The Necrosopher’s Apprentice

by Lilith Hope Milam

  “So, we can probably assume that since the Assembly controls it all, then they’d keep everything close, where they can keep an eye on it?” Asman thought out loud.

  Earlok tapped the table as he added, “Yeah! They’d use navy boats for shipping just like they do everything else!”

  “Yes, I saw the ship that left Zagekhan flying what looked like the Duchy flag.”

  “Well, if you are looking for that ship, then you gots to head down to the navy yard, but...” Earlok said, shaking his head.

  “Well guarded?” Asman asked.

  “Yes,” the old dwarf said, scratching his beard. “If you’re goin’ in by the front gate.”

  Asman looked puzzled as Earlok waved his daughter over and said, “Tymuld, watch over the bar until I get back.”

  She put her hands on her hips and frowned at him, “Pa, where are you off to?”

  “I’m taking him to go meet Uncle Bug.” He stood and ushered Asman out the door.

  The green summer sun hovered over the edge of the rooftops, roosters began to crow throughout the city carrying on in their seasonal confusion throughout the night. While their calls echoed through the alleys and gardens, Asman looked up and down the narrow streets of the ghetto, worried that the Order might already know he had arrived and would soon find him.

  He regarded the old ramshackle houses that lined the street. Most were shuttered, save for a few brittle parchment windows that held the warmth in during the long and sunless days of Winterdark.

  Memories of his own winters came back to him, storing in supplies and rustling up tales both old and new to while away the hours. His tribe was fortunate to have a steady supply of slow-burning bog moss that kept their lodges warm through the Longest Night.

  Now, in the twilight, he could see white puffs of smoke spouting from chimneys that stuck out of thatched roofs like the pipe in his uncle’s beard. He followed as Earlok turned down a fog-filled alley and they made their way down narrow, humid city streets, arriving at the wharf an hour later with the gathering mist masking their progress. The green light of the sun grew brighter as the streets opened up into larger plazas, but mixed with the fog it seemed as if they were inside the sun itself.

  Across the plaza, Asman could see vague notions of ships out in the harbor, drifting in and out of the mist like ghosts. As they approached the naval yard, he saw Eldervost’s fleet with their vivid green and gold hulls as muted pastels in the damp air.

  Asman’s jerkin grew drenched with sweat as they made their way past the gate. The morning was stifling and humid as the sun rose higher. Down through another alley, they went. Towards the city wall where a disused guard house was built into the city’s fortifications.

  Earlok explained as they paused, listening and scanning for any movement, “This is my uncle’s place, a literal hole-in-the-wall. Bugatel, we call him Uncle Bug, happened upon it years back when exploring the city’s sewers and catacombs. One night, he was lost, as usual, and found a hole into an old musty cellar beneath this old guard house. It were abandoned, so he laid low inside while he rested.”

  They crossed the street, keeping to the dark shadows. “It were pretty clear no one had been there for years, so he made it his own little bolt hole.”

  Earlok knocked hard on the door and the sound reverberated throughout the street.

  Asman looked at the barkeep in shock, then spun on his heel to stare into the mist as the dwarf shrugged and said, “He’s hard of hearing and if he’d already gone to bed, there’ll be no rousing him with anything less.”

  A gravelly voice answered through the wood, ‘What is it?’

  “Thorley, open up! It’s Earlok!”

  There was a long pause.

  “No, it’s not early. It’s quite late and this aged dwarf is trying to get some sleep!”

  Earlok sighed, “No, Earlok! Now open up please!”

  “Whatcha mean ya ‘want some peas’?” the voice asked, confused. “This ain’t no greengrocer, go to the market for that!”

  “Bug! Just open the door so you can hear me!”

  “Quit twaddling out there! Bah! Watch out, I’m opening the door so I can get size-wise of what you’re saying!”

  Thorley Bugatel shoved open the weathered door with his foot and squinted in the bright morning light, wiping his spectacles clean. He was a very elderly dwarf, squat and pale with white hair on his head and face standing out like an old broom that had been used to scrub floors. Once he had his glasses back on, he looked up and smiled. “Earlok my boy, why didn’t you say it was you?” He shook his head and waved them inside.

  Bolting the door behind them, the ancient dwarf finally took note of Asman. He cleaned his glasses again and put them back on, blinking. “That’s not Buchak.”

  “No, Bug, this is his nephew Asman. He’s looking for Buchak, he's disappeared,” Earlok explained.

  “Has he now? Well, we best talk then. Here! Sit down!” The dwarf shuffled around the old office, clearing space for his guests. “You are just in time for eating! I’ve cooked up some kogje!”

  After their meal, as Asman explained his mission to Thorley, the elderly dwarf stoked the coals in the stove and settled to listen with his ear horn. “So, I gather Baltar and Kinnoo sent you?”

  “Yes!” he exclaimed, surprised to hear the names of his commander and mentor. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve known your uncle for some time, I used to ride with him during the Nirana Wars and he’s been willing to share some of what he gets up to when visiting Myskatol.” He took out a large, carved, stone pipe and packed it with dwarven smoke stones. “The last I seen of him was a month ago when he brought that rush shipment of blackweed.”

  “Has anyone else seen him since?” Asman asked, eager to finally find out where his uncle had gone.

  “Erm, I think the last one to see him was Whispering Gael and that old frog, Ghur’kek.”

  He paused as he scratched his stubble, looking worried. “Yeah, Gael. He’s still around, I think.”

  Earlok peered at him. “Uncle, what do you mean, ‘you think?’”

  “Well, I went and seen him about a month ago, and he was all strange to talk with.” He took a long drag from his pipe and puffed out the acrid smoke before continuing.

  “So, Gael runs a frog shop over by the Northgate, he gigs the hoppers by night under Frogtown and sells them to them cooks of the rich in the Merchant Ward.” Thorley puffed on his stone pipe, brow knitted, the heat making the stones crack and break like old glass.

  “Like, I said, I ain’t seen him in weeks so I goes to see him. But he’s all wonder-like and strange. Exactly as if he were afraid of everything and,” he scratched his chin again, thinking, “and he was so very happy about his condition.”

  Thorley Bugatel shook his head. “He was quite mad. Gone insane.”

  Later, the Bug led them into what passed for his bedroom. In actuality, it was a storeroom filled to the ceiling with crates and barrels. The old dwarf moved in between the boxes with room to spare, but again, Asman was challenged by his own size. He was beginning to worry about how he would get through the sewers. Would there be sections too narrow for him?

  In the corner, where Thorley slept, lay a bed, not more than a straw tick mattress stuck inside an old crate open on one side. It reminded Asman of the kennel his uncle’s hound slept in, but this had a low stool alongside used as a table, a lantern, and a book.

  “It usually takes me a few minutes to get this out of the way, but since you’re here, could you give me a hand?” the Bug asked Asman as he stood to the side of the crate and held the edge. Asman took his place on the other side and pulled it away from the wall.

  Behind the crate was a hole in the stone that Asman could squeeze through if he got down on his hands and knees. The dwarves entered first, squatting low and shuffling in like crabs. Once they were all inside, Thorley walked over to a large rock on top of a round steel grate. He took a metal rod from out of the corner and pried t
he rock off the top of it. Pushing it clear, he then used the bar to pop the grate out of its hole.

  Gathered around the entrance to the sewers, Asman’s sensitive nose filled with the worst odors he’d inhaled since he’d arrived in Myskatol. Down there he could sense hundreds of years of accumulated muck and refuse. His head swam and his heart pounded, he took a small chew of blackweed to steady his nerves.

  Earlok looked in and located a metal ladder descending into the darkness. He nodded, then stepped back, looking at Thorley. “Right then, you won’t need me more?”

  “Nah, we’ll be fine from here,” the Bug answered as he cleaned his glasses once more before descending into the filth.

  “You want me to shut this or lock the door?” Earlok indicated the crate behind them.

  “Oh, no need, we don’t have to worry about the guard, just drop the cover on us,” Thorley replied, breathing fog on his lenses and then popping his spectacles back on.

  “Right, Buchak’s nephew! Let’s head down!” He stepped into the open air and dropped into the hole. At the last moment, Asman saw him grab the ladder’s rails with his hands and feet on either side.

  This allowed him to slide down the ladder at a rate of speed Asman wasn’t comfortable with. Instead, he stepped onto the ladder and lowered himself into the hole one rung at a time. When he was waist deep, he had to suck in his stomach, step down, then let it out to get his chest through the narrow opening. It was quite uncomfortable until he made his way through.

  “Good luck!” Earlok called as he covered the hole, leaving them in darkness.

  Peering into the blackness at the bottom of the ladder, the sewer tunnel slowly defined itself as his eyes acclimated to the gray, wet darkness. The Bug was ahead of him, walking to one side of a burgeoning canal and easily making his way down the high-ceilinged passage.

  Asman didn’t have to hunch over for once, perhaps that was a reason his uncle preferred to sell down here? Yet, even though he had plenty of headroom, the walkway was narrow and he had to amble along sideways on the slick surface. He shuddered as effluvium collected between his toes.

  He was surprised, he could walk for days through the ankle-deep mud of the swamps back home. This place though had an air of decay and ruin that he didn’t want clinging to his fur.

  After sixty feet or so, the tunnel began to slope down. The Bug waited for him at the top of the slope to show steps carved into the side of their path. Although slick with filth, they allowed them a steady descent.

  At the bottom, Asman declared in a whisper that still echoed at bit too loud in his ears, “I haven’t had any idea where I’ve been all day. Dare I even ask where we are now?”

  Thorley stopped and pointed above them. “The abandoned bastion where I live is next to Swilton Street.” He indicated further down the tunnel.

  “We’ll reach Seagate shortly and have to make a small climb into the output from the naval yard. We’ll get a breath of fresher air after that and see what we can do then.”

  Asman shook his head but said nothing. His knowledge of the city was too limited. The best he could do would be to remember the Bug’s words and try to recreate today’s route on a map of the city later.

  They walked in silence until the tunnel opened up to a wide square chamber that branched off in three directions. The flow they had been walking beside met with effluent from these other canals as well as a smaller flow from an opening twenty feet above them. The smell was acrid and heady for Asman, but not so bad as to make him gag as they crossed through the mucky waters towards the opposite wall.

  The Bug pointed at the wall and Asman saw a series of handholds carved into the stone that led up to an open pipe near the ceiling. A meager flow washing down the wall clearly wasn't rainwater and Asman cringed as he realized that they had to go up into that mess.

  “You should take a deep breath before you climb up,” the old dwarf said before he took a big gulp of air and plowed up the wall, the sewage splashing off his chest and head.

  Once he reached the top, he grabbed the lip of the pipe and pulled himself inside. “It’s a bit narrow, but you should be able to squeeze in on your hands and knees!” he called down.

  Asman took a deep breath, slid his clawed hands and feet into the hollowed out depressions, and climbed up. Once inside, Thorley led them into an even darker passage and his head swam with the stench gathered in the tight space. He couldn’t see past the dwarf, but as they rounded a corner he noticed that the flow had decreased and there was light ahead.

  The pipe was embedded in a shallow wetland that stood next to the city wall. In the dim light of the midnight sun, Asman could see what looked like a small town on stilts in the distance. A series of houses rose up out of the marsh, connected by a narrow wooden catwalk that led to the wall above them.

  The Bug jerked a thumb up at the wall above them, “And up that-a-way is the naval yard.”

  Asman turned around and saw another open pipe next to where they exited, the dwarf waded through the water and climbed up into the opening.

  This passage was drier than the last and large enough to allow Asman room enough to kneel, but he still had to crawl to make his way through.

  Soon enough though, they reached another opening that hung over a canal stretching off towards the harbor to the left and ahead into the naval yard interior.

  Thorley pointed straight ahead and whispered, “You’ve got to go down in there and swim to the end to a real ladder this time.”

  He then pointed to a large building over the edge of the wall across from them, “The shipment that arrived should be stored in that warehouse.”

  Asman looked at the dwarf, irritation heavy in his whisper, “You aren’t coming?”

  “Why should I?” said the dwarf, “You’ve got your thing to do and I want no part of it. It’s bad for my business and if you get caught, I still have to make a living. So, good luck to you.”

  The dwarf slid past Asman and back into the darkness of the pipe.

  Asman looked down into the canal water. Its brown murky liquor hid the bottom and although he dreaded splashing down into its depths, he was eager to wash at least some of the filth out from under his fur. Gripping the edge of the pipe, he stuck his head out to see what was in store for him.

  The yard wasn’t quiet, he could hear the sounds of humans laboring above the pipe and the occasional glow of light from a patrol illuminated the misty shadows. Even out in the harbor, he could see activity through the fog on the navy fleet.

  Lanterns bobbed up and down the decks and masts as their crews were preparing for whatever they had planned. Closer still, on the pier across from where he perched inside the pipe, there stood a large warehouse that was lit from within.

  From one end, light spilled out onto a pier illuminating the black ship that had borne the Vicar and his men away from Jalpak Lake. Eyes narrowing with recognition, Asman knew that he could no longer hesitate.

  Scanning the water below, he looked for anything that could help him across the canal. A small mass of flotsam had collected in a nook halfway along the canal wall.

  He waited some time for the sounds of crates being moved to quiet and whatever dock-hands were out there to move off for the night.

  Silence became steady and he decided to take his chance. Beyond that, he could see what looked like short dark lines carved into the side of the pier. He hoped that those were handholds similar to what was in the sewers.

  Sinking his claws into the clay pipe, he lowered himself over the canal, took a deep breath, and let go. He knew that he’d sound like a horse hitting the water, but when he went under he stayed down and swam to the wall. Holding the air in his lungs and feeling his way, he reached the debris-filled nook he had spied.

  Through the tea-colored water, he saw lights moving along the edge of the pier. His lungs began to remind him that he should probably be breathing now. Reaching up into the bits of crate and barrel floating above him, he slowly gathered them together in a
tighter clump.

  When he could no longer keep his breath contained, he poked his flat nose into the middle of the debris above his head.

  Mustering all of his control, he let the air out of his lungs in quiet little puffs. When he could no longer exhale, he took in the air with short, quiet gasps until his lungs were satisfied. He dove under and swam again, looking for lights moving above the water. He continued this pattern, grateful for the well-littered canal, for what felt like hours, but the sky had not changed overly much during his underwater journey and it likely had only been a half of an hour.

  When he felt that the activity on the pier had finally died down, he risked raising his head above water and took a quick breath this time before moving along the wall to where he thought he had seen the stone ladder carved into the pier’s foundation.

  Like a blind cave fish, he found the handholds and made his way up into the foggy evening.

  Leaning against the wall of the warehouse, he knew he didn't have much time before the next patrol passed by. Looking up at the building he saw a clerestory window running along the top of the wall. It was shuttered, but every ten feet or so, the wooden panels were jutting out to allow air to enter the building. He scanned warily to his left and right while he attempted to determine his next step.

  Towards where the black ship was moored, he could see one of the warehouse doors open and shadows of guards standing within.

  Between their post and where he stood, boxes of blackweed were piled against the warehouse wall, low enough to prevent a human accessing the windows above, but not low enough to prevent Asman from climbing through.

  Staying as low as possible, he moved along the wall and behind the stack of boxes. Examining them before climbing, wanting to make sure they could bear his weight, Asman froze for a moment as he focused on the boxes’ labels

  Painted on each box was the seal of the Confederacy of Saagardell. Why were these here? If Eldervost was at war with Saagardell, why would they be trading with them?