The Necrosopher’s Apprentice

by Lilith Hope Milam

  His condescension still rang through the mask. She drew away from his touch. “No! I’m not going with you! I want to go home!”

  The Primus cocked his head. Was he surprised that she was resisting? She didn’t care, she wanted to go back home to Mama.

  Raising a gloved hand, he motioned for two Assemblymen, dressed in protective garb like him, to enter the classroom. “Take her to the wagon and leave the Van'log. Come back for it tonight. A few hours exposure should wipe what little memory they have of Miss Alterblum from their minds.”

  The guards took hold of her arms and shoved her out of the room.

  Once they had her locked up inside the wagon, she looked out the small window and saw Sharpe shut and lock the doors behind them. The wagon rolled out of the academy courtyard, Gansel watched the streets they traveled with wide eyes. She pulled her cloak tight around her and tried not to focus on her fear. At least it was better than lying on a cold stone floor for the next several hours like her classmates.

  15

  Lore walked out of the servant’s entrance of Trademeister Burch’s manor and into Hochgarden's streets with her satchel clutched tightly beneath her cloak. She had delivered laundry to the well-to-do merchant family and the weight of the new coins made her heart light with hope for the first time since her husband died. Gansel was in school and there was regular work now!

  The Trademeister's wife had been so pleased with her service that she not only paid for all the washing but also gave Lore a retainer that would cover her expenses for the next three months. She’d be doing their laundry alone! No more wandering the Merchant’s Quarter calling out for dirty laundry!

  Now, she needed to visit the shops before curfew so that they would have enough good food to last them for the rest of the month. All she had to do was get across the city and safely pass through the Temple District avoiding their Piety Patrols and their Collection Box.

  She walked by the Ducal Palace wondering, not for the first time, why the Duke allowed the Assembly to exact such tribute from the citizens of Port Myskatol. Taxes were one thing, but tithing, if you got caught in the streets anytime past a half hour prior to curfew, sometimes felt like the Assembly wanted its struggling citizens to never be able to climb out of their poverty.

  Lore berated herself over these surely Impure thoughts, but couldn’t dislodge that terrible memory. Once, years ago, she had been waylaid by the Piety Patrol and forced to tithe so much that Gansel and she had to live off whatever they could catch in the harbor for the rest of the month.

  The weather had worsened while she tarried at the Burch manor. What had been a clear Verdantlight sky, sun resting on the horizon and the moons shining over the city was now obscured by a fog that swallowed up the night. Even the lampposts that lined the streets couldn't pierce the hazy gloom, all that endured was a meager glow falling in patches onto the cobblestones.

  Through the murk, she could see rain beginning to fall. She wrapped her cloak tighter around herself as a chill poked through her clothes. Rain wasn't good, the almanacs had said that the first rains of Everlight weren't expected for another week and no one was prepared if in only a few hours the whole city could be flooded for weeks to come.

  She had to hurry with her shopping or her sudden change in fortune would turn to folly. She hoped that she had enough buckets at home.

  She bustled through the lower streets of the temple district. The rain stuck to the brim of her hood and dripped onto her brow. She reached up with a gloved hand to wipe water from her face and pull the hood a little lower.

  She didn't dare to take the straight path home, it strayed too near the Temple and would eventually pass their old home in the Brewmeister's District. Things were going too well lately that she didn't dare to tempt ill fortune by laying an eye on either place. She didn’t want to dredge up Gardo’s spirit on a good night like this.

  No, she was eager just to spend her gold in the market and be in her own kitchen for when Ganny got back from her week at school, with fresh bread and meat on the table for a change!

  She never liked being out like this, with all this money. It always felt as if the coins she carried were screaming out, 'Here! Look here! You could just push her over and take me!'

  At least, as she got closer to Frogtown, people knew her and were too busy trying to survive on their own circumstances under the hostile human gaze of the Assembly to bother her and her daughter.

  Their literal humanity was the only privilege she and Ganny had retained after being cast out from the city walls. ‘Perhaps,’ she thought, allowing herself a moment of hopeful wonder, ‘after a year of working for the Burches, Ganny and I will have enough to leave here. Maybe even go back to the family home in Gasthausmund?’

  She turned onto the street that would finally take her out of the Temple district but was so lost in thought about a new life back in her old village she failed to notice the figure standing in the middle of the bridge.

  She looked up and froze in place. He was alone and obscured by the haze. ‘Just walk around him, pay him no mind’ she thought.

  Then she heard more footsteps flanking her from behind and to her left. She spun around, her hood falling back. Her heart began to pound in fear and she shivered in the cold rain.

  From where she had come and down the street that led up the waterfront, she saw two other dark figures approaching. She knew at once that they were Assembly guards making sure she couldn't get away.

  She spun back as the figure on the bridge stepped closer to her and she recognized the shape of the wide-brimmed hat of a Tithe Grinder.

  He approached her leisurely until he stood at the foot of the bridge, staring at her like a revenant. His hands grasped the sides of an ornate oaken box suspended from his neck. From its side, a small crank stuck out like a crooked arm.

  Her shivers deepened, now more from dread than the cold. It was an Assembly Tabernacle. The last time she laid eyes on one, she wound up dropping every last coin she carried in it.

  But something was odd about the Tithe Grinder. Why was he wearing a mask? Smooth and featureless, it had round glass eyes that looked dark under his big hat.

  She turned to run to evade the trap, but her boot found a slick cobblestone and she fell heavily on her side. The Assembly guards stepped up, sealing off any escape. Why were they wearing masks too?

  Looking down at her, the Tithe Grinder chided, "Now lass, you weren't planning on leaving without paying your due to the Glory of the Human Spirit?"

  The voice was muffled underneath the mask, but it was familiar and unmistakable, “Warden Wulfgust?”

  His hands reached for the front of the chest and opened a small set of doors. “Behold the Tabernacle of the Pure Human Spirit and supplicate before it!"

  She knew what would happen next, he’d open the box, play the hymn, and the guards would force her to tithe all her coin. She couldn’t get away, and couldn’t fight the tears of despair mingling with the rain on her cheeks.

  She didn't want to see what was inside. She had worked so hard for this money and to lose it would surely spell her family’s doom.

  The gaunt man stood over her and turned the crank on the Tabernacle. An eerie tune and the strong smell of fresh summer grass began to wheeze and whir from within the box. The fog held the sound and scent close around her, Lore felt compelled to stare into the recesses of the Tabernacle. She gasped and pushed herself up off the ground. What had she been doing? What were her plans? Why had she been in such a hurry?

  She felt as though she were falling into a dream. She saw the scene on the bridge as if from above. In horror, she watched herself step closer to the Tithe Grinder, transfixed. Her mind cried out in protest when she opened her cloak and reached deep into her satchel.

  She made herself take a deep breath to protest the injustice of taking a simple washer woman's grocery money. But was it such an injustice? The breath calmed her, so she took another and felt the rage and panic ebb. Calming, she could feel t
he cold coins heavy in her grip, like an anchor, drawing her back to herself. Silly woman, the Assembly could never be unjust. Her tithe was her faith. She desperately wanted to give to the Glory of Man and to the Purity of the Human Spirit.

  She watched her hands feed one coin at a time into a slot on the top of the Tabernacle. The tune shifted slightly, changing in pitch and tempo. Her heart skipped in pleasure at the new sounds and she eager fed the remaining coins into the chest. The music carrying her into deeper ecstasy with each offering.

  The Tithe Grinder brought his face close to hers, “You. Have. No. Daughter.”

  Lore nodded.

  When the last coin clinked into the Tabernacle, the Tithe Grinder continued to play on and on. She lost track of time. Her mind shot largely to remember what she had been doing. Where was she going? Home? Yes, she had work to do. She had been worried, but why? She didn't need to hurry so much.

  Her life was simple. It was good that she had run into the Tithe Grinder. She felt so much better having tithed. Free and light in her heart. She didn't need to hurry so much.

  The man in the mask and large, wide hat shut the doors on the front of the Tabernacle and walked away with the guards, leaving Lore standing stunned in the rain.

  She failed to notice the icy fingers that crept into her cloak and under her clothes in the rain. She felt so enraptured by the sight and sound of the Tabernacle and that lovely smell that still drifted in the fog. Where had it come from? It reminded her of her washing soap. Such a warm, fresh scent. It had smelled of duty and commitment. It had been wonderful. She felt renewed. She felt at peace. She didn't need to hurry so much.

  16

  As the Zeedrak’s dingy neared Port Myskatol harbor, Asman looked out over the waterfront. Never had he seen such a throng of people!

  The floating djunco villages, although a hindrance for trade vessels, seemed to be the main source of seafood. One isolated village they happened upon first, emanated an odor that all at once was rancid, sweet, aminic, and fishy.

  The bosun told Asman that these poor cretins were grinding and fermenting the leavings from the fishmongers to brew a sauce popular in the duchy called garum. The bugbear shook his head in disbelief that anyone would eat something with such a smell.

  Now, surrounded by a sundry of greater pong, he watched the humans running in bedlam like a kicked nest of ants along wooden docks and stone seawalls. Stall merchants waved down handlers. Hawkers coerced travelers into their cousins’ exchange shops. Sailors and soldiers made preparations for privateering near the Saagardell trade routes. Small skiffs full of netted herring, and coracles loaded with buckets of mussels and oysters floated up to the sea wall markets to have their catches hoisted up and payment lowered down.

  Asman noted that he was the only non-human walking the streets, and from what Kinnoo told him, it would likely remain so unless he found the emissaries that were sent here months ago. Stopping to examine the harbor master’s post board, he read a large missive tacked to surface.

  By Notice of the Assembly, under the Authority of His Royal Highness, Duke Galter, High Lord of Eldervost, Ward of the Dixwari, and Bearer of the Witherbrande.

  Be it Known that Henceforth the Grand and Illustrious Duchy of Eldervost exists in a State of Just and Righteous Warfare with the Sinful and Malicious forces of Saagardell for the Crimes of Imprisoning our Dignitaries, Impeding Trade, and Enslaving Innocent Merchants on Royal Charter. Thus, with Preparation and Haste, the Brave and Glorious Warriors of our Dominion Shall Engage all Saagardell forces on Sea and by Sail, to Duly Reappropriate and Willfully Recompense for said Privations.

  Signed, on this 5th Day of Drywind, in the 124th year of Our Founding, His Highness’ Humble Servant, Morrow Sharpe, Exarch of Archeweiler, Primus of the Assembly

  Asman proceeded up the wide, steep road that led out of the wharf, paved with jagged cobblestones that prevented carts from skidding down the hill, they forced Asman to walk along the storefronts.

  Here was where the ship captains would meet with the trade guilds to verify their shipments, whalers would deliver their goods to the rendering houses to boil down blubber into oil, and sailors would unload their meager pay packets to drink the cleaner grog, sleep in a comfortable bed, and lay with as clean a whore as they could find. Preferably all three at once.

  The bugbear had no interest in any service other than a bed with no mites. An infested bed for a bugbear was an unbearable nightmare.

  He entered a large, open plaza that not only had the same rank odor of the hold of the Zeedrak but an additional reek he had never smelled before. To his sensitive nose, the air hung thick like a fog with human sweat, excrement, blood, and fear.

  The soft, black hair that ran down his back rankled as unease stole over him. It had been days since he had last had any blackweed and the stench of this town was plucking at his every last nerve.

  He attempted to make his way through the crowd without incident. A dock worker bumped into him by accident, the large bale he carried blocked his view.

  “Watch where you’re going there you…” the worker yelled at Asman, but his words trailed off with fear as he looked Asman up and down. “Sorry mate! Didn’t see you!”

  Asman, without thinking, growled and bared his teeth. He immediately caught himself. “Pardon me, sir, I…”

  The worker staggered off in a wide-eyed panic and a wave of anxiety washed over Asman. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, though it brought the bile back up his throat and did little to calm him.

  He needed to find some blackweed or he wouldn’t be able to complete his mission. More likely, he’d be locked up for rampaging through the streets.

  A breeze passed through the plaza and it cleared the stink enough for him to think more clearly. His anxiety ebbed some and he was able to look around. The plaza was filled with people, mostly humans milling about and clustering in each corner of the plaza. Every corner also had a large, dominating trade house that rose over a wooden stage.

  Each stage had a one or two human auctioneers addressing their respective crowds, while guards roughly paraded groups of people of various species out for everyone to see.

  One stage held goblins, another showcased cobolds, the third offered humans that, with their pale pink skin and fair hair, could only be from Saagardell. The last stage had large cages that held, to Asman’s surprise, a good hundred or so of the bug-like Kypseli.

  A slave market, Asman thought, distaste souring his face. He had heard the stories of how Eldervost would capture anyone they thought wasn’t a “true human” and sell them off. But the sight of cobolds at the block made him smile.

  He watched with bitter joy as the cursed Dixwali led their ratty captives onto the center stage.

  ‘Serves the weasels right!’ he thought. ‘That’s what you get for following the wolves, thinking that they’ll dole out scraps in pity!’

  The crowd gathered at the foot of the stages was a motley mix of humans and dwarves. He had heard how the dwarves took slaves to work in the mines of Earst-ethus and Kriichshear Hall. It had long been a point of contention within the dwarven nation of Republik of Suverotai and had even caused a civil war that ravaged their underground realm. Looking at the beings on the block in front of him, Asman was reminded that the slavers had won.

  The rebelling Dwarven Freefolk were scattered across the face of Jerdon and some had even been able to re-establish themselves in places like Gean-fuort and Opdonderje. Still, the majority were hidden away in the ghettos of Port Myskatol and Saagardell, for better or for worse trying to make a new life for themselves.

  Asman heard a commotion coming from a group of hooded men in a heated argument with a contingent of dwarves over a score of Kypseli. The voices floated another the crowd and he realized that those in the hoods weren’t men, they were Dixwari!

  They were arguing over the purchase of some particularly large bug-men in heavy chains. The auctioneer running that stage motioned to the guards who ushered the gr
oups to either side of the stage. He remembered that the more unsavory flesh merchants would sell slaves off to the Dixwari for their ‘meat farms’. A low growl forming in the back of his throat.

  One of the Dixwari cocked his head to the side as if he had heard Asman over the crowd. Asman snapped out of the fugue, he had to get a hold of himself. He had to find some Blackweed! He hungered for it so bad that he even thought he could smell it here somewhere in this plaza.

  No! Not just somewhere! He breathed in deep. Everywhere! He hadn’t noticed it before, in his sickened distraction watching the slave trade, but almost every human there was either chewing the weed or smoking it!

  He spotted one man smoking a pipe and approached him in desperation. Asman loomed over him and demanded, “Where did you get your blackweed?!”

  The engagement had been so sudden that the little, round man was overwhelmed and his clay pipe fell from his fingers, shattering on the street. “B-b-blackweed?” he stammered, mouselike.

  “Yes! Blackweed! Where?!” Asman growled, trying to keep his temper.

  The little man pointed across the plaza at a windowed store that had a sign bearing the royal seal of Eldervost side by side with a circle of flame around a brown cross.

  Asman recognized it as the same symbol from the uniforms of the Order Primary. He turned away from the human, who scrambled back into the crowd, and attempted to cross the plaza without panicking.

  Opening the door, a little brass bell jingled. He had to stoop down and turn sideways to enter the shop, but once he was in he was awarded with a welcome contrast to the stench outside, the wondrous aroma of blackweed.

  With a whiff, he could pick out Wykarwyk White, Kardan Blackleaf, and, oh yes, even Slate-Stalker’s Edge! When he cautiously straightened up he could see that the shelves were lined with jars upon jars of loose leaf blackweed, each jar bearing a paper label. Over in the corner, he saw barrels of plugs for chewing. Behind the counter, under a glass case, he was amazed to see a row of Koblak Blue cigars on a tray. In the back of his mind, he wondered, "How do they have so many strains? Did my uncle bring all of this over?"