Copyright © 2019 by Keith Hendricks.
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, titles, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1 The Abyss
Chapter 2 The Goblin World
Chapter 3 Eurilda
Chapter 4 The Princess Heist
Chapter 5 Inglefras
Chapter 6 The Doorway
Chapter 7 The Fair Well
Chapter 8 The Catacombs
Chapter 9 The Tree-Woman
About the Author
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One Last Thing...
In Eternity, the One gazed on the All-Thing’s infinite beauty, and the unending moment between Creator and Creation was seamless—until the schism, when the shards fell, each glittering with the image of the One in their fragmented nature, so that five divine motes attracted the desire of the Spider-God, Lyspera, and she wove them into the Web of the Abyss. And the constant hunger, thirst, and desire of mortal men and beasts is the ongoing cry of the Five Worlds to the One they never knew, and the desolation and unease heard between seconds, minutes, and hours echoes in the Five Worlds ripped from the stars.
—from Otoka’s “Worlds and Time”
Chapter 1
The Abyss
While Khyte resented being called a barbarian to his face, it still made him laugh to hear it whispered behind his back as if it were a slur. It was funny to hear it even after he had been written into so many songs, for it meant he could never slay their fear, no matter how many rounds of drinks his hard-won loot bought or how many bad limericks he laughed at. Only this fat old drunken lout Sarin Gelf, whom Khyte believed to be a secret sorcerer and knew as the fairest fence for enchanted items, was allowed to call Khyte by name or “barbarian” interchangeably.
“Barbarian,” Sarin said flatly, with half-lidded eyes that meant his haggling mask was already lowered. Sarin seemed less pale than faded, as if swarthy in his youth and had dimmed with age to mirror his yellowed pages, tarnished gold, and dusty liquor bottles. His face was masklike and his hands seemed like dry leaves waiting to scuttle off in the wind. But if Sarin was modeled after a corpse, it was a grasping and lively one. His ink- and wine-stained fingers were mottled with metallic glints from handling coin, and his eyes shone, as if delighted to have Khyte in his collection of curiosities. Not that Sarin would ever admit to being so happy.
The rotund merchant was the shrewdest negotiator Khyte knew. Had Khyte not been stung many times by that gracious trader, he might consider him a friend, as Sarin always welcomed him with delicacies and generous pours of liquor. Not that Khyte hadn’t benefited from Sarin’s greed—for though the merchant helped himself to a usurious percentage of the take, his leads paid his hired thieves fabulous sums nearly every time.
“You welcome me as ‘barbarian’?” Khyte returned, aping wounded pride. “Would I greet you with words so true? Fat man? Drunkard?”
Not waiting for an answer, he pushed his way past the corpulent merchant into the shop. Yellowed tapestries draped the brick interior—brocades decorated with woven trees and dryads, both male and female. A bookshelf leaned in one corner, heavy with tomes in Nahurian, Alfyrian, and Ielnaronan script; a liquor cabinet loomed heavier with vintage brandies, wines, and whiskeys. Where the fabrics bunched between them, coarse red bricks peeked out.
“I don’t care,” chuckled Sarin. “Help yourself to the decanter—it’s dryad absinthe.”
As Sarin waved him toward the table, Khyte unbuckled his sword belt and leaned his blade against the back of his chair. At nearly two arm-lengths—taking the measure from his own hulking arms—and with a hilt longer than his forearm and crossbars nearly as broad as his shoulders, the blade had been mistaken for both grappling hook and anchor. If a past lover had thought the weapon showy, it had lopped many heads for Lord Ryggion. Even its massive hilt was practical, for it had the effect of balancing the weighty steel, making it equally suitable for swinging with one or both hands.
As Khyte sat, he rasped the most condescending sigh he could muster, reached for the drink and sipped.
“Splendid. Give the dryad my praise.”
“You misunderstand. That absinthe was distilled from a dryad, rather than wormwood.” He smirked when Khyte paled and put down his glass. “A joke. I traffic in the illegal, not the immoral.”
“I’ve never known you to have that qualm.”
“Truth,” said Sarin. “But consumption of sentients is cannibalism. Though there are few universal truths, that is one of them.”
“I’d like to believe there’s one thing you hold over making a profit.”
“You know where to wound me. I’ll forgive you if you’re here on business.”
“I am,” said Khyte.
“Good. I have an undertaking for you,” said Sarin.
“An undertaking? Am I so poor a friend that you’d send me away so soon—and call me mercenary a few moments after you’ve called me barbarian?”
“No. You’re my good friend Khyte, who’s done me the pleasure of partaking in dozens of my undertakings. Aren’t you curious about this one?”
“Not in the slightest,” said the barbarian with a practiced stare over the fence’s shoulder.
“No matter. I’ve already hired other freelancers, but I thought, who better than Khyte to hedge my bets?”
“So you’ve already hired your best men?”
“I never said they were my best. And if I felt they were as able and reputable as you, I wouldn’t say that to your face, my friend. For our long acquaintance is based on the mutual deception that each of us are the best of men.”
“I weary of this dickering. I’m ready for your second volley.”
“Volley?” said Sarin, making a moue. “Very well, here’s what you’re going to do.”
“Too quick, profiteer. I haven’t accepted.”
“I think you might. Are you familiar with the goblin city of Kreona?”
“You know I am,” said Khyte. “What of it?
“For King Merculo’s opal-set crown, I will pay nine thousand silver arborians.”
Khyte snickered. “If I’m to steal a king’s crown, you’ll pay more than that.”
“That’s not all. Somewhere in his estate lies a sapphire-tipped redgold wand. You will know it when you see it, as it resembles a thigh bone for the simple fact that its inglorious goldsmith dipped an elven femur in redgold. I know not where he keeps it, only that it was stolen from a well-known merchant, and we can presume it well hidden. If you should happen upon that, the reward is fourteen thousand silver arborians.”
“Fourteen thousand? And nine thousand? I’m certain you have these sums, and more be
sides, but how do I know you will pay?”
“My dear friend, why would I not? Does our long association mean nothing? Let us at least remain friends, since your success is unlikely.”
“You goad me, knowing my ancestors expect me to act honorably while I live and breathe. Curse you for exploiting their ghosts.”
“My friend, if you have other duties, this can stay between us.”
“Between us and the souls in my shadow.” He snorted. “There are no private matters.”
“How cumbersome your foreign way of thinking would be in my profession. I thank your ancestors that I was not born in their shadow, and I fear for the little ones born in your shadow.”
“For the sake of my ancestors, I’ll bring you your elf thigh and goblin skull cap. For the sake of my descendants, I need an advance of three hundred silver arborians. Now.”
When the merchant seemed to consider, Khyte continued. “Call it my assassin’s fee, as I’m not likely to take a crown without smiting the king that wears it.” And on that word, Khyte’s hand scooped into the cherries on the table, snatching a handful and simultaneously sending the wooden bowl to the floor. Khyte half-felt like giving Sarin’s storefront the violent tantrum that the merchant feared. Instead, he spat a pit so that it ricocheted off a burnished steel shield on the wall.
“That does seem fair,” Sarin said cautiously. “Wait here.” The merchant went into the back room, where Khyte suspected that the merchant kept a large chest heavy with coin.
The barbarian stood and started pacing, coming to a stop in front of Sarin’s stock of weapons, in which he found two things of battle-worth: a gaudily painted skin stretched over a steel buckler of hardy manufacture, and an unusually bright and clean dagger, polished to the point that it seemed to shine not with reflected light, but its own. No mundane rag could have given the blade this unearthly sheen, which reflected nothing—not even Khyte when he leaned in to gaze into the placid gleam.
“I’ll take these as well,” he said, when the merchant returned with a pouch of coin.
“Have you come to rob my shop?”
“Don’t think I’ll ask more than once. Weapons beg to be used. Besides, you’ll haggle up until the handshake, Sarin, so don’t expect me to do any less.”
“Take them as a faith payment on your fee, and if you keep them, we’ll deduct it from your pay. Just the dagger and buckler? I have a hauberk your size.”
“You wear it, you fat old coward. Deduct nothing, except the blade from your collection. It doesn’t lie well with the rest of this junk.” While his contempt was puffed up by the tenor of their quibbling, Khyte was sincere in his loathing for armor. Other than his green long-sleeved shirt, breeches, and a double-knit cloak of red wool, his only concessions to self-defense were the demi-gauntlets on each sturdy forearm.
“As you wish. It would suit you well, as it has spilled blood and still looks innocent.”
That last barb cut Khyte so close that he suspected he had worn out his welcome; in turn, the merchant’s obsequious manner, more at home with skirting the subject than stating it, grated on Khyte. This was a matter of birth, as Cuvaernei favored courtesy, while the barbarian’s homeland, Drydana, favored boasting. Knowing that their differences were mere questions of culture only increased Khyte’s distaste for the decadent land, turning his discomfort into prejudice and his impatience into restlessness.
Khyte sheathed the weapons and donned his cloak. To keep his departure cordial, he asked “How’s the weather on Nahure?”
“Balmy and hot, but there’s a spate of storms, so keep your cloak handy.” Sarin opened the door and a squall of rain spattered the floor. “Looks like you need it now.”
The change in the weather was so profound that it was as if the merchant opened the door into a different day. Khyte surmised that they might have heard the tapping on the windows and roof if they hadn’t been engrossed in haggling. “Isn’t that like a Cuvaernian,” he said. “Pushing a man into the rain with pleasantries and a smile.”
“While I could act the part of wounded pride,” said Sarin Gelf, “I admit we are a cold people.”
“I’ve met a warmer people that circle themselves with houses of ice,” said Khyte. “But I thank you for the absinthe, the conversation … and the goading.”
“Thank you for rifling through my wares and bringing uninvited ghosts,” said the merchant. “Until next time.”
Cuvaernians did not fear rain, and the streets outside Sarin’s shop were clogged with sodden people as well as mud and puddles of rainwater. While brave to the rain, they were nonetheless shy of Khyte. He had no illusions of how they felt about him, having seen the picture books that depicted Drydanans with boulder-like heads, ghost-white skin, and flat, brutish features. But Khyte was not Drydanan born. He’d been taken as his father’s share of the loot from a people the Drydanans had forgotten, and the stares of the Cuvaerneians were not unlike the fascination his childhood friends had for one whose skin was even paler than theirs.
So although he was mildly amused by toying with the Cuvaernians’ fears, Khyte did not smile. Cuvaernei held little amusement for him. He took no interest in the brothels, dirty books, bloodsports, or sex shows he’d passed on the walk to Sarin Gelf’s shop. The Drydanans who raised him were stone-cold prudes, and whatever he learned about women was from trial and error. Thus far it had all been regrettable misadventure, he thought. He missed the one he mistreated and despised the other, whose desire had pulled his cold feet into her bed. As he thought of these two women, his hand kept coming to the stubble dusting his chin and jawline, until soon he couldn’t tear his fingers away for more than a minute before they darted back to his growing beard.
He paid the river-master a few coins to rent a skiff and began to pole up the weak current of the Kynel River. He hadn’t planned on spending the coin, but due to Sarin’s unintended generosity he had coin to spare, and the river was the straightest route back to Juntawni Mountain. Not that it was the most pleasant, for the Cuvaernei buried their dead in the Kynel, and if he did not dodge the corpses, the drifting barques of the noble dead jarred the prow while the bobbing, bloated poor rumbled under the skiff. Fortunately, he was poling upstream, away from the populous city and through a patch of farms, so there were only a few dead bumpkins to skirt.
When the river’s current picked up near Kwasmir Lake in the Juntawni’s foothills, Khyte let the skiff drift home, then hiked around the lake to the south face of the mountain. By then, it was nightfall, which on Hravak—and all the Five Worlds—meant the horizon rotated away from the red and purple hues of the Abyss into progressively bluer shades of black. Khyte knew neither sun nor moon, as such celestial bodies were unknown to the denizens of the Five Worlds; the simmering twilight of day came from the radiation of the Abyss between the Five Worlds, and the chilling near-black of night came from rotation towards nothingness. While there was some illumination at night, due to the ground and the air absorbing the Abyssal radiation during the day, it was not enough for safely hiking, running, or climbing, so Khyte struck camp in a venerable hachimorta tree, climbing up into the stone-gray branches until he found a joint large enough to host him for a night’s rest.
Long accustomed to traveling, not just between cities and lands, but between the Five Worlds, Khyte reclined in the tree joint, drowsed off in the hachimorta’s wintergreen scent, and slept until the vermilion hues of the Abyss crawled over the horizon. Though his lower back and shoulders were stiff and his triceps and buttocks chilled by the hachimorta tree’s bark, when a pennybeak lit just out of reach, appetite simmered in his limbs, and he lunged. As his hands wrapped around the bird’s neck, he lurched, scraping his abdomen as he fell off the tree limb. He caught himself by crossing his ankles, then managed to dangle as if riding the branch underbelly. When the pennybeak pecked at his outflung wrist, he wrung his hands, breaking its neck, and dropped it in the bushes. Then h
e swung onto the branch, grabbed his pack, and climbed down, where he kicked the twitching pennybeak, picked it up, then headed for Juntawni Mountain.
From there it was only an hour’s walk to the foothills, and another hour by path to the base. Juntawni’s slopes were green with growing things, except for the rocky peak, and the steep south face, which could only support the hardiest of bushes, grasses, and growths. Before Khyte’s birth, a vast rockslide sheared off the gentler slope that preceded the rugged incline, leaving numerous promontories, spurs, and outcrops jutting from the cliff face. Even the passage of thousands of climbers had not worn down this surface, now considered the safest path to the Baugn despite its forbiddingly steep slope due to the preponderance of handholds and snags for ropes, as well as sterner rock from which to secure pitons.
As Khyte started his ascent up the rough cliff wall, mud oozed from the crannies. Rain streamed down the rocks, and the cool mists obscured most of what was above and below, so that when he reached the first promontory, shaded as it was by a jutting precipice that overlooked it, it was like all the dry land there was in the Five Worlds.
When rain trickled from the outcrop above, sprinkling the rock under it, Khyte crossed his legs under him on the middle of the spur and dug into his pack for the lean repast he caught that morning. Not that he wasn’t thankful for the pennybeak, as his uncle had shown him how to pluck and scale the scrawny beast to make five or six mouthfuls instead of three. From the bottom of his pack, he removed a cloth-wound packet, which he unwrapped to remove two flat, white stones. He clapped them together and then set them on the ground, where their upward-facing surface began to redden, then whiten, as he stripped, cleaned, and dressed the pennybeak in the bottom of his iron pan. While Khyte was not one to be impressed by dark sorceries and their wielders—with one exception, due mainly to some ugly personal history—he was appreciative of everyday magic such as the hotstones. It was an immeasurable convenience to cook without fire, which could alert unwanted company or drive off those for whom he lay in wait, such as the Baugn.
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