The Incompleat Nifft

by Michael Shea

  More than one observer has remarked on the great number of subworld portals to be found in Kairnheim. Some—like Stalwart's Quarry—resemble Darkvent in having been opened by human inadvertence, but far more have appeared with ominous spontaneity, unlocked by earthquake, erosion, and even lightning. The speculation that a zone of extraordinary demon vitality underlies the continent, while doubtless correct, misses the heart of the matter. For surely, centuries of haphazard and indiscriminate invocations of demonic power by the Kairns have had the effect of concentrating the ever-alert malevolence of the subworlds beneath their land. The Kairns lack any coherent thaumaturgical tradition, oral or written. Impetuous and ill-informed, they offer a ready market for the services of third-rate mages and unscrupulous spell-brokers, such as are now to be found in great numbers in the Shormuth region. Such "wizardlets" command powers sufficient to tap demonic forces, but inadequate to ensure the mastery of them. In essence, the true demon highways to man's world lie through man's spirit; to yearn for destructive power is to open a gate to the subworlds, and from this we must conclude that the very foundation stone of Kairnheim is by now vermiculate with the hellish traffic that her people have kept so steadily aflowing.

  The manuscript of this narrative is in Nifft's own hand. He himself told me he felt a particular responsibility to undertake the labor of writing it, as an act of homage to Gildmirth, for whom he conceived an abiding affection and regard. The Privateer surely merits some particular comment. His birthplace—Sordon Head, on Kolodria's southern coast—is as rich and empire-inclined a city now as it was when he swindled it three hundred years ago to finance his journey to the Demon Sea. Indeed, Gildmirth's ploy proves him a native son, both in his cunning and his venturesome greed, for Sordonite policy has always leaned as heavily on deception to gain its ends as on the strength of its navy. Many writers have held its people's ruthless duplicity to be a shade more (or less) than human, and subscribed to the legend that there is demon blood in the population. There is little more than the city's proximity to Taarg Vortex—the subworld marine portal down which Gildmirth escaped his enraged fellow citizens—to support this tradition. More probable is the rumor that many Sordonite families have close ties with the formidable wizards of the Astrygal Chain southwest of the Great Shallows. Gildmirth, at least, almost certainly enjoyed such connections, for it is unlikely he could have obtained his shape-shifting powers in any other place.

  —Shag Margold

  The Fishing of the

  Demon-Sea

  I

  JUST AFTER DAWN, they buckled us into the strappadoes. The mechanism is fairly simple. Your wrists and ankles are pulled toward the four corners of the upright frame, and you're splayed in the center like a moth in a web. Each machine has three executioners. Two work the winches until all the joints in your body are pulled apart. The third has a long-handled pruning scissors for starting the cuts around your separated joints. Then the winchmen go to work again, to tear you apart at the cuts. They alternate. It's considered good winch-and-scissors work when your trunk falls all at once out of the splayed rack of your limbs. They don't like thieves in Kine Gather.

  The strappadoes were set up in the courtyard of the Rod-Master of Kine Gather. This was a place as big as a town square, for the Rod-Master was a man of vast wealth. In this he was like his city, which was why we had come there. As for the foundation of that wealth, it was obvious to anyone with a nose. Even within those mosaicked walls, among those flagstoned promenades with their potted cedars and urns of flowers, you could smell the dung and horses' stale that laced the morning air. The aroma might have come from any of the corrals and stockyards around the city, or it might have come from the thousands of citizens themselves who waited in the courtyard, chatting pleasantly, to see us die.

  Frankly, I was in a rotten mood. I saw no way out of this. The order would be given at the first rays of sun that entered the courtyard, and the east was already well ablaze. The bailiff climbed onto the platform we were strung up on. He undid a scroll, and read aloud from it in a mellow voice, which the crowd fell silent to hear:

  "The good and great lord Kamin, Rod-Master of Kine Gather, conveys herewith his judgment to Nifft the Northron, known also as Nifft the Lean and Nifft the Nimble, and to Barnar the Chilite, called Barnar Ox-back and Barnar Hammer-hand. This is the judgment of lord Kamin: that you are both egregious felons, remorseless reprobates, and sneaking thieves; that you have entered the city of Kine Gather, and moved through the bailiwicks thereof, in pursuit of criminal aims; that you were taken in possession of a tool of criminal thaumaturgy; that you have merited death. You are permitted final remarks. Do you wish to say something?"

  "I wish to say three things," I answered.

  "Speak them," said the bailiff.

  "First," I cried, "I wish to express my regret that I did not have more than a week in this city, for then I could have given all you Kine-men bigger horns than your cattle have. Alas, I have cuckolded scarcely more than a dozen of you. I would have worked faster, but you Kine-women smell so much like stockyards that I could only stand to serve two or three of you a day."

  Nobody in the audience seemed to like this much, but on the other hand, they didn't get very excited either. Justice is harsh there, and they're probably old hands at hearing last remarks.

  "Secondly," I said, "I want to share with you all my conviction that the good and great lord Kamin is a wart-peckered, dung-munching cretin whose great wealth is a ludicrous accident, whose only talent is for vigorous self-abuse (with either hand), and all of whose living relatives resemble toads so strongly that I wonder they can look at each other with straight faces."

  They seemed to enjoy this somewhat more. Here and there, amplifications were gleefully shouted. They are a tough folk, law-abiding, but not overawed by authority. In fact, they're not hard to like—for somebody in freer circumstances, that is.

  "Thirdly," I said, "let me convey my fascination with Kine Gather as a whole. I would not have believed so large a city could be built up from nothing more than cow-flop and clods!"

  This made some of them mad. The town has great municipal spirit. I had the sour satisfaction of rasping some of them, however slightly. It was small comfort but I made the most of it. Barnar said he wished to make two last remarks. The Bailiff told him to proceed. My friend produced an epic flatulence, after which he spat on the stage voluminously, making the bailiff hop to save his boots. The edge of the sun topped the courtyard wall, and flung its rays like lances in our faces. The bailiff raised his hand. At just that moment a herald burst from the big two-va1ved door in Kamin's manse at the farthest end of the courtyard.

  The timing told me the whole tale in a heartbeat. That the herald should burst out at precisely the last instant, crying, "Hold! Kamin bids their death be stayed!"—it was just too stagy. It was theatrics, and for whose benefit but our own? Kamin required some service, hard and dangerous, which we were intended to welcome in preference to this harrowing alternative.

  II

  Rod-Master Kamin was a big, florid man. He surely did like theatrics. He was sitting on the chair of office in his receiving chamber, wearing a brocaded robe and several fillets of braided gold whose ends, trailing on his shoulders, made me think of the relaxed ruff on a fighting cock. He sat, grand and awful, till enough of the townsfolk had filtered in to provide an audience sufficient to witness the majesty of his rising up. Then Kamin, Rod-Master of Kine Gather, stood.

  When this imposing spectacle had transpired, and a suitable pause had been allowed for a hush to fall on the assembly, Kamin spoke to Barnar and me—or rather, spoke down upon us in a ringing voice that addressed everyone: "Outlanders, hear me! Your guilt remains, and yet your lives are spared. This decision is not motivated by spinsterish sentiment. Your treacherous skills, your skulking cunning are needed to save a life far worthier than both of yours combined. Are you prepared to purchase your lives with your daring?"

  Oh, he mouthed us roundly indeed! I
wondered if my remarks about him had been conveyed to his sanctum. Surely not, I decided. Underlings are not so frank with a self-loving master. I made him an impeccable bow, which caused my chains to rattle.

  "As for daring, Rod-Master, we dare such things as poor, foolish mortals must to make their way in the world. Concerning purchases, a man may ask to hear the price before he says yes or no—whatever he may be buying."

  Oddly, Kamin seemed caught off guard by this demand. Could he have expected anyone to be so cowed by his dramatics that they'd take his deal without hearing it? A man too ignorant to know that there are many things in the world worse than death on the strappadoe is not likely to be a very useful man on a difficult exploit.

  But Kamin's jaw made a brief, dazed movement when he heard my answer, and I read a quick, unmistakable fear in his eyes that he was going to fail to enlist us. He recovered himself by scowling.

  "You will be instructed in this tragedy by one whose hands are red with the guilt of it. He is one who will pay a dreadful price if . . . if this is not made well. Go to Charnall now! You will be brought back to Council to give your answer."

  As we were marched down a corridor that led to a staircase, Barnar murmured to me:

  "He was afraid we'd turn him down. It's an ugly job he wants done, Nifft."

  There seemed little doubt of that. We were led into a wing of the manse. We mounted to the third floor, and were passed through a stout door with a double guard outside and another inside. A gaunt, balding man nodded at us from a table where he sat devouring breakfast. This was surely he of the guilt-red hands, though all he had on them at the moment was fish grease and breadcrumbs. There were a lot of these on the table too. Charnall was narrow all the way down, and ate like two men. The type is not uncommon. He had on a costly but untidy and very well worn tunic. His short beard, and the grey hair on the back of his head, had a tattered, plucked-at look. His eyes were intelligent, but with a tendency to go out of focus. He struck me as bookish, somehow.

  The leader of our guard told Charnall to stop eating.

  "Just finishing!" he gasped. He swept the rest of the bread and fish into his face. Then he stood up licking his lips, dusting his hands. The thin comfort of breakfast was behind him now, and regretfully he focused on his situation, and us. He was a man profoundly depressed by his situation—you could see it in the way his shoulders sank as his mind ran over the information he was commanded to give us. Withal, he had the self-possession to recall what our morning had been. He pulled out his stool from the table for me, and motioned Barnar to sit on his cot. He dusted off his table and sat on this, his long legs almost reaching the floor. He folded his hands on his lap and scowled at them for a moment. Then he looked up and said: "You are Nifft the Lean, of Karkhman-Ra. You are Barnar Ox-back, a Chilite. I am Charnall of Farther Kornuvia.

  "You are men at the top of your profession, and in all natural skills of wit and hand you are known masters throughout the Sea of Agon, and even in the western waters. I am a man mediocre in his profession, though it is a greater one. I am a student of the lore of Power. I have encompassed certain tracts of dark knowledge. I know enough to buy wisely from true sorcerers. So much for our resources, gentlemen. They would be considerable for any sane task. Our task is not sane. Our task is impossible. And yet, I will tell you that I have conceived a glimmering of hope. Can you believe it? So intractable is human folly, so . . ."

  "I beg your pardon, Lore-Master Charnall," my friend said. "You've had a chance to get used to the facts of the case, and we'd like to get past the shock of them too. It's been a racking morning. Can't you begin with the gist?"

  Charnall bowed ironically to Barnar. "You're right of course. You two will be bearing the brunt of it, after all. My life will ride on yours, so our risk is equal, but you will be the ones below—ah! Forgive me. The task is this: to bring a demon's captive back from where he lies, down in the primary subworld. The captive is a youth, Wimfort. He is the Rod-Master's only son, and my own erstwhile . . . employer. It happens we know, very generally, where the boy lies. We are lucky in the certainty, but unlucky in the place. You see, Wimfort summoned a bonshad. That's what took him. Bonshads are aquatic entities you see. . . ."

  Charnall looked at us with raised brows. Barnar nodded slowly.

  "I think I do see. The boy lies somewhere in the Demon-Sea."

  III

  Charnall showed us a miniature portrait of Wimfort which belonged to his father. The Rod-Master's son was a handsome lad of sixteen. The artist's rendering of his bright, scornful eyes, and saucy tilt of chin, harmonized with the story Charnall gave us of him. The box of wrought gold that contained the picture supported another part of the tale—discreetly touched on, since Kamin's men were in the room—namely, the doting indulgence of the father toward the son.

  For the past three years, young Wimfort had enjoyed so ample a competence from his parent, that he'd been able to buy his way deep into the mysteries of the arts of Power. He purchased no real understanding, of course, for that's bought by the coin of toil and thought. But he hired Charnall, and read smatteringly such texts as the scholar directed him to. He also employed his "tutor" in obtaining texts which he knew of from other sources. Many of these Charnall would not have recommended to one so young and light of will, but he was as compliant as his principles allowed him to be. He couldn't have earned half so much in the Kornuvian academy where Wimfort's agents had found him. Nonetheless, he had repeatedly to throw the boy into a tantrum by flat refusals of his aid in various dangerous directions.

  Wimfort always yielded the point after such clashes. He would tolerate no program or plan of study, but he had gained some sense of the endless interlinkages connecting all aspects of the wizardly art. He was stubborn. Charnall guessed that when he gave in, he made an inward vow to find his way back to his goals by some other route. In the meanwhile he lived with his mentor's scruples because he had to.

  His debut performance was a compromise that Charnall had agreed to as the least perilous of several projects. The boy was ambitious to awe the populace, and this he did. His head was steeped in cheap ballads of the wild old days of Kine Gather when boisterous herds stormed through a town of mud streets and corrals, and his thaumaturgy was meant to be a commemoration of this era. With Charnall, therefore, he went to the slaughter-house district of the city on a night of the full moon. He intoned a very potent spell of regathered vitalities. They raised, in an endless surging forth from the bloody earth, the spirit of every animal that had ever died in those precincts. And as they raised them, they sent them stampeding into the streets of the town.

  All night long the shadow-cattle with their blazing eyes panicked through the streets, raising a boil of dust and thunder with their shadow-hooves. The boy had flair, all right. The people woke. In their first horror, some dozen or so died in the poorer quarters, falling downstairs, or trampled by their tenement neighbors. But as the stampede thickened, and people understood its immateriality, more and more of them dressed and came into the streets. Kamin ordered the street-lamps relighted, and several of the city's magnates were persuaded to open their cellars. An eerie, impromptu festival was the result, with knots of staggering revelers run through by the endless bellowing herds. At dawn the spirit horde poured streaming back into the slaughtering yards. There the beasts plunged back into the earth, each reiterating its death cry as it dove.

  The success intoxicated the youth. Moderation vanished from his schemes; he proposed one heroic folly after another and fought Charnall bitterly. Then he stopped proposing schemes altogether, and settled down to mining Charnall for texts, references, and instruction in the pronunciation of various tongues. The scholar could guess the direction but not the specifics of his charge's intentions. As he feared, the boy finally sprang his next miracle on the city all by himself. It was a dreadful fiasco. Its only lasting result was that it left an entire pasturing slope to the west infested with vampire grass. The incident was four months old when Barnar
and I came to town, but the hillside decorated with bleached skeletons of stock were still a landmark for travelers approaching Kine Gather.

  The boy was formally reprimanded by his father in the presence of the full council. This was a wrist-slap in the popular opinion. Many of the council men wanted other parts of the boy's anatomy involved in the rebuke. Yet still Wimfort was mortally affronted. At that age you invent extravagant compensations for bruises to your dignity.

  The scheme he turned to was one of long-standing in his dreams, but he now put a really coordinated effort into the realizing of it, and Charnall did not guess his direction in time. He was determined to obtain some of the Elixir of Sazmazm from the primary subworld.