faint and yellow, more blush of dawn than actual morning. I yanked the door open. "Damn, Mama, it's barely daylight-"

  She pushed her way in beside me. The look on her face-it's never a good look, mind you-was worried and grim and if I didn't know her better I'd say it was frantic. "Boy," she said, huffing and puffing. "Boy, where you been?"

  I shut the door.

  "Right here sleeping. Why? Where's the fire?" She fell heavily into my client's chair, her hands tight around the neck of that big burlap sack she sometimes carries. Once she let a little snake crawl out of it and get loose on my desk. I'd told her to leave it at her place from then on. "You ain't been here all night." She opened the bag and started rummaging around inside it as she spoke, and I got that lifted-hair-on-the-back-of-my-neck feeling I'd always gotten when the Army sorcerer corps had aimed new hexes at us troops.

  "Whoa," I said, harder and louder than I meant to. "You got mojo in that sack, Mama, you'd damn well better leave it there. I took hexes in the Army because I had to, and you've slipped a few on me because I didn't see them coming. But hear this, Mama Hog. No hexes. Not today. Got it?"M

  She clamped her jaw and met my stare. I could see her hands moving, see the beginning of a word form on her lips.

  Then she sagged and let out her breath.

  "Wouldn't do no good anyhow." She pulled her hands out of the bag and tied it shut with a scrap of twine. "Wouldn't do no good." When she looked back up at me, she had tears in her eyes.

  "Mama, I didn't mean-"

  "Ain't you, boy. Ain't nothin' you said. Ain't nothin' you done."

  My head pounded. I took a deep breath and ran fingers through my hair, which was wild and stiff and probably bleached white from Mama's soap. "What is it, then? What's got you so upset?"

  "I seen something. Last night. I seen something bad."

  "I thought your cards were clueless where Martha was concerned."

  "Wasn't about Martha." She wiped her eyes and leaned close. "Was about you."

  "Tell me."

  She shook her head. "No, I can't tell. Can't tell 'cause I still can't see real clear." She shuffled in her seat, and I knew I'd caught her in a lie.

  "Tell me what you can."

  "Cards. Glass. Smoke. Bones. All come up death, boy. I called your name and a whippoorwill answered. I burned your hair and saw the ashes scatter. I caught blood on a silver needle and saw it turn toward your door." She shivered, and her eyes looked tired. "Ain't never seen all them things. Not the same night. And then, when I saw them dogs tearin' at your clothes-well, I thought you was dead for sure."

  "I'm not surprised. I came pretty close, just after midnight. Maybe that's what you saw."

  She shook her head. "I reckon not. Something still ain't right about all this, boy. I oughtn't to be seeing some things I see, and ought to see things I don't. We got a sayin' in Pot Lockney-it's them things under the water what makes the river wild. Somethin's messing up my sight on this. You reckon you know what it might be?"

  I shook my head. I had suspicions, but they weren't for anyone but Evis to hear.

  "I don't know, Mama, but I will tell you this. The Houses are mixed up in this, somehow."

  She snorted. "Figured that."

  "Maybe not that way. At least not all of them." I gave her just enough of the night's festivities to steer the Watch and the Hoobins toward Avalante, should I have a fatal boating accident in the next few days.

  None of that helped her state of agitation. "Running around after Curfew with vampires?" she shouted. "Boy, have you hit your fool head?"

  I had to agree, at least partly. But I'd lived. Thanks partly to Evis, who was probably pacing anxiously in a well-appointed crypt across the river.

  "Look, Mama, I've got to go. But there's something you can do. For me. Maybe for Martha."

  She gave me a sideways look, nodded.

  "I'll need a hex. A paper hex. Something I can tear. Something you'll know I've torn, just as soon as I've torn it. From twenty, thirty blocks away. Can you do that?"

  She frowned. "I reckon."

  "Good. And I'll need you to talk to Ethel. I need you to tell him we may need men to get Martha. Men who'll break Curfew. Men who'll fight. Men who'll keep their mouths shut."

  "How many?"

  "All you can get." I was hoping for fifty.

  Mama nodded. "You think you know where Martha Hoobin is?"

  "Not yet. But when I find out, we won't have much time. She's got maybe four days left. That's all." A thought struck me, and I held up my hand to silence Mama's unspoken question. "Humor me, Mama. What's special about the night four days from now?"

  She frowned. "Special what?"

  "I mean is it some old rite of spring or solstice or something. Is there going to be an eclipse? Will the skies turn blood red and rain frogs-that kind of thing?"

  "Nothing special about it at all. It's Thursday. There's a new moon. Might rain."

  "That's it," I said, aloud. "New moon. No moon. Darkest night of the month."

  Vampire picnic day.

  Mama saw, and the same thought occurred to her.

  "Damn, boy," she piped. "I done told you I seen death! Death on your name. Death on your blood. Don't none of that mean nothin' to you?"

  I rose. "It does. But look again. You see me telling Ethel Hoobin I quit? You see me leaving Martha Hoobin at the mercy of those who have her? You see me just walking away?"

  She gathered her bag. She rose, and she was crying when she hit the door.

  I sat. "Whippoorwills," I said, to my empty chair. "There aren't any whippoorwills in Rannit. Haven't been in years."

  None sang. Ogres huffed and doors began to open and slam outside and old Mr. Bull's broom started its daily scritch-scritch on his pitiful small stoop. Rannit came to life, sans portents and whippoorwills, vampires and doomsayers. I listened for a while and then got up, combed my hair and headed across town to speak with Evis about corpses, new moons and ensorcelled silver combs.

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