Skull of Oghren

by Tuomas Vainio

  The rats stretches its limbs from neck to toes before turning away from the boy. The old rat is ready to bounce down onto the floor and dash away, but he halts. 'Before the magisters, before the kings of man and rats, before the city this place was ruled by the three-eyed foxes. It is truly ancient history; the foxes were killed and driven away. It makes no sense for them to haunt your dreams... unless...'

  'Unless?'

  The rat's head slowly turns to face the boy's dark eye, the rat looks sad, almost as if he was ready to burst into the tears at any moment. Yet before the rat speaks out the words, its face hardens and withdraws to its more usual old grimace. 'I would ask of you something, something dangerous, something without greed's merit for either of us.'

  'What do you want?'

  'I, I want us to head under the city. Deeper than ever before, but without reaching the salt mines. The memories of the foxes haunt those...You need to understand what you are turning into...' The rat stutters. 'I... I think the best way is to show you.'

  The boy doesn't answer, he has done his best to pretend that nothing is wrong. But he feels the emptiness growing within him. Coldness that seems to grow stronger with the dawn of every new day. Pan has often wondered in silence what is wrong with him, so after a moment of silence he cannot help but to agree on the old rat's mysterious gambit: but not without taking a bath first. The stench rising from Pan's armpits is smelly to even himself.

  As the rat had said, the tub waits downstairs filled with already cooled water. Almost freezing to the touch but the boy does not care much of it. He simply undresses and nudges his body over the edge. He takes a dip to the bottom, and bounces right back up while shivering from the cold. His teeth rattle, but he slinks back under the water surface. A little while later he has finally gotten used to the cool water temperature. He rubs his body from head to toes, and when he climbs up, he throws his cloths into the tub to give those a scrub too.

  Once done, he reaches down to the bottom of the tub and pulls the cork away. The dirty water begins its swirl into whirlpool as the water rushes down into the city's sewers through a grate lying underneath the tub. A grate leading to a pipe that first bends inside the wall before going straight down to reach the sewers of the city. The water gushes out from a hole in the sewer's ceiling, and mixes into the network of streams that flow under the city. The water moves along with the twists and turns, it falls and piles into chasms and vats only to move onwards once those overflow. The waste water could take days if not years to reach the outside, but there it gushes out from one huge pipe at the foot of the mountain by the sea. The water then circles along the closed half circle that form's the city's docks. As it begins to drifts further away into the sea, a glance behind reveals an insight on the city itself. The half circular dock was built where the caldera of a dead volcano had once collapsed with molten fury into the cold depths of the sea itself and formed new lands. But that was a day very long time ago, and today it is the city's buildings walls that flow and spread to the sea from the crack on the ancient caldera walls.

  The boy stares down at the curling streets surrounded by buildings that almost appear to have sprouted upwards from the mountain itself. It is a long walk and with some jealousy he stares to his sides to see the series towers and bridges that with their elevators provide a more direct transportation down to the docks.

  Yet Pan feels how the wind gushes upwards from the sea. He sees how the wind dances with the banners and cloths throughout the narrow streets of the dock district. The old rat rests hidden and tucked inside the collar and hood of the boy's cloak sewed from patches of different sized cloths.

  'You have seen it before.' The old rat mewls to the boy's ear.

  The boy's eyes look down as he whispers his reply: 'I think I used to come here to look at the ships coming and leaving the port. I remember how I wanted to see the world.'

  'Yes, you did.' The rat is silent for a moment. 'I remember how Surtur used to bring you here to see the ships.'

  'Why did he do that?'

  'Because he wanted to strengthen your heart to fuel the Loge's transformation into his daughter, his true inheritor. Or perhaps he simply longed your heart to himself alone, for its sinews to strengthen his own as much as possible. You had sold your life for a mere year with a family.' There is no emotion carried with they way the old rat says it all. He is is just stating a fact of what transpired without guilt nor praise for the unchangeable past.

  The boy remains silent for a moment as the words bounce through his mind. 'And then I killed him.' Pan's body shakes as the flashes of the memories of things that transpired on that fateful night fill his head. He stares into his hands and although those remain clean of all dust and grime, he somehow still feels the gushing warmth of blood on them. That strange sensation from a night two years prior.

  The old rat pokes his head from underneath the cloak's collar and just states: 'There is nothing wrong with defending yourself from harm. He tried to kill you, and in a way perhaps he even succeeded at it too.'

  'Where do you want me to go?'

  'Down. Al the way down to the centre of the docks, towards the dark pit.' The rat scuffles further back inside the cloak's collar. 'Not far from there we can find a sewer entrance behind the statues that guard the entrance to the shipmen’s quarter.' And so it begins, the boy takes his first step down the narrow winding streets. On any other day, he would be out for anyone with a loose bag of coins on their belt. But not today, the old rat was explicit to avoid all trouble, all attention unwarranted attention for a while at least.

  No one really pays any attention to one lonely boy walking down towards the docks. To them he could be just sent down on an errand, or perhaps just to escape the city behind. The men and women simply have too much at their hands to be a considered with a lone young boy. Not to mention that the only way to get the goods between the dock and the city within the caldera is either by lifting them with the elevators or dragging them along the darting and twisting streets cobblestone.

  Thus as horses and mules drag carts up and down the narrow streets, at times only barely being able to pass one and other with all the other pedestrians going about in their daily lives, Pan finds the experience lively enough. Some of those carts are filled to the brim with goods while some others are filled with people used as labour wherever in the city. And as for those pedestrians going about, most of them are young kids little older than him and they shouting out about their goods to sell: from cooked to raw fish, to fresh bread, to flowers for beloved, and even drinks of all kinds to sate your thirst. Honest people doing their honest living, earning a day's wage, seeing some friends, exchanging words, finding things to smile about. A reminder that for the large part the city is not a bad place to live.

  Yet for Pan it is the first time he truly understands how massive, almost gargantuan his home city is as he continues to move onwards on his own two feet. A pair two tiny feet on very long roads. Thus in order to save time he has no choice but to use the shady alleyways to cut short the twists and turns of winding streets. He even climbs over fences whenever he can, but only after rough six hours he has finally managed to reach the heart of dock district. The Sun has already begun its daily toil to dye the horizon above the buildings with vivid shades of red.

  The massive Tower of Judgement with its centuries old walls looms in the distance. The old rat tells how they are almost close enough to see the weather worn details of an ancient dragon standing on its hind legs breathing fire from its gaping maw. Pan doesn't quite see how the tall tower at the verge of disrepair could ever resemble a dragon.

  Nevertheless, what both the boy and the old rat find surprising is the amount of people that have gathered around the heart shaped pit in the middle of the plaza. Especially at a such late hour. Thus encouraged by the old rat, the boy climbs up on a nearby lamppost to see what the commotion is all about. Pan sits on top and peers well beyond the heads of the adults and their kids sitting on their shoulders.

>   By the side of the nigh bottomless pit lies the stand for hanging, for beheading, and other public punishments. The guards wear their distinctive red cloaks, and wield their shiny silver halberds. The crow is booing, and hissing curses towards the eight bound prisoners. Seven of them are already naked were-rats in heavy chains and held in place by the tips of the guardsmen’s blades and the darkness of the pit. The executioner carries a massive rat skull towards the eight prisoner, a human dressed and bound in rags of leather, with massive and far too large iron chains weighing his body into hunched position.

  Two guards in red grab the eight prisoner's right arm and place it on the headsman's block. The executioner, a large man dressed in black mask and robe, ties the man's arm to the block. The prisoner dares not to watch, so he turns his head across the pit and in the distance he sees the boy on top the lamppost. The man tries to shout, he tries to wriggle free, but he remains bound, and no one regards his actions as nothing more than a last futile attempts to escape. No one but the boy on top of the lamppost of course. The man's moustache might have been shaven off but even from afar Pan can recognise the chin, and the total number of eight prisoners is too much to be of just sheer coincidence.

  The executioner raises the skull and snaps the jaw against the skull as the audience cheers. Everyone in the city knows that skull, the indestructible Skull of Oghren. When alive Oghren used to be bound by the pit and his fangs were used to share his affliction to those deemed criminal by the magisters, and their magistrates. A task that has not ended even after his death untold ages ago and so his fanged skull is still used to deliver the harshest punishment found in the city. The curse of the affliction. The executioner raises the skull and jaw high for one final time before before he slams the two together as the audience cheers ever louder.

  Satisfied with the attention of the riled up audience, the executioner places the front teeth of the skull and jaw against the palm of the eight prisoner. The fangs linger and remain as unnaturally sharp and easily cut a tiny scratch onto the man's hand. The whole deed is almost done with that. Leave it to fester for a week and the man will slowly become a monster unless otherwise cured. The eight prisoner has does not have such luck. The executioner holds the skull and jaw against the bloodied hand and presses ever harder. The fangs sink deeper.

  The flesh against around the fangs bubbles. The blood grows thicker and turns pitch black as the blood streams swell twelvefold, causing the man's muscles to both spasm and bubble under his stretched skin. The hand, the entire arm, explodes in size as the man shouts in sheer agony. One muscle fibre at a time, the process begins to spread throughout the prisoner's transforming every single piece of his body into that of a were-rat. The leather bounds and cloths tear and tatter under the rapid growth, and soon the iron chains hold the naked, wrinkly, and very monstrous husk in place. As the final step of the transformation, fur begins to grow at incredible speed, covering the folds of loose skin and the wounds caused by the sudden convulsing bursts of growth against the iron bondage.

  When the executioner pulls the skull away at long last, the man's fate has become decided for the rest of his days. No magister, no magic of reason or spirit, nor grace of the gods themselves shall ever lift the affliction. How could anything bring back the man he once were when nothing but a memory remains of the man he once were? The flesh itself has been changed and the magic of the heart forever stolen to maintain the transformation against will and desire.

  The boy and the freshly born afflicted stare upon each other in silence. For a moment at least. What goes inside their minds is for them alone, but the old rat nesting by the Pan's shoulder whispers his words: 'The fate simply smiled on you instead of them. It was either you or them. Yet I fear this might not be over yet, you must remember to beware for the newly afflicted, for they are often trapped by grudges brought by their loss.'

  The executioner places the giant skull and jaw upon a decorative pillow carried by two servant apprentices. These servants bow, before they leave to transport the skull back to the Tower of Judgement, to the massive tower acting as the lighthouse standing at the edge of the sea and in the far corner of the district. Once the executioner's hands are freed of his tool, he turns towards the lever that controls the edge of the platform. He yanks it down, and the eight chained were-rats are dropped into depths of the pit. Some of them try to cling on by nothing but reflex. Those who somehow succeed to cling on are simply hacked loose by the red guardsmen and their halberds.

  One by one, the eight fall and their bodies disappear into the darkness. Among those who witnessed their fate with the kindness of the heart, they wish to themselves that the eight will perish by the fall. They wish that they fall will bring a flat and quick death, for everyone knows how the bodies of the were-rats are unnaturally strong, and can at times linger in thirst and hunger for months. Or so tell the tales of once mighty Oghren. As for those unfortunate to survive, they must make way in the darkness of the ruins between the mines and sewers. They must venture through the domain of the foul undead, where the wights of the ancient and other cursed monstrosities have been forever banished to wander in their insatiable hunger. The survivors must limp onwards with their battered and broken bodies and hope for a way out. A way past the magical runes that bind the wights into their prison. Yet the very lucky will find their way to the mines where they in turn shall be slaved to dig salt, and those somehow even luckier still, perhaps may find their way into the servitude of the Rat-Kings that hold their secret courts in the hidden passages of underneath the city basking under the sun.

  The crowd begins to disperse. It is late after all, and there is dinners to be had in the homes of the docks. There are songs to be sang in the taverns. There is reason to be happy because there are always those who are worse off.

  'What should we do now?' The boy asks as he slowly slides down the lamppost only to be chased away by a woman who came to place and light the candles for the night.

  The boy stands by the pit's edge and peers down thinking how many corpses fill the bottom. Anyone could easily fall down, anyone could easily be pushed down, and on that thought the boy turns around to be relieved to see no one standing behind him. The plaza seems much bigger without the mob of people to fill it, and without the mob, the boy sees what trade has claimed the heart of the dock district. It is ironic really, the heart dealers have claimed the heart of the district for themselves. Their little shops and stands surround the edge of the plaza. Some of them are closing down for the night, while others are opening in hopes for the drunken fool, or those who gambled away their fortunes into unreasonable debt. Indeed, within the city, one can always find heart dealers actively buying out the hearts of others for their weight hundred fold or more in gold, and replacing them with beating enchanted glass.

  The boy presses his hand on his chest, and barely feels the faint beat of it and he looks at the glass hearts that beat so strongly on their own. An entire merchant stand filled with living glass hearts.

  'No.' Says the rat. 'Do not even think of removing your heart. I have seen many pay that price; some handed off their hearts for a home, some for a chance for their kids to have a better lives, and so many countless fools just to make a new mistake to cover their old.'

  Pan frowns. 'Heart is the source of magic, you have said that what ails me is based on magic, would I not be better off without my heart? Could I not live longer?'

  'Perhaps.' The old rat answers and after a moment of eerie silence; 'Perhaps. But those who rid their hearts cannot help but to feel a cold weight on their chest, those who rid their hearts need the help of those with their hearts still in place, those who rid their hearts will be at the mercy of whoever claims their heart. Their fates become sealed by whims of others.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Do you know who buys the hearts from the dealers?'

  The boy thinks for a moment, before he tells his only reply: 'No.'

  'The magisters buy the hearts of others; they tie the s
inews of other hearts to their own to grow their own stronger, and to lengthen their own lifespans. They also often collect hundreds of hearts to produce a single homunculus, a body of flesh and magic to bind a spirit into this realm as a mortal.'

  'Like Loge?'

  'Yes, just like Loge. Though most simply seek protectors, servants, and tools instead of family.' The rat gives a long sigh, and presses its head against the neck of the boy. 'My old master, Surtur, once bought a man's heart. That man wanted his heart back and had trained little over a decade to master the art of swordsmanship, and Surtur simply shattered the glass heart with but a flick of his fingers. There was not a single swing of a sword. That man simply collapsed as the fragments of the shattered heart pierced his lungs from within.'

  'But...'

  'He never got the chance for Surtur always knew what that man was doing. Not to mention that without the protection of their heart the minds are easily bound by mindless servitude. The old rat climbs out of the cover of the collar, and stands tall on Pan's shoulder: 'I have thought of another way to extend your life. But to do that, we must face together the wights of old. I believe the answer to your life lies buried with the ancient past.' The rat's paw flings fast towards the nearest merchant stall with the glass hearts: 'And not through those glass things.'

  The boy sighs and looks towards the statues by the entrance of the shipmen's quarter. Series of statues depicting how the brave sailors of the city had vanquished a were-rat uprising of old. Those statues of marble and bronze have lost most of their finer details, but the rough shapes of men of marble slaying the were-rats of tarnished bronze still linger by the entrance.

  As they approach the old rat whispers stories of those ancient days, the days when the magisters had first created the affliction. How it was used for cheap physical labour at first, how it later was used to turn the enemies of the city to monstrosities that even their own families turned their backs on. The affliction had served the magisters for a long time, but eventually the enemies of the city and the afflicted within its walls banded together. The magisters were able to defeat them time after time, but even in their ranks begun to spread the questions of for how long, and when would be the day they all fell? Thus the use of the affliction had to be reduced and that brings the boy and the rat to stand before the statues left to remind of the last rebellion of the afflicted.