The Laughter of Dark Gods

by David Pringle - (ebook by Undead)

  Sam, left alone, shrugged and studied his ring for a few minutes. Then he blew gently over the inset glass. The shards chimed as if with a hundred tiny voices, and fragments of words could be heard: …snowflake melts… laughter of children…

  Jasper came to the table to collect the discarded tankards. “So no one believes your tall stories, eh, Sam?”

  Sam smiled. “They saw right through me, didn’t they? I’ll just have to try harder. Oh, Jasper—listen, do you know anyone interested in a collection of giant bat droppings? Price negotiable…”

  APPRENTICE LUCK

  by Sean Flynn

  Karl Spielbrunner had been apprenticed to Otto von Stumpf for six months now, more than long enough for him to realize how much he hated the antiquarian book trade. Karl had a fatal combination of vanity, ambition and intelligence, and he knew well enough that unless his luck changed all he had to look forward to was ending up with his own poky little shop, as bent and crabbily reclusive as von Stumpf. Of course, there were far worse fates in Middenheim, the great and terrible City of the White Wolf. If Karl’s dead father—the only family Karl had, apart from some country cousins he had never seen—had not been a drinking companion of von Stumpf s, no doubt Karl would be just another orphan trying to scratch a living on the streets now, a likely victim for drug pushers, racketeers, pimps or cultists.

  Far worse fates, yes, but not by much, Karl thought, as he stood at the dusty window and watched the shabby, narrow street and the occasional passer-by. It was summer, and stiflingly hot in the shop. A fat bluebottle buzzed in one corner of the window; the husks of others were scattered on the leather-bound tomes which leaned against each other in the window.

  There was so much going on in the world, yet Karl was stuck here in charge of a lot of tattered dusty books. A wizard had moved into some rooms down the street, for instance, a tall mysterious foreigner. Some said he was a necromancer; everyone said he was up to no good. And something was rumoured to be stirring in the myriad tunnels that undercut the rock on which the city was founded. The Watch was on maximum alert, and only last night the body of a goat-headed man had been found near one of the main sewer inlets.

  For a moment, Karl saw himself at the head of one of the elite patrols, a grim-faced Watch captain armed with a glittering sword, maybe a decorative scar on one cheek. Then the bluebottle buzzed loudly at the dusty window and Karl’s daydream collapsed stillborn. Musty smell of crumbling paper, shadowy ranks of outdated books looming into shadow: this was his fate. His only consolation was that as usual his master was away at the Wolf’s Grip, the grim little tavern which drained most of the shop’s profits. Otherwise Karl would certainly have been put to some useless task or other, recataloguing stock or sweeping away the sticky cobwebs which festooned the crumbling plaster of the low ceiling—and no doubt von Stumpf would be giving him a lecture in that nagging, whiny voice of his, telling Karl how lucky he was, to be apprentice to the venerable firm of von Stumpf and Son (Karl didn’t know what had happened to the Son, but he guessed that he had run away as soon as he could). And if von Stumpf had been there, Karl wouldn’t have been able to take his chance when his luck suddenly changed.

  It arrived in the unlikely form of Scabby Elsa, a bent, hook-nosed old crone who specialized in reselling rags stripped from the corpses thrown from the Cliff of Sighs. Just as Karl was settling to a forbidden snack of black bread and cheese, she pushed open the door and hobbled laboriously over the uneven floor with something clutched to her shapeless bosom. The bluebottle left off bumbling at the window and spiralled around the greasy shawl wrapped over her head, attracted by the sour, rank stench of her layers of rotting rags.

  “A little something for you, young master,” Scabby Elsa said, and set what she had been carrying on the scarred rubbish-strewn table which served as a counter.

  It was an old, old book, text handwritten in an upright clerkly style on octavo parchment, bound in fine-grained leather with gilt stamping on the spine, the front somewhat buckled and stained. Karl took only a moment to realize it had to be valuable; much as he hated the book trade, he had taken care to pick up the necessary knowledge and tricks. Now it looked as if that care might actually be about to pay off.

  “I’ll take a gold crown for this fellow,” Scabby Elsa said. Her smile revealed blackened gums, and the stench of her breath almost knocked Karl down. “No less, now, but no more either. That’s what I needs, and that’s what I takes.”

  “Ten shillings,” Karl said quickly. “The cover is damaged; no one would offer more.”

  “It fell a long way, like its owner. Lucky it fell on someone else, or it would look a lot worse. Fifteen, then.”

  “Twelve, and that’s my final offer.”

  “Done,” Scabby Elsa said.

  Karl kept what little money he had managed to save tied in a corner of his shirt. He undid the knot and counted out the price. Scabby Elsa scooped up the coins with a surprising deftness and hobbled out of the shop, pursued by the bluebottle, which had fallen in love with her—or at least, with her smell.

  His heart beating quickly and lightly, Karl pulled down the window shades and locked the door.

  With luck von Stumpf wouldn’t be back until at least the end of the afternoon. He had plenty of time to examine his prize.

  The book was a grimoirium, a handbook of magic, and written in old-fashioned but plain language, too, not some kind of code. From the style of binding and the yellowing of the edges of the parchment pages, it had to be at least three hundred years old, from the time of the Wizards’ War perhaps, or even before.

  Karl leafed through crackling pages. A spell of bafflement. A spell of binding. Hmmm. He would take it to the shop of Hieronymus Neugierde, the largest antiquarian shop in the city. He was bound to get the best price there… maybe enough to escape his apprenticeship.

  Karl began to examine the book more closely. He would need to know as much as he could to get the right price. He realized with a start that the leather cover was not made of tanned animal hide, but human skin; he could make out the pores, even little hairs. It felt clammy to his fingertips, as if somehow still alive.

  He opened the book again and laid it face down, peered down the spine; there were often clues about a book’s origin and age to be found in the binding sheets. Sure enough, there was a scrap of paper inserted there. When Karl fished it out, an insect, a shiny-backed beetle, came with it, scurrying across the table and falling to the floor before Karl could crush it.

  Some kind of map had been drawn on the scrap of paper, the ink fresh and no use in dating the book. All the same it was interesting, a carefully marked route snaked through intricately labyrinthine passages, avoiding all sorts of traps and deadfalls and pits, to a sealed chamber marked with a single word written in red. A treasure map, maybe, although there was no indication of what the treasure was.

  Karl studied it for a long time before he realized that it must be a map of part of the system of tunnels which the dwarfs had long ago cut through the rock on which the city stood. When he had riddled all he could, he put it in his pocket, then went into the back room where he slept and hid the book under his pillow. He would examine it further tonight, and tomorrow sell it for the best price he could, then thumb his nose at von Stumpf and live the way he wanted, not at the old fool’s beck and call. He might even be able to sell the treasure map to some gullible adventurer—and there was no shortage of such people in the city—foolish enough to venture into the dangerous tunnels beneath the city.

  Karl was thinking of all he could do with a pocketful of gold crowns as he let up the blinds. And then he jumped back in shock. The foreign wizard was peering through the dusty glass, his face only inches away from Karl’s own. When he saw Karl he straightened up and pushed at the door, and although Karl hadn’t unlocked it, the door opened at once.

  “I am looking for a book,” the wizard said.

  “Well, we have all sorts of books, sire.” Karl’s mouth was dry. The wiza
rd was very tall, and despite the summer heat wore a sweeping black cloak its red lining embroidered with all manner of weird signs of power. His face was long and white, framed by untidy black hair and a black beard. A pair of small round spectacles perched on the end of his long nose; they magnified the wizard’s fierce blue eyes as he peered down at Karl.

  “A very particular book. A book that may have been brought to you, or may be about to be brought to you. A large handwritten volume, with an unusual binding. I will pay very well for such a book.”

  “You would have to speak to my master,” Karl managed to say. He was thinking furiously. If the wizard wanted the book then it was even more valuable than it looked, and he would certainly get a better price at Neugierde’s than from this itinerant hedge-wizard.

  “Your master, eh?” The wizard drew himself up. He was so tall that his head almost brushed the cobwebby rafters of the ceiling. “Very well. You give no choice but that I come back. I hope your master will be more helpful. I will call again tomorrow. And remember this, young man.”

  The cloak flew up and Karl jumped back, but the wizard was too quick. His cold hand fastened around Karl’s wrist, pulled. Then Karl was leaning half across the table, his face only inches away from the wizard’s.

  “Remember this,” the wizard said, softly.

  “I don’t forget anything,” Karl managed to say. He met the wizard’s gaze, trying not to be intimidated. But there was an odd tingling between his eyes, as if he was about to cry, and after a moment he had to look away.

  “Things may be more than they seem, or less.” The wizard let go of Karl’s wrist, drew his cloak around himself. “Good day to you, young man, and good luck.”

  Somehow, Karl managed to behave as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened when Otto von Stumpf came back in the evening, although the old man had drunk so much of the Wolfs Grip’s vinegary ale that he probably wouldn’t have noticed if Karl had grown another head. After a meagre supper of boiled barley flavoured with fatty scraps of mutton, von Stumpf had Karl help him up the winding stairs to the filthy garret where he slept. Then Karl curled up on the mattress in the stockroom behind the shop and gloated over the book and the map by the light of a tallow candle. But it had been a long day, and soon enough he fell asleep.

  He woke with a start to moonlight falling through the room’s only window, thinking someone had touched him on the hand. But it was only a beetle clambering over the hollow of his palm, its antennae waving furiously. Karl flicked the insect away, and then realized with alarm that the book was gone.

  He managed to get the candle lit, and saw that the book was lying in the curtained doorway between the shop and the stockroom. Shadows seemed to scatter from it as he went over and bent to pick it up. Nervous, and fully awake, Karl went into the shop and listened at the crooked stairs that led up to von Stumpf’s garret, and grinned when he heard the old man’s rasping snore. Still befuddled by sleep, Karl was about to go back to bed when he happened to glance out of the window and saw a black-cloaked figure moving past, towards the door. It was the wizard.

  In an instant, Karl was through the back room, fumbling at the bolts of the door to the yard. He managed to get it open just as the lock of the shop’s door sprang with a heart-stopping click. And then he was over the wall of the yard, almost falling on top of the figure that stood in the alley below.

  For an instant, Karl thought that the wizard, who obviously had found out about the book, had somehow magicked himself from one side of the building to the other. But then the man pushed back his hood and said, “Come with me—be quick now.”

  Karl was about to ask who the stranger was and why he should follow him when an eerie blue light flared on the other side of the wall. Without a further thought he took to his heels, clutching the book to his chest.

  The stranger ran as though his feet were skimming an inch above the cobbles, his cloak streaming behind him. After dodging through the alleys, they came out on the bustling Burgen Bahn, where bands of students roved noisily among crowds of ordinary citizens. By this time Karl was panting hard, but the stranger hardly seemed to be breathing at all. His eyes glittered as he looked about alertly, one hand on the hilt of a long sword; he was a young, smooth-skinned and handsome man wearing baggy corduroy trews and an embroidered leather vest under the cloak—curious, old-fashioned clothes. Seemingly satisfied that they weren’t being pursued, he turned and looked down at Karl, who shrank a little under that glittering unforgiving gaze.

  “You have what we came to take back,” the swordsman said. He had an odd, harshly buzzing accent, probably from some country district or other. That would explain the old-fashioned cut of his clothes, too.

  “If you mean the book I came by it fairly. I’m a bookseller, and I bought it,” Karl said, more defiantly than he felt. After all, he was telling the truth. More or less the truth.

  “We pay,” the swordsman said, “even though it was stolen from us.” He effortlessly plucked the book from Karl’s grasp, then dropped a heavy drawstring purse to the ground. Karl pulled the purse open as the swordsman paged through the book, and gasped when he saw that it was crammed full of gold. Then his gasp turned to a frightened squeak as the swordsman grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him clear off the ground. “The map,” the swordsman said, his face inches from Karl’s own. His breath was sharply acid, and his eyes glittered crazily in the light of a nearby streetlamp. “We want the map.”

  “Put me down and I’ll tell you where it is,” Karl managed to gasp, and then his heels struck the pavement hard as the swordsman let go. Karl tugged at his dishevelled shirt, hotly aware of the group of students who had turned to snigger at this contretemps.

  “Where?” the swordsman said.

  “Back at the shop,” Karl lied, knowing it was in his pocket. He had seen an opportunity to make even more money, enough to set him up for life, maybe. A purse full of gold could be spent in a night, if you were foolish enough. But if the map led to buried treasure, and there were legends of all sorts of dwarfish hoards hidden in the catacombs and corridors of the city beneath the city, then anything was possible. And although Karl was clever, he was also inexperienced enough to harbour the belief that no matter what, he wasn’t anywhere near to dying.

  So he added quickly, “But we don’t have to go back there, and face that wizard. He was the one who stole the book from you, wasn’t he?”

  “His apprentice,” the swordsman admitted. “We nearly caught him, but he jumped over the edge of the Cliff of Sighs, and when we got down amongst the trees and found his body, the book was gone.”

  “But now you have the book, and fortunately for you, I am at your service. I found the map and looked at it long enough to memorize it.” This was the truth; Karl had an exceptional memory for things that might be useful to him. He said, with more confidence than he felt, “I can take you past the traps, lead you to the treasure, once we are close enough.”

  “Treasure,” the swordsman said. “You wish to share this treasure.”

  “Let’s call it a finder’s fee.”

  The swordsman closed his eyes and began to mutter to himself—or more precisely, buzz and chatter in his odd dialect. Obviously he was thinking hard, and obviously thinking hard did not come easily. At last he said, “We are agreed, then. You help, for a fee.”

  “On your word that you will give me ten per cent of what we find, and not harm me in any way?” Karl said, as steadily as he could.

  “We give our word,” the swordsman said, with an alacrity that made Karl wish he had asked for fifteen, or even twenty per cent. He added, “Now you will lead us to the nearest entrance to the sewers, where we will begin our journey.”

  Karl smiled. “It’s easy to see you’re a stranger to the city. The main sewer entrances are guarded by the City Watch. Even a swordsman like yourself will not be able to outfight the Watch. Er, what is your name, anyhow?”

  “You may call us Argo.”

  “Well, I’m
Karl. But don’t worry, I know another way, although you may have to pay a kind of admission fee. There’s a tavern down in the Ostwald district, the Drowned Rat, which has a way into the sewers in its cellar. You just have to pay the landlord, that’s all.”

  “You have all the money, now.”

  “Do I? Oh, I see. Well, I suppose it is a kind of investment. Come on then, Argo. The place I’m thinking of is on the other side of the city.”

  Karl wasn’t as confident as he had sounded. He knew about the Drowned Rat and its secret passages into the sewer network only by rumour, and he had made up the story about the entrance fee on the spot. As he and the swordsman made their way deeper into the narrow streets of Ostwald, what little confidence Karl had soon evaporated.

  There were no streetlights in the Ostwald district, and the mean, crowded streets were illuminated only by what light fell through heavily curtained windows, or the red flames of torches a few people carried. Karl kept as close to the swordsman as he could—not an easy task, because the man strode along at a rapid pace, the darkness and the ill-favoured crowds slowing him down not at all.

  There were probably no more drunks here than along the Burgen Bahn, but while on that prosperous street drunkenness was merely the end result of too much high spirits, here it was due to a kind of savage desperation. Men far gone in their cups staggered along shouting curses at the world in general, and from more than one alley came the noises of fighting. Beggars with every kind of disfigurement and disease bawled out for alms, ignored by the poorly-dressed labourers and better-dressed thieves alike, their cries scarcely louder than the shrill cries of the whores who shouted down at potential clients from upper-storey windows of the close-packed timber-framed buildings.

  Karl looked for the sign of the Drowned Rat with increasing desperation. For all his pretended knowledge of the city, he had rarely been in the Ostwald district, and didn’t like it. He wanted nothing more than to find the tavern and get into the sewers beneath these dangerous streets, forgetting for the moment how much more dangerous the sewers could be. But when at last he did spy the sign, the last of his confidence seemed to ooze from the soles of his boots.