Reign of Immortals

by Marin Landis

  He found the lamp, lit it and surveyed the room. Nothing different. He couldn't quite understand what she wanted him to do, but Ain-Ordra’s church was definitely forbidden. Forbidden like matricide and selling children for nefarious purposes. He was his own man, he didn't need a king to tell him how to live.

  Over the next few years he would learn secrets of the dead. He didn’t quite have the aptitude to be a full brother of the Dark, a Necromancer, but with time he would be a force to be reckoned with. According to Finulia.

  His special talent was psychometry, the reading of the history of objects. To the average idiot this might seem extremely boring, being able to see the history of an ancient vase is not at all exciting or interesting. But that's where they'd be wrong. Galtian was over the moon to discover this ability. It surfaced shortly after Scratch had gone to whatever fate Finulia dictated and kept to herself, it was another secret that she had taught him.

  He hadn't immediately understood.

  "Here, this is for you." She held out her slim hand, the skin pale and dropped something into his. It was a small figurine of a man holding a sword.

  "A toy? This is my reward for bringing Scratch to you?" He almost threw it but remembered to whom he was talking.

  "Whose toy is it, Galtian?" she asked.

  This must be a question designed to test him. "It's yours?" he offered.

  "Please don't play the lackwit, Galtian. Concentrate on the toy. I can feel the ability within you."

  He held the little figure in his hand, closed his eyes and squeezed, willing it to tell him what she wanted to know.

  He felt a light touch on his forehead, but knew not whether it was physical or another one of her tricks. It was as though that touch had opened his mind to a new dimension. He could suddenly see 'around' and back and forward. He squeezed again and looked around and back and forward relating his vision to the toy and then he saw it. As vivid and real as his vision days before of the robed people.

  A small boy, the light streaming in at the window, a bedroom. Not like one he had but clean and fresh. He knew it was fresh because he could smell the air and the flowers. He could feel the warmth of the sun.

  He heard a shout, more a call actually, and the little boy scooped up a toy soldier from the floor and ran out of the door and down some stairs. He ran into the arms of his mother and he felt the love from her. He nearly lost the vision at this time when he thought of his own mother, but he refocused when he felt the 'wrong'. Something was definitely wrong. He heard a man's voice and he turned to see a tall figure, dressed in red magistrate robes. An employee, an important one, of the Justicars, the judges and juries of the people of Amaranth. In his hand was a knife that dripped blood onto the floor.

  He could feel the boy's panic and watched in horror as the boy turned in that dread moment to notice what he hadn't before. The blood pouring from his mother's chest, her lovely white dress covered in gore. The man shouted something else and made to grab the boy but his hands were slippery with blood and the boy ran, in floods of tears, out of the house and down the road and didn't stop running until he found a dark place behind some barrels in an alley. He still had the toy in his hand. He was tired and he lay down, still crying, still calling for his mother.

  Galtian came to, his heart full of sorrow, and looked into the eyes of Finulia.

  "You saw it didn't you? You know to whom the toy belongs?" They weren't truly questions.

  "That was Scratch. He had a home and a mother who loved him." Galtian didn't want to do anything but sleep. Or get blind drunk. "And you took him. What did you do with him?"

  "That information would not help you, Galtian. It will get easier with time."

  It did. Every time he performed the act, he became harder, more inured to the stories he observed. At first he felt like an intruder, prying into people's personal history, watching their lives like a psychic voyeur. It didn't take such a man long before coming to the conclusion that money could be made from this.

  He set up the warehouse as a shop for antiquities. He'd always had a fascination for old and mysterious objects and had a small horde he'd garnered from his previous life as a criminal gang boss. That in itself was a revelation to Galtian. He no longer had any interest in running the gang. They'd fight among themselves for a while but the toughest or meanest always rose to the top. When he went back for his belongings it took a minute for people to recognize him, such was the physical transformation through which he had gone. He no longer stooped, or limped or coughed frequently. His headaches had cleared up and he didn't have to squint to read. He was still balding and nothing short of divine intervention could fix his looks, which Finulia described as 'objectionable'.

  "Don't think for a second that any of you can take my place, I'm moving up in the world but I can take back this gang whenever I want." He didn't mean it but he couldn't wave goodbye and wish them all well. For one, he didn't care if they lived or died tomorrow, but this sort of scum only understood one thing. Brutality.

  He would still need to scour the streets for runaways and orphans once a month but in a city the size and make-up of Amaranth, these weren't in short supply.

  It wasn't long before he'd built up a regular clientele and a fine reputation as a fence and purveyor of unusual items. His ability to truly understand the nature of inanimate objects gave him the ability to identify fakes and there were many. Mistresses of rich men became a sideline and he was overjoyed to learn that often they'd want to pay in the coin of flesh rather than with gold. Soon enough he had the rich men coming to him with bribes to convince their lovers that the jewelry they'd lavished on them was genuine and worth an absolute fortune.

  He also found that his new found position as a semi-respectable business man brought potential victims into his reach without much effort. His strategy had evolved into sending the hapless clods to the temple (cleverly disguised as a domestic residence) at the bottom of the close whereby those brutish fetish golems would make short work of them and deliver their unconscious forms to Finulia for whatever grim purpose she had.

  Things were going swimmingly and he found himself in an excellent mood the day Melvekior walked into his shop.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Treachery Everywhere!!

  “Guilt is easy to avoid. You just don’t think about the things you’ve done.” - Mikael

  There were less people in this part of the city, but at least they were civilized folk who mostly ignored him. Melvekior was tired and his illusions had been well and truly shattered. He knew that people were greedy but greedy and petty was an ugly combination. Had he expected people in Amaranth to be witty and polite? Yes he had, but that was a naive view and he felt foolish for even thinking it might be true.

  The final set of directions he was given were correct. "Nocturne Close" was written on a stone tablet set into the pavement. It was a small street, three houses, a graveyard and three shops. On the side he stood a tailor's and a bookstore alongside the cemetery, both looked closed. Across the road from them a large square building, the sign showing it to be 'Galtian's Curios'.

  He crossed the road and opened the door to the shop. It smelled old. Like some of Aeldryn's books. There was also an oppressive feeling, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, but he didn't like the feeling. Considering what he had come here for, the atmosphere didn't seem that unexpected.

  He couldn't see the far side of the room he was in due to tall shelves housing all manner of unusual items. Little furry hands, rabbit heads and chicken feet sat on one shelf. A spyglass, a sextant and a stele engraved with weird symbols on another. The shop was stuffed to the brim, you’d never be able to find what you were looking for in here, that’s for sure.

  He walked past a couple of aisles of weird items and saw movement at the back. There was a counter, behind which stood a man, or something that wished it was a man. Instant disgust filled Melvekior. Scrawny, short, thin-lipped, balding and pot-bellied, he was the sort of person any u
pstanding knight would despise.

  He hadn’t noticed his potential customer, talking as he was to a young man, around the same age as Melvekior. He was dressed in leather and wore a gaudy blue cloak that came down to his knees.

  The younger man handed the objectionable looking man something, which he held it up to the light, squinting. Melvekior could see now that it was a blue gem, about the size of an eyeball. It had been worked expertly by the look of it and appeared to be worth a fortune. He was close enough now to hear what they were saying.

  “Where’d you get this stone, Hazaki?” The man had a high pitched voice which matched his effeminate nature.

  “I won it in a game of cards,” smiled the youth. This was plainly not true, he’d stolen it, Melvekior would lay money on it.

  “Well, it’s next to worthless. Blue topaz. A poor man’s sapphire. Useful to impress the scullery maid but anyone with taste will see it for what it is.” He flicked the stone over the counter. Hazaki snatched it out of mid-air with the reflexes of the young.

  “How much will you give me for it?” he asked, sounding frustrated and resigned.

  “I’ll give you four sibbits for it and that’s only because I like you.” He grinned grotesquely, crooked teeth and over abundance of pink shiny gum enough to make anyone take any deal in the hope of hastening the conclusion of their contact with this horrible little man.

  “Deal!” said Hazaki, sounding more pleased than Melvekior would have if he’d just been robbed. He snatched the silver coins from the little man’s hand, spun, twirling his cloak dramatically. He looked the knight up and down and flounced past.

  Resisting the urge to follow him and punch his face in, Melvekior turned to regard again the shopkeeper. He sat on his stool behind the counter looking through a loupe at the blue stone he’d just purchased. He chuckled to himself and then suddenly noticed the much larger presence waiting for him.

  “Ahh,” he started, “sorry to keep you waiting.” He looked askew at his exact opposite. Tall, handsome, full head of hair, probably kind too, thought Galtian, internally sneering.

  “It’s nothing,” said Melvekior, noticing the look of distaste on the fellow’s face. “I need information in a hurry.” He cursed himself for saying this the moment he opened his mouth. The little crook would charge him more now. "Your services have come moderately highly recommended, Galtian is it?"

  The weird little man nodded politely. "Yes, Sir Knight." Moderately recommended eh? There was nothing Galtian hated more than someone looking down on him, he almost whipped out the long knife he kept beneath the counter. The man before him though looked entirely capable of defending himself. Being a natural coward, he didn't make his move, but then again he wouldn't need to. A vision of the fetish golems sprang to his mind. Disgusting creatures. Never a man to be shocked, when he found out that people paid for time alone with one or more of them he was astounded. Then again, the base nature of humanity only fueled his misanthropy.

  The well spoken knight was looking at him, expecting something.

  "What services do you require, Lord? Do you have an heirloom or other valuable you wish me to price? It is a reading you need? Or something else..." He left it hanging there, the allusion to unscrupulous services dangling within reach.

  "Something else entirely," said Melvekior, not really understand what a reading was nor the intimation that other services might be unethical.

  Galtian’s curiosity was piqued. To him, Knights were mostly nobles playing at hero and often had money to burn.

  “Information is something you will find here, in abundance Lord, shall we retire to the back room?” He held out his arm to the curtained doorway behind the counter and shuffled to the entrance. Producing a key from a pocket in his dirty gray robes, he locked the front door of the shop and quickly followed the younger man, whom he didn’t want poking around.

  This was a mixture of library, sleeping chamber, dining room and counting house. There was a small round table with a single chair, coins and ledgers strewn about. A bookshelf with large books of reference, mainly economic in nature but a couple dealing with the dark arts. A cot bed, that had never been washed; the white sheet was the shade of gray that comes from the dirt of many days of not bathing.

  There was a small pot stood over a bed of Volcanium in the corner. It was over to this that the gnome, or so Melvekior judged him, scurried and leaned down. He blew gently on the rocks and they sprung to life within an instant, heating the water in the pot. “Tea, Lord?”

  “Thank you, no,” sighed Melvekior as he sat gingerly on the chair.

  Galtian fished some herbs out of a pocket in his robe, dropped them into an unwashed cup and poured boiling water over them. He sat on the cot, both hands holding the cup as though warming himself. “Tell me what it is you need to know.”

  “I’m no expert in the undead you understand, so this might not be in the correct vernacular.” He leaned back on the chair. “Recently I came across a dead woman after which I was attacked and knocked senseless. Coming to, I found the woman alive, though not well. I initially thought she was a witch, but then noticed that she displays most of the symptoms of being dead. Except for the most obvious, that she’s alive and kicking.”

  “Very interesting,” murmured Galtian, who realized straight away that he was out of his depth, “pray tell, what are the symptoms to which you refer?”

  Why does this fellow speak backwards, Melvekior wondered. “Her skin is cold and gray like death. She does not bleed, feels no pain, cannot receive sustenance and cannot sleep. I also believe that she merely pretends to breathe.”

  The gnome steepled his fingers as though in deep thought.

  “It seems to me that your diagnosis is correct. This woman is the walking dead and we should take her to an advanced practitioner of the totally natural, though misunderstood art of necromancy.”

  “Can she be helped?” Melvekior asked eagerly, leaning forward now on the creaking chair.

  “I cannot say for certain. Can you bring her back here tonight after I close? I can have someone take a look at her.”

  “Yes, I will, but you had better not waste my time.” His faith in humanity had suffered a massive blow and this weasel didn’t see at all trustworthy.

  “Your friend will be in the best hands, I guarantee it.”

  “Fine, we will be here at sundown,” said Melvekior wondering as he left why the little fellow hadn’t asked for payment.

  He found Janesca in a steadily declining state. She was rambling about battles and did not remember her name, shying away almost violently whenever he asked her about herself. She was able to walk however and he was able to drag her along to Nocturne Close.

  A mist was gathering around the bottom of the close and slowly creeping up towards Galtian’s shop. The funny little man was waiting outside, shivering in the not very cold.

  “Welcome Lord. And to you Lady,” offering a bow from the waist. “Please follow me.”

  Melvekior held on to Janesca's arm, she was unsteady and he was still concerned about this fellow who was so eager to help him for no recompense. He didn't trust him certainly but there was also something repulsive about him. Aeldryn had tried to instill in him that one shouldn't judge on appearance but his father and Ottkatla had both scoffed at that.

  "Of course you can tell what people are like by the way they look," she once said. "That's how I know your people are all greedy and jealous." He thought she was just being mean at the time, with good cause, but looking back he realized how right she was.

  They walked quickly down to the end of the road to an enormous house that sat shrouded in darkness. A nondescript residence of a moderately wealthy person, Melvekior guessed, but also possibly the den of a group of death worshiping lunatics. More desperate to help Janesca than scared of what might be awaiting him, he gripped his horseman’s mace tightly with his right hand, the other holding onto his “sister”. The house was two storied and was built without windows, the doubl
e doors were topped by a disk, the majority of which was black with the merest sliver of gray to represent the waning moon, an ancient symbol of the death Goddess, Ain-Ordra.

  Galtian pushed the doors which swung open to reveal a dimly lit entrance hall, he stepped to the side and motioned them in with a sweep of his stubby arm and a nod of his smiling, creepy face.

  Melvekior stepped in, leading Janesca behind him, his hand still grasping her robes. “Beware! It’s a trap, drop and roll” she hissed commandingly.

  Heeding her automatically, and unsure why, Melvekior threw himself forward into an alcove in which sat a small table and chair, dimly lit by a small lamp. Rolling to a standing position and twisting his body in the same movement he drew up his mace, he got a better look at the ambush.

  Two men or something approximating men, large, fat and bald, dressed in loincloths and black leather straps criss-crossing their torsos, stood before him. They were heavily muscled and shone in the low light, like they had been rubbed down with oil. He didn't look too closely, but they were both heavily scarred across their chests. There was also an oddness about them, as though somehow, they were lopsided. There was no time to ponder, however.

  Both held wicked looking scimitars, one of them had Janesca by the back of the neck.

  “What is the meaning of this? Galtian,” he shouted but received no answer. Galtian had stayed outside. “You’ll regret this you little toad,” Melvekior shouted.

  Galtian did hear that from the other side of the door and it made him glad that he’d sold these two to Finulia. Bloody nobility think they’re better than the rest of us. We’ll see how good you are with your innards tied to a rack. There was an added risk, but he didn't seem to be traveling with a retinue and there was nobody around to function as a witness. A nice clean job.