Stuck In Magic

by Christopher Nuttall

  My head spun. The city was so … different. I’d seen the endless struggle between rich and poor, between privileged and unprivileged, but this was …

  weird. The rules were different, beyond even my imagination. I wished, suddenly, that I’d spent more time reading fantasy books. Travelling to a foreign country wasn’t easy, when one didn’t know the rules, but … how could I understand magic? How did magic affect the rules?

  The magicians are effectively above the law, I thought, numbly. And so are the landlords.

  “We’re home,” Horst said, as the guardhouse came into sight. I spotted a handful of guardsmen heading out on patrol, nodding to us as they passed. “What do you make of it?”

  I hesitated, unsure what to say. Part of me regretted ever accepting the offer.

  Part of me suspected I wouldn’t have gotten a better one. I knew too little to know if I was being cheated – or worse. I certainly didn’t know where to find a place to sleep. I’d considered sleeping in the alleyways, but it would probably have gotten me killed. Or worse. I needed native guides …

  You are a native now, my thoughts mocked me. It was easy, far too easy, to fall into the trap of considering myself a tourist. And you can’t afford to pretend otherwise.

  “I think it’s going to be a very interesting time.” I yawned before I could stop myself. “Can we get some rest now?”

  “Of course,” Fallows said, dryly. He led the way past the gatehouse and into the guardhouse itself. The officers on the desks glanced at us, then returned to their work. “We’ll get something to eat, then hit the bunks. We’ll be going back on patrol in the morning.”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Ten

  The first impression I had of the City Guard, which only grew stronger over my first week of service, was that they were simply not a very professional outfit.

  The rules and regulations were astonishingly loose, to the point there was practically unlimited scope for abuse and corruption … as long as the guardsman in question didn’t pick on a landlord or a magician or someone with enough money to land the guard in hot water. I’d wondered, at first, why they’d been so quick to snap me up and put me to work, my mind suggesting all sorts of possibilities before it had dawned on me just how desperate the guards were for manpower. We were not popular. We slept in our barracks, in the guardhouse, because sleeping outside was asking for trouble. I had the feeling the vast majority of the population hated our guts. We were, at best, tolerated.

  It was hard not to blame them, I decided, as I worked through my probationary period. Horst and Fallows weren’t bad people, not in the sense they were terrorists or insurgents or rapists, but they were corrupt and often bullies.

  It was hard to watch them angling for bribes and not say something, to not call them out for being assholes to the people they were supposed to protect. I knew there’d be no point – collecting bribes was one of the perks of the job, the very few perks of the job – but it was still galling. It was all I could do, at times, to bite my tongue as I learned how the city actually worked. I had the feeling the formal rules, such as they were, bore little resemblance to reality.

  Slowly, a picture began to emerge. The city did have a formal government, but it was dominated by the landlords. They’d stacked everything in their favour.

  The highest-ranking posts in the government belonged to them and their families by right, with no one else so much as having a hope of being promoted. The landlords were a de facto aristocracy, practically a state within a state. They paid for everything, which gave them vast power over the entire city. There were no limits on their power, at least within the walls. Outside, where the warlords held sway, was a different matter. The city’s walls were strong, but an army wouldn’t need to break into the city to take power. They’d just have to lay siege to the city and wait for the population to starve.

  I kept asking questions, ignoring the snide remarks from my fellow guardsmen as I showed my ignorance time and time again. There was a certain safety in being underestimated, but still … I guessed some of them suspected I’d come from a very long way away, although they couldn’t possibly have realised just how far I’d come. I was weird to them, a man with completely alien values. I tried to keep a lid on it – the more different one was, the harder it was to be accepted

  – but it wasn’t easy. The more I learnt, the less I liked the city.

  “You’ve done well,” Fallows said, when we came to the end of our shift. “I think you’ll be a full guardsman soon.”

  “Thanks,” I said, rather sourly. It wouldn’t be long, I’d been assured, before I’d get more important work to do. Patrol was easy, as long as you didn’t run into trouble. Manning the gatehouses along the walls was apparently a great deal harder. I suspected that meant more lucrative. “Can we go to bed now?”

  “Hell, no,” Horst said. “We’re going out drinking.”

  I blinked. It hadn’t taken me long to realise that Fallows and Horst went out after dark, although they’d never invited me. I wasn’t one of them. Not yet.

  But now … I followed them out of the guardhouse, through a maze of side-streets and into a tavern, torn between excitement and fear. It was hardly the first time I’d gone drinking – I’d engaged in many a drinking competition in the army

  – but here … I might say something I shouldn’t. God alone knew how they’d react to the truth. They might think I was lying … it might be better, all things

  considered, if they thought I was lying. The truth might not set me free.

  I’d been in some dives in my time, but the tavern was easily the seediest place I’d ever drunk. The floor was filthy, the table and chairs crusted in the remnants of marathon drinking sessions, the music strange and atonal and the bartenders looking surly as they took our order and pointed to booths in the corner. I forced myself to breathe through my mouth as we sat down, wishing –

  not for the first time – that the guardhouse had a proper shower. My skin felt grimy, no matter how many times I wiped myself down. I didn’t want to visit the public baths – I’d heard some horror stories about them – but I was starting to feel I didn’t have a choice. I’d probably leave a trail of muck when I clambered into the water.

  “Here.” Fallows shoved a tankard of something under my nose. “You’ll like this.”

  I gritted my teeth, then took a sip. It was beer – or something closely akin to beer. It tasted weak, yet … I had a feeling there was a lot of alcohol in it.

  The patrons were quaffing the stiff like nectar, throwing back their necks as they poured it down their throats and over their shirts. There was something nasty in the air, I noted, as liquid pooled around their feet. It felt as if a fight was going to break out at any moment. I warily checked my weapons as I took another sip. The beer didn’t taste any better. I supposed the more I drank, the less I would care.

  Horst put his tankard to his lips and drank … and drank … and drank. I stared in frank disbelief as he held up the empty tankard, let out an immense belch and waved at the bartender for a refill. A waitress appeared with a new tankard, her eyes a million years old. I felt a stab of sympathy as she turned and hurried away. Bartending wasn’t an easy job, even back home. Here … I doubted the drunkards would leave her alone for a second.

  “So,” Fallows said. “How do you like being a guard?”

  “It’s pretty interesting,” I lied. It was a job and not a very good job, but it gave me something to do and somewhere to sleep while I got my bearings. I’d learnt an awful lot about the city by keeping my mouth firmly closed and letting my partners do the talking. They didn’t seem to know much about the lands outside the walls – they had a striking lack of curiosity about the wider world

  – but they knew everything about the city. “I’m enjoying myself.”

  “Really?” Horst brayed like a mule. “We must be doing something wrong.”

  Fallows snorted. “You’ll get bored of it soon enoug
h,” he cautioned. “By then, perhaps you’ll be on the walls.”

  I shrugged. “How did you become a guard?”

  “It’s a respectable profession,” Fallows said. His partner snickered. “And it suits me.”

  I kept my thoughts to myself. I was pretty sure that was a lie. The police hadn’t been popular back home – certainly not where I’d grown up – but the Damansara Guardsmen were about as popular as a kick in the groin and somewhat less welcome. I wasn’t blind to how many people tried to escape our gaze, when we patrolled the streets, or told their daughters to hurry away from us. Horst and Fallows might seem like good chaps, but the locals regarded them as predators. No, scavengers. A pack of hungry hyenas might be more welcome.

  “It’s fun,” Horst said. He waved for another tankard. “And profitable.”

  He elbowed me. “You should make the most of it. You won’t be a guard forever.”

  Hopefully not, I agreed silently. I’d been doing my best to think of concepts I

  could introduce, although it wasn’t easy. My mystery predecessor had scooped up all the low-hanging fruit. What few ideas I’d had – irrigation, for example –

  required connections and money I didn’t have. What am I going to do with myself?

  I stared into my beer. I’d done some research. Renting a room within an apartment was expensive. Renting a whole apartment for myself was so far outside my price range that I would have get promoted several times before I could even consider it. One had to spend money to make money and I didn’t have any money. How the hell had Martin Padway done it? He’d made brandy … somehow, I doubted that would work for me. And no one was going to listen to my ideas on irrigation either. Why should they?

  Fallows smiled, coldly. “So … tell us about yourself.”

  It was an order. I hesitated. It was a good sign, I supposed, that they were showing interest in me. They hadn’t asked many questions over the last few weeks, even when I was questioning them. I understood – I was the FNG, as far as they were concerned, who might be gone in a flash – but it was still irritating. And yet, I would have preferred them to show no interest at all. I didn’t want to lie, but I knew I couldn’t tell the truth either.

  “My family were taken from their homes, a very long time ago,” I said. It was true – and they’d believe it. The vanished empire had apparently scattered ethnic groups around its territory to make it harder for them to become a coherent threat. Or something. I guessed it was why there was so much diversity in places like Damansara. “I was raised a very long way away and eventually became a soldier.”

  “A mercenary,” Fallows said. “And there I was thinking you were a decent guy.”

  His words were so deadpan it took me a moment to realise it was a joke.

  Soldiers weren’t held in high regard, while mercenaries were feared and hated by just about everyone. I’d never been fond of them myself – I’d met too many during my time in Iraq – but here it was worse. They’d fight for whoever paid them, as long as the money held out; they’d loot, rape and burn their way through towns and villages, regardless of which side they were actually on. I’d heard the horror stories. Mercenaries were about as welcome in the city as child molesters.

  Horst grinned as he polished off yet another tankard of beer. “You fought in the wars?”

  “Small wars,” I said. There were rumours of wars against evil sorcerers, strange monsters and campaigns on a scale that would have daunted Eisenhower and Zhukov. I was fairly sure the stories were exaggerated, but there was probably some truth within the lies. “It was a job.”

  “Your mother must have disowned you,” Fallows said. There was something waspish in his voice, as if I’d somehow touched a nerve. “A mercenary, for a son.”

  I shrugged. “My mother is dead.”

  A sense of aloneness washed over me. Cleo and my sons were in another world.

  There was no one, as far as I knew, who’d understand my life. Horst and Fallows knew I’d come from a long way away, but they didn’t know – they couldn’t know –

  just how far I’d come. I took a sip of my beer, suddenly understanding precisely why people drank themselves to death. It would be so easy to crawl into a bottle and refuse to come out. I was doomed to be alone for the rest of my life.

  There might be others, I thought, as I finished the tankard. Jasmine hinted there might be others.

  I grimaced. I’d been lucky. Someone else might have been raped or enslaved or killed by now. If there were others … I wished for my old company, with all of its vehicles and equipment. A company of modern soldiers could have taken the city, imposed a genuinely responsible government, thrashed the warlords and started hammering out a semi-modern tech base. The Lost Regiment would have had an easy time of it, without giant aliens roaming the lands and eating everyone in their path. They would certainly have survived long enough to get their bearings, then realise their technology was not only superior but very easy to duplicate. A American from the Civil War era would have been a hell of a lot more useful – here – than me.

  Horst shoved another tankard under my nose. “Drink,” he ordered. He’d had at least four tankards himself and he was still surprisingly sober. Either he was used to it or I was wrong about the alcohol content. “It’ll do you good.”

  I sipped the drink, while doing my best to answer questions without giving too much away. I had hundreds of stories of military service, but most of them would have sounded like blatant lies. They didn’t know about tanks or aircraft or any of the toys I’d taken for granted. I told them a little about my service in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they didn’t seem too impressed. I wasn’t sure why.

  I had a feeling I was missing something.

  The music changed. I looked up. A trio of travelling bards – for a moment, I thought they were Diddakoi – stood on the stage, striking dramatic poses. They didn’t seem fazed by the volley of abuse from the patrons. Instead, they started to sing. They were badly out of tune -and there was something archaic about their style – but I had to admit they had a certain charm. The patrons hooted and hollered, waving their tankards around as if they were going to throw beer at the singers. I guessed it was a tough crowd. The patrons certainly didn’t seem impressed by songs of the Necromancer’s Bane, Crown Prince Dater and a bunch of other people I hadn’t even known existed.

  Horst waved at me as the bards took a break. “Did you fight in that war?”

  I shook my head. There was no point in lying, not when I knew too little to tell a convincing lie. Besides, I wasn’t sure how much of the songs were made up of whole cloth. Half of them praised various people I’d never heard of and the other half condemned them. I wondered, vaguely, if the bards saw any contradiction in kissing a prince’s ass one moment and putting a knife in his back the next. Maybe they just didn’t care. The songs were probably written by the prince’s PR department and the bards were paid to sing them.

  “That’s a shame,” Horst said. “It was supposed to be glorious.”

  “War is never glorious,” I said, a little more severely than I’d meant. The beer was getting to me. “War is homes destroyed, men mutilated and killed, women and children raped …”

  I shook my head, forcing myself to sit back as the night wore on. The beer was making it harder to think straight. I was going to have a hangover tomorrow, my first in years. And yet … I looked at Horst and Fallows, feeling a surge of comradely good feeling towards them. It was hard not to feel something, despite their flaws. They wouldn’t have taken me out drinking if they hadn’t been warming up to me.

  Fallows stood. “This way.”

  I felt wobbly as I followed them across the room and up a flight of dark stairs to a heavy wooden door. The air smelt hot, humid and scented. Someone had sprayed perfume everywhere … I hesitated as we reached the top, suddenly all too aware of what was on the far side. Fallows didn’t slow down. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. A row of young women waited for us, wearing alm
ost nothing. I felt my heart kick into overdrive as I struggled to sober up.

  Fallows had taken me to a brothel!

  Horst elbowed me. “Our treat,” he said. “Which one do you want?”

  My heart clenched. I’d been cautioned, when I’d started my military career, that many of the prostitutes in brothels weren’t there of their own free will.

  Some of them had been sold into sex slavery, others had had no choice but to sell their bodies to survive. And I’d been told – we’d all been told – not to visit brothels. I tried not to be sick as I remembered the dire warnings. STDs were the least of the dangers.

  I caught a girl’s eye. She looked around nineteen, but her eyes were ninety.

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want to catch something nasty. Magic could cure anything that wasn’t immediately lethal, I’d been told, but potions were expensive. I doubted the brothel forced its clients to use condoms. “I don’t want a girl.”

  “A boy?” Fallows seemed pleased, rather than disgusted. “There are boys in the next room …”

  “No, thank you.” I allowed myself a moment of relief that I hadn’t drunk too much. “I’m still married.”

  Horst leered at me. “Your wife will never know.”

  That was truer than he could possibly have known. I scowled. “I’d know.”

  Fallows shrugged. “Then you can wait out here,” he said, sardonically. “And if you get bored, feel free to take one of the girls.”

  “Will do,” I said. I considered heading back to the guardhouse, then dismissed the thought before it had fully-formed. I would be alone and not entirely sober. It would be asking for trouble. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  They shrugged, then made their choices and took the girls into the next room. I forced myself to sit back and wait, ignoring the titters from the girls. They didn’t know what to make of me. I supposed I didn’t know either. Part of my body was reminding me that it had been a very long time since …